Child Benefit (Hansard, 1 May 2002)

§ Baroness Buscombe
asked Her Majesty's Government:
What are the details of the plan proposed by the Prime Minister to remove child benefit from the parents of teenage offenders.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Hollis of Heigham)
My Lords, if parents permit their children to truant, then we know that those children are far more likely to drift into crime. That is both disastrous 689 for them and for their local community. It is therefore essential that we explore all options to stop that happening, including the recent ideas.

§ Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her somewhat brief reply. But is that plan practical? For example, what happens to the innocent brothers and sisters within a family which has a child who is out of control? What about all the parents who do everything in their power to try to prevent the child from being unruly? Does the Minister accept that making poor children poorer is not the answer? That is not a substitute for a real, long-term and cohesive strategy to cut youth crime.

§ Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I certainly agree with the last point made by the noble Baroness, but the Government indeed have a consistent, coherent strategy to cut youth crime. That includes everything from reducing the number of days for which young people have to wait between arrest. and sentencing to extra powers in the 10 areas most affected by street robbery. Since coming to power, our record is one of reducing crime by 22 per cent overall. Street crime is the problem, and what lies behind it, too often, is truancy.
Perhaps I may develop that part of the question. Obviously we want to intervene to try to keep children at school. We want to work with parents and educational welfare officers to keep children at school. But as regards those parents who will not—as opposed to cannot—co-operate with the education system to help to ensure that their children go to school and get the best possible chance, we must consider how best to take these measures forward. At the end of the day, parents get child benefit because they care for their children. Caring for their children includes ensuring that they go to school.

§ Baroness Andrews
My Lords, my noble friend mentioned the long-term policies that are already in place to address the exceptionally complex issues. There is the complexity of raising salaries in the first place and, for many families, children's disabilities in approaching and making connections with school from an early age. What contribution does she believe that Sure Start is making to lay better foundations for the future?

§ Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, it is clear that behind truancy and, later, street crime often lie problems that go back many years. My noble friend is absolutely right: if we want to invest in children's futures, we must start with children as young as possible. Hence the Sure Start programme, for which I have received support from all sides of the House. By 2004, about 30 per cent of the poorest children will be in a Sure Start scheme—there will be 500 of them. With Sure Start, which is a huge act of faith on the Government's part, we should be able to break the link between poor incomes and poor outcomes for children who are otherwise at risk.

§ Lord Marsh
My Lords, does the Minister accept that the key practical problem at present is the 690 behaviour of teenage truants? Has she any suggestions as to how a 5ft Bins parent should make a 6ft teenager go to school?

§ Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, the Government have introduced an array of initiatives from parenting orders to anti-social orders for children, and so on. At the end of the day, we want to encourage parents to work with the school system, especially education welfare officers. There are many reasons for truanting, one of which is that the child prefers to drift into a life of crime. But there are others—there may be bullying or disability may be involved.
That is why the Government are not only building on pupil referral units for children already excluded from school but are seeking to keep pupils within the school system by developing learning support units—1,000 of them across the country—to ensure that children at risk of exclusion stay within the mainstream education system without disrupting the learning of other children. I am sure that that is the right way forward.

§ Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords—

§ Lord Carlisle of Bucklow
My Lords—

§ The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Williams of Mostyn)
My Lords, I think that we ought to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Carlisle.

§ Lord Carlisle of Bucklow
My Lords, the Minister has not answered the fundamental question raised by my noble friend Lady Buscombe: why does she believe that making poor people poorer will reduce rather than increase the volume of crime and lawlessness?

§ Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, the point about child benefit is that unlike other benefits that may be sanctioned, child benefit is universal. Therefore, irrespective of their class and income, those parents who refuse to work with the education authorities to try to ensure that their children go to school enjoy child benefit. We believe that the responsibility for ensuring that the child goes to school goes alongside those parents' right to enjoy that benefit. At the end of the day, the Government's strategy to take children out of poverty, of which I am proud, will be wrecked if those children do not go to school and as a result have no future.

§ Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, will the Minister tell us whether the proposal is really thought through and can be effective? For example, what happens where care is shared between separate parents and where the parent who was supposed to be in charge on the day of the alleged offence is not the one who normally receives child benefit?

§ Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, that is precisely why the Government have been at pains to 691 emphasise that these are a set of proposals to be explored, not a worked-up scheme to bring to your Lordships' House.

§ Lord Higgins
My Lords, as the Minister knows far more about social security benefits than anyone else, the House will be interested to know whether or not she is in favour of the proposition. Has she told the Prime Minister—and will she tell the House—to what extent, if child benefit was withdrawn, those from whom it was withdrawn would be entitled to more of other benefits?

§ Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, the noble Lord knows perfectly well that everyone standing at the Dispatch Box—whether he or I—speaks for their party and, in my case, for my Government. Any government who since 1997 will have raised the rate of income support for children under 11 from £16.90 to £37 this October—more than double in cash terms and double in real terms—are a government of whom I am deeply proud.