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Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey): The right hon. Gentleman seems to be arguing that until the Budget, which proposes to "equalise"--I think that was the Chancellor's word--lone parents' access to benefit with that of married couples, there was an "incentive" for women to become lone parents. How does that square with the fact that lone parents have much lower incomes than married couples? For example, 40 per cent. of lone parents have to live on less than £100 a week, whereas only 4 per cent. of married couples have to do so. How can that be an incentive to become a lone parent?

Mr. Lilley: I did not present the matter in that way. To make the structure of benefits more generous to lone parents than to couples is certainly an odd signal to send out. However, no one pretends that that difference has been the primary factor in the growth of lone parenthood--although obviously it has helped to underwrite it.

I was telling the House that the hon. Member for Birkenhead had rightly described the history of one-parent benefit as essentially a short-term fix by the Labour party. The then Secretary of State, Barbara Castle, told the House:

"there is to be an interim benefit . . . for the one-parent family . . . until the child benefit scheme comes into effect."

Later she added:

"the benefit is purely a temporary one."--[Official Report, 13 May 1975; Vol. 892, c. 337, 339.]

But as the French say, nothing lasts like the provisional.

Mrs. Anne Campbell (Cambridge): Does not the Secretary of State consider that one of the best ways of reducing the welfare bill for lone parents would be to help them back into work? Yet he proposes to cut the one-parent benefit, which is not taxed, and has acted as a good bridge to help lone parents back into work. Why is the right hon. Gentleman cutting that, when it seems to be one of the most important ways of cutting the welfare bill?

Mr. Lilley: We shall provide the same structure and level of benefits for lone parents as for couples, which will still leave virtually the same margin between their position in and out of work. As I shall explain later, we have considerably improved the position of lone parents where it really matters--in help with child care.

As I was saying, one-parent benefit lingered on and on, and was duly mirrored by the lone-parent premium in income-related benefits. Yet the only identifiable extra cost that lone parents face is the cost of child care when they return to work.

Ms Liz Lynne (Rochdale) rose--

Mr. Lilley: I shall make a little progress first, if I may.

That is why I, with the help of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, introduced the recognition of child care costs in family

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credit. We increased the figure last year, so that up to £57 a week is now allowed. We are also encouraging the expansion of child care out of school hours and during holidays. The Department for Education and Employment initiative has created 72,000 places, and the Department is now investing a further £20 million, bringing the total to £64 million, to expand that initiative further.

We are also offering, through Parent Plus, help for up to 100,000 lone parents to return to work.

Mrs. Maria Fyfe (Glasgow, Maryhill) rose--

Ms Lynne rose--

Mr. Lilley: I shall complete this section first, and the hon. Lady may find her question answered, if it has not been answered already.

The net result of the changes that we have introduced, plus the temporary measures introduced by the Labour Government, has been that couples who are out of work or on low incomes receive less money relative to their needs than do lone parents. That cannot be right. It sends out a strange signal when the state discriminates against married couples.

That is why we intend new lone parents who claim benefit after April 1998 to receive the same family premium and child benefit as married couples do. We shall protect existing lone parents, who will retain their present higher benefits.

That does not reflect any punitive attitude towards lone parents on our part.

Mrs. Anne Campbell: Rubbish.

Mr. Lilley: As I said in my famous 1993 party conference speech--although I made the mistake of putting it in prose rather than doggerel, so it is not remembered by the hon. Lady, or quoted so frequently by the BBC:

"Many find themselves lone parents against their will. Widows, divorced and separated people struggle alone, but often successfully, to bring their children up well. They deserve not blame but support."

That is our attitude. Extra help has been given, but the best form of help is to help people find work and to help them in work, to help with child care and to help people obtain maintenance.

I had hoped that the Opposition would support those changes. After all, the hon. Member for Birkenhead told the Daily Mirror:

"If One-Parent Benefit is phased out . . . it is a move we should support."

Ms Lynne: The Secretary of State seems to have skirted round the fact that it was the Conservative Government who introduced the lone-parent premium in 1988, to take into account single parents' extra costs. Why was that right in 1988 but not right now?

Mr. Lilley: In those days we did not have any extra help for getting back to work, through help with child care or through the Parent Plus scheme. We did not have the other measures that I reported to the House, either. According to most surveys, most single parents want help to get back to work, and I think it right to devote resources

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to helping them by offering that help, and meanwhile to provide the same structure of benefits for them as for married couples who are out of work.

Mrs. Fyfe: The Secretary of State said a moment ago that single parents should be helped rather than attacked. Why, then, is he throwing 750,000 of them into poverty with the measures that he is introducing?

Mr. Lilley: That is not the case. It is not the Government who attack lone parents. After all, it was the Leader of the Opposition who told Brian Walden that he condemned those who chose to be lone parents and to bring up children alone.

Mrs. Anne Campbell: No he did not.

Mr. Lilley: He said:

"I personally don't agree with them doing that."

If that is not a condemnation, how does the right hon. Gentleman go about praising people?

Apart from expenditure on lone parents, the other area of expenditure that is increasing significantly is expenditure on housing benefit and council tax benefit. That is set to rise by 7 per cent. ahead of inflation over the next three years.

It would be irresponsible to allow that growth to continue unchecked. Obviously it is in part a reflection of the rising number of new households, which is growing faster than the population--so much so that it is projected that there could be 4.4 million more households in 2016 than there were in 1991. Nearly 80 per cent. of that growth will represent one-person households.

It cannot be right to allow the benefits system to exacerbate that process. So I propose to restrict housing benefit for single people under 60 to the average rent for single non-self-contained rooms in each location. I also intend to limit further the sums that can be paid to tenants in the private deregulated sector.

Since January that group has received a maximum housing benefit that pays up to half the difference between the local average and the actual rent. The change will mean that from next October, claimants who choose to live in properties whose rents are above the average for that type of property in that area will have to meet the excess themselves, or negotiate a better rent with their landlords.

I also propose to align the treatment of council tax benefit for higher-band properties with the benefit treatment of mortgages. Currently, someone living in a band H property, which in England will be one valued at more than £320,000, can still have the entire council tax paid if he or she is on income support. That cannot be right.

I shall therefore bring the council tax benefit rules into line with those on mortgage interest. Benefit does not pay the full interest on loans of more than £100,000, and neither should benefit pay the full council tax for those whose properties are above the top of band E. In England that means properties worth about £120,000. I intend to implement this change in April 1998. It will affect about 65,000 people and save about £15 million in the first year.

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In a press release put out on Tuesday by the hon. Member for Peckham, the Leader of the Opposition--[Interruption.] Sorry. I am promoting her--but only prematurely, I am sure. The hon. Lady, the Opposition spokesman on social security, claimed that

"Tories failed on welfare because they have failed on work."

Quite frankly, she has ceased to engage with reality, and she simply ignores the huge falls in unemployment and the huge growth in the number of people in work in this country.

Let us compare Britain with France. The populations and economies of our two countries are roughly similar in size, but unemployment in France is more than 3 million and rising, whereas in this country it is 2 million and falling. If that is not due to the social chapter and the minimum wage, can the hon. Member for Peckham--or any Opposition Front Bencher--tell us which factors cause unemployment to be higher in France than in the United Kingdom? I shall be happy to give way to her. [Interruption.] Ah--she will deal with it when she has thought of the answer.

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