My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Lister for the way she has introduced the amendment and for her persistence and expertise on this subject. My noble friend raised this issue in Committee but did not get an adequate answer. One of the things I find most depressing about the debates on the benefit cap is that Ministers increasingly lump all benefits together as just welfare payments. No distinction is made between the various kinds of benefit we have traditionally had in the British social security system: between contributory and non-contributory benefits or between income-replacement benefits and those designed to compensate for extra costs. The failure to make such distinctions tends to demonise recipients. It also muddies the policy-making waters, because Government are reduced to making fairly broad claims for the behavioural impacts of benefits the purposes of which are, in fact, quite distinct from each other.
Child benefit is a good case in point. It has traditionally been a universal benefit and is still available to all but the highest-earning households. In effect, it is a horizontal transfer from taxpayers as a whole, including those who do not have children, to those who have children. Originally, it replaced an allowance in the tax system and it is there because, as a society, we recognise that children are a public as well as a private good. We all have a stake in ensuring that parents can afford to raise the next generation healthily. Child benefit goes to parents in and out of work, of course, as does child tax credit—the two benefits that are the subject of this amendment.
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We heard at earlier stages of the Bill about the impact on children of the lowering of the benefit cap: that twice as many children as adults are affected and that 230,000 children have been affected. We have also heard in previous sessions from charities working with children about how worried they are that children and families could be left without sufficient income to meet their basic needs. The House has a right to know whether the Government have considered sufficiently the impact of this change on children.
My noble friend Lady Lister mentioned her exchange in Committee on 21 December, in relation to the family test, when the Minister said:
“We did apply the family test; I had better write to the noble Baroness with the details because I cannot recall what was in it. There was quite a lot of material going through in a short time”.—[Official Report, 21/12/15; col. 2378.]
I can assure my noble friend that the Minister did in fact reply, but unfortunately not until last Thursday and admittedly not at any great length or utility. I will not have to delay the House unduly by quoting his reply in full on this subject. It said exactly this:
“The Government has fully considered the family test criteria as an integral part of the policy development process. The published assessment of impacts of the measures in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill incorporates these considerations”.
That is it, in its entirety. Your Lordships will search in vain the impact assessment on the lowering of the benefit cap for any account of the impact on families with children. Yet the DWP has actually published guidance for other government departments on the application of the family test. The guidance says:
“It is important that the application of the Family Test is documented in an appropriate way as part of the policy making process … Departments should consider publishing assessments where they are carried out”.
So, where is the documented DWP family test assessment for this policy, or indeed for the Bill? Why has the DWP not published it when it is advising other departments to publish theirs? Why does it yet again refer my noble friend to the impact assessment when Ministers must know that the answers she seeks will not be found therein?
I would be very grateful if the Minister would tell us three things. What was in the family test assessment? Why did DWP not publish it, and what are the Government going to do to monitor and mitigate the impact on children if the level of the cap is reduced as proposed?