First, I thank my noble friend who spelled out the devastating situation in which these children find themselves, and how those who care for them—on kinship care, usually—are therefore entitled to receive guardian’s allowance.
The Minister made two points. First, he said that the principle was that there is a clear limit to benefits that out-of-work families can receive, even when that out-of-work family has taken on the joyless but essential and necessary task of caring for another family’s children. Why does the Minister not consider that therefore they are entitled morally—I am not saying practically, but morally—to benefits for two families, because that is what they are doing? We are not talking about families of their own children; we can argue for that, as my noble friend did, and she was absolutely right to do so.
I am talking about a situation at the extreme end of kinship care, when somebody has taken on responsibility for another family’s children. To say that, on principle, that out-of-work family should not get additional money for doing that—that is not a principle. A principle usually has some sort of moral quality to it. That, I am afraid, is a Treasury statement. I cannot believe that the Minister believes that it is the right policy to uphold in this situation. We should be hugging those kinship carers who are entitled to guardian’s allowance and giving them every support we can. Instead, what we do is to make them poorer.
The Minister’s second point was that he reckoned there were 50 families. I would love to see how he got to that figure. I could not work it out—obviously, because I could not work out how many people were grandparents, how many were in-work families and how many were below the limit, and therefore exempt, because they did not already have children of their own.
If we are really talking about 50 families, why on earth are the Government not conceding? How much does the Minister think this will cost? Let us assume that the average number of children taken on by a guardian is one and a half—in some cases one child, in others two children, and in a few cases three or more. I estimate that that would work out at about £1,000 to £1,200 a year. For 50 families that would be about £50,000 to £60,000 a year. The Minister cannot find £60,000 a year—or £65,000, if we push it—to address this problem? I am going to sit down and ask him whether, in the light of the information he has so far given, he is willing to reconsider his position.