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Mr. Burns: I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way again. Now will she answer the question? Why is she now implementing the cuts that we proposed, which she condemned as wrong?
Ms Harman: I have answered the question. We said time and again that our approach to lone mothers would be to help them to work, so that they could be better off than they would ever be on benefit.
In a growing economy, increasing numbers of people were left behind. There are now 3.5 million households of working age in which no one works. A quarter of all children are growing up in families in which no one works, and the poorest pensioners are being left behind. Although one in eight pensioners are among the richest 20 per cent. of people in the country, a quarter are entitled to income support.
Mr. Burns:
Answer the question now.
Ms Harman:
I have answered the hon. Gentleman's question. We said that we would have a welfare-to-work approach to tackle the poverty of lone parents and their social exclusion and that of their children. The previous Government proposed no opportunities programmes for lone mothers.
Ms Harman:
I will not give way to the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns); I have given way to him twice to answer the same question. I give way to his hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May).
Mrs. Theresa May (Maidenhead):
Did the right hon. Lady have the opportunity this morning, as I did, to listen to the radio phone-in programme on welfare benefits? A single mother rang to say that, although the Government claim to be doing so much to get lone parents into work, if she were to take temporary work over the Christmas period to earn money to provide for her children, she would go back on to lone-parent benefit at the reduced rate. How would the right hon. Lady answer that lone parent?
Ms Harman:
We do not believe that the changes will be a disincentive to work for lone parents; if we did, we would not be introducing them. Our approach to lone parents is to help them to become better off, by working, than they could ever be on benefits.
Mrs. Gorman:
If what the right hon. Lady is saying is correct, why have more than 100 Labour Back Benchers signed an early-day motion and written letters privately condemning her policies?
Ms Harman:
The hon. Lady speaking out on behalf of Labour Back Benchers is a touching spectacle, but they are probably more than capable of speaking out for themselves.
The British people have had enough of division. The general election showed that they were no longer prepared to put up with such a deeply divided society. They gave us a clear mandate to tackle social exclusion and to build a better one-nation society.
Mr. John Smith (Vale of Glamorgan):
Is my right hon. Friend aware that, according to the latest published figures, in parts of my constituency the average gross household income, including all non-housing benefits, is--and I ask hon. Members to listen carefully--less than £3,000 a year? That is less than 60 quid a week to support
Ms Harman:
That is why the people in my hon. Friend's constituency will welcome our proposals for a minimum wage and a working families tax credit to make work pay.
The British people gave us a mandate not just to tackle social exclusion, but on how to tackle it--not simply by adding to the benefits bill, which had been tried and had not worked, but by investing wisely in extending economic opportunity to all.
We have two equal but quite distinct duties in government--a duty to invest in helping those who can work to do so, and a duty to focus help properly on those who cannot work. The key failure of social policy in recent years has been the failure to differentiate between those two groups. That has resulted in hundreds of thousands of people of working age being written off to a life of dependence on benefit, when the Government should have been helping them to work. Work is central to this Government's attack on social exclusion.
Mr. Rendel:
The right hon. Lady said that she was hoping to focus benefits on those who were not able to get work. In what sense is the cut in lone-parent benefit focusing benefits on lone parents who cannot get work?
Ms Harman:
No lone parent currently in receipt of income support will have their benefit affected. However, there will be a welfare-to-work programme--and I know that the hon. Gentleman agrees with us on this--because the best way to tackle poverty among lone parents and their families is to ensure that they are much better off in work than they could ever be on benefit.
Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours (Workington):
My right hon. Friend will be aware that the housing benefit system works in such a way as to lock people into unemployment. Why do we not take a far more imaginative approach and directly interfere in the free market for rents, thereby reducing housing benefit and saving hundreds of millions of pounds--far more than anything we could gain by the measures that she is considering?
Ms Harman:
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the housing benefit system locks people into dependence on benefit and deters people from working. I and Ministers in the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions have said that, in reviewing the social security system, we shall examine the role of housing benefit to ensure that the housing support system accords with our priorities: that people have every incentive to work and do not remain--as they were under the Tories for 18 years--trapped on benefit when they want to work and be independent.
Mr. Campbell-Savours:
My right hon. Friend has missed my point. High rents mean high housing benefit and they exist in a free market for rents, which affects millions of people. Why do we not interfere there, thereby slashing the benefit bill in a major way, instead of concentrating our efforts on lone parents?
Ms Harman:
My hon. Friend raises some interesting points, which we shall make part of our housing benefit
Work is central to the Government's attack on social exclusion. Work is the way in which people provide for themselves and their children. It is how people set an example to their children.
Mrs. Anne Campbell:
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, when the Conservatives were in government, all they did was to chastise and castigate lone parents? This Government are presenting them with real opportunities. Will she join me in congratulating the Cambridge benefits agency on being close to getting its 100th lone parent back into work?
Ms Harman:
I congratulate not only the Cambridge benefits agency, but my hon. Friend, who had a role in pioneering the ideas behind this programme of bringing together all the advice and information about jobs, training and child care, to enable lone parents to move off benefit and into work, where they can be better off.
Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury)
rose--
Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)
rose--
Ms Harman:
I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner).
Mr. Skinner:
Is my right hon. Friend aware that, in a perfect world, the idea of getting everyone a job is sound? However, it is an imperfect world and it will always remain so, whether the Conservative or Labour party is in power. Welfare to work is a wonderful-sounding notion, yet in large parts of Britain, including my constituency, many people would like to get into work but cannot, and that will apply to lone parents as well.
Another question has to be taken into account. Some lone parents want not to work, but to look after their children, and they should not be penalised because they take that honourable stance. The question is: where is all the work in this imperfect world, and why should people be penalised because they want to bring up their kids?
Ms Harman:
My hon. Friend makes a point about people in his constituency without work. The economy may be growing, but some people in my constituency and in his constituency are simply left behind. In my constituency, some young people do not have the proper skills and educational qualifications to allow them to apply for the jobs that are available. Some lone mothers do not have child care or help to enable them to take the jobs that are available, and there are people who have been made redundant in their late 40s and who think that no employer will ever look at them again because they have been written off.
Our welfare-to-work programmes not only sound nice, but will transform the lives of people who were written off under the Conservative Government; for those people, the programmes will bring the dignity of work. Work is essential, helping people to provide for their children during their working years and to provide for themselves in retirement. Work by those who can helps to support those who cannot. Work is not just about earning a living. It is central to independence and self-respect.
We all have constituency experience of families with a spring in their step who have hope and the prospect of a better future, and of others with no hope and no prospects who are downcast. That is the difference between a family with work and a family without work. Work makes the difference between a decent standardof living and never-ending benefit dependency; the difference between a cohesive society and a divided one. That is why we are reforming the welfare state around the work ethic.
We have put into place the biggest welfare programme ever in this country, tearing down the barriers to work, enabling people to realise their potential and thereby increasing the prosperity of society. We are investing more than £3 billion in a new deal for the young and the long-term unemployed.
Too many of our young people have never had a job. They feel that they have been thrown on the scrap heap before they have begun. That was acceptable to the previous Government, but it is not acceptable to us. From April, every young person unemployed for more than six months will be given real opportunities, with worthwhile jobs and quality training.
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