Reversing Cuts to Bereavement Support Payments and Supporting Kinship Carers

Submitted by: 10 party members
Mover: Wendy Chamberlain MP (Spokesperson for Work and Pensions)
Summation: Christine Jarvis MP (Spokesperson for Women and Equalities)

Conference notes that:

1. Losing a parent is one of the toughest moments it is possible for a child to experience.
2. Nothing was brought forward in the King's speech that would legislate to improve the lives of bereaved families or kinship carers, and the new Labour government has made no plans to increase funding for support.
3. Since 2017, the Conservative Government has cut funding for Bereavement Support Payments by around 50%.
4. Ed Davey MP successfully pressured the Conservative Government to ensure cohabiting couples are eligible for the Bereavement Support Payment—previously only married couples or those in civil partnerships were eligible.
5. Around 26,900 parents die each year in the UK, leaving 46,300 dependent children.
6. Kinship carers are most often women, in particular grandmothers.
7. 141,000 children are in kinship care.
8. Children growing up in kinship care have better educational and emotional outcomes than children in unrelated foster care, but worse than children in the general population.
9. An estimated half of the children in kinship care are there because their parents have had problems with drugs or alcohol, have died, gone to prison, or are abusive, neglectful, or unwell.

Conference believes that:

1. The Conservative's cuts to bereavement support payments were cruel and short-sighted.
2. The Conservatives' cuts to bereavement support payments in 2017 have had an adverse impact on families who have lost a loved one.
3. Providing financial support for families that have lost a parent is critical to ensuring that families are not left struggling to pay the bills at such a difficult period of time.
4. Kinship carers play a critical and often unsung role in children's lives and ensure more young people can grow up in a loving, stable home.

Conference calls on the Government to:

1. Double the funding for Bereavement Support Payments, reversing the Conservative party's cuts since 2017.
2. Use this extra funding to extend the amount of time that people receive payments for beyond the current 18 months and increase the size of payments.
3. Pass Christine Jardine MP's Bereavement Support (Children and Young People) Bill that would ensure that children and young people are aware of what support is available to them following the death of a parent.
4. Support the education of children in care, extend Pupil Premium Plus funding to children in kinship care, and guarantee any child taken into care a school place within three weeks, if required to move schools.
5. Appoint a Cabinet Minister for Children and Young People with specific responsibilities for closing the gaps in support for children who have lost a parent or both their parents.
6. Support children in kinship care and their family carers by:
   1. Introducing a statutory definition of kinship care.
   2. Building on the existing pilot to develop a weekly allowance for all kinship carers.
7. Make care experience a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 to strengthen the rights of people who are in or have been in care.

Applicability: England only; except 7. (lines 57-59), which is Federal.

Amendments

Amendment One

Submitted by: Twickenham & Richmond
Mover: Munira Wilson MP
Summation:Bobby Dean MP.

Delete 6. b) (lines 55–56), and insert:

b) Providing all kinship carers with a weekly allowance for each child they care for, equivalent to the national minimum weekly allowance for foster carers.

After 6. b) (line 56), insert:

c) Giving kinship carers the right to paid employment leave when taking on care of a child.

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Mover: 7 minutes; summation of motion and movers and summation of any amendments: 4 minutes; all other speakers: 3 minutes. For eligibility and procedure for speaking in this debate, see page 8 of the agenda. 

The deadline for amendments to this motion, see pages 10–11, and for requests for separate votes, see pages 7–8 of the agenda, is 09.00 Thursday 12 September. Those selected for debate will be printed in Conference Extra and Saturday’s Conference Daily.