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Mr. Brazier: Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Ms Harman: I have given way about 15 times. I intend to press on with my speech. The hon. Gentleman should try again later, when I have made some progress. He might need the time to think up a sensible question.
Lone mothers want to work for the same reasons as married women--for a better standard of living for their children. Lone mothers have even more reason to want to work--not just for the money, but to set an example to their children that life is about work, not just about being on benefit. Lone mothers who most need and want to work are less likely than married mothers to be working, because they are trapped on benefit. Our new deal for lone parents is a radical programme that recognises and backs lone mothers' desire to work. It is already up and running in eight areas. It is based on the simple idea of giving lone parents whatever help they need to get into work. That help is offered when their youngest child starts school at five.
What a contrast with the previous Government, who told lone parents to stay on benefit until their youngest child was 16. The previous Government then complained about the inevitable rise in the benefit bill and said that lone mothers posed a threat to society.
Last week, we announced that the national roll-out of the new deal for lone parents would be brought forward to April 1998 for all lone parents making a new claim for
income support. In the eight pilot new deal areas, lone mothers with children under five have been asking for help from the programme, too. That is not surprising, when half the married women with children under five are working. That is why we have allocated an extra £25 million to our new deal--specifically for lone parents whose youngest child is under five--when it rolls out nationally next year.
The new deal has been welcomed by lone mothers, and employers have been offering them jobs. The hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green can be dismissive about it, but it has transformed the lives of the lone parents whom it has already helped into work. One lone mother with four children, in Cardiff, who started work as a care assistant in September, wrote to us, saying:
Mr. Duncan Smith:
Of course I back the efforts to help lone parents. The Secretary of State may recall that, when she came into government, there was already a programme to be set up in the same eight areas, called parent plus, which was started by the Conservative Government.
Mr. Duncan Smith:
No. The right hon. Lady asked me a question. She shall get the answer.
The right hon. Lady has grafted her policy on to ours, but she lost one essential part. She dropped the control groups that were part of the pilot areas, because she was interested solely in the publicity and in trumpeting success. She does not know why many lone parents get jobs, because she does not study the results.
Ms Harman:
After 18 years of Conservative government, there was no programme for opportunities for lone mothers, only a programme of criticising them from the conference platform in Brighton and Blackpool. The hon. Gentleman is not able to listen to what I am telling him about the evaluation. We are having an evaluation, where we compare the eight pilot areas with six matching control areas.
Of course, one of the biggest headaches for mothers who want to work is child care. We are taking action on that, too. We are implementing a three-part national child care strategy to meet parents' demands, which for so long have not been met: for accessible, affordable, high-quality child care.
Mr. Duncan Smith:
The right hon. Lady is talking about measuring the results. We visited the pilot areas in September. When officials were asked whether there were
Ms Harman:
I am not misleading the House. The hon. Gentleman is having difficulty understanding this. The local officials were collecting the information. There is an academic programme of evaluation. That is how it is done.
Mr. Duncan Smith:
It has been backdated.
Ms Harman:
It has not. It was implemented at the outset.
As I said, we are implementing a three-part national child care strategy to meet parents' demands for accessible, affordable and high-quality child care.
First is accessibility. In his statement to the House last Tuesday, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced £300 million to extend out-of- school child care. That is another manifesto promise delivered. We shall extend out-of-school child care to every community in Britain. There will be an extra 30,000 out-of-school child care projects--up from only 3,500 at present. It will mean places for nearly a million children, so that child care will be available after school--possibly before school--and certainly in the school holidays and during in-service training days. We are making swift progress on our plans.
No blueprint will be imposed by Whitehall. We shall build on what works best at local level, using the expertise and experience of the public, private and voluntary sectors.
I wish to announce to the House that next month my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment and I will be bringing together the key child care players in a joint conference to drive forward our work on the national child care strategy, which will build up to a further announcement in January. The conference will be chaired by the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, East (Mr. Howarth) and by the Under- Secretary of State for Social Security with responsibilities for women, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms Ruddock).
The hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green implies that our massive investment in child care was dreamed up over a weekend. I invite the hon. Gentleman to read the Labour party's manifesto, in which we stated that we would have a national child care strategy starting with a network of out-of-school clubs partially funded by the lottery. There is nothing mysterious or even spontaneous about our approach. Our policy is what parents want, and it is what we are delivering.
Ms Harman:
No, I shall not give way.
Secondly, there is affordability. We have already announced extra help for parents with the costs of child care through the £100 child care disregard in family
credit. There will be more help with the cost of child care through the working families tax credit, which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer set out in his pre-Budget statement last week.
Thirdly, I move on to quality. We have always argued that the issue is not only about more places but about quality, and that means high-quality child care. We must ensure that there is the proper quality of child care.
Mrs. Gorman:
Will the Secretary of State give way?
Ms Harman:
I shall not give way to the hon. Lady, because it is clear that she is trying to speak up for the Government rather than the Opposition. I shall not give way to her while she seeks to play that role. Of course, the hon. Lady was never much in support of the Conservative party when it was in government. Perhaps she is following a familiar line.
As part of ensuring that properly qualified staff are available as child care expands, we are investing £100 million to train 50,000 young people as nursery and play staff through our welfare-to-work programme, leading to qualifications as a play worker for the over-fives, or as a child care worker for the under-fives.
Together, those measures constitute the biggest programme of investment in child care that this country has ever seen. Child care is no longer an afterthought in social policy, but it was not even that under the previous Government. The Labour Government understand that child care is central to economic policy and welfare to work.
Mr. Webb:
Will the Secretary of State clarify one aspect of her approach to lone parents with young children? This is a genuine question. I am not clear about the right hon. Lady's position. Does she think that it is a valid choice for lone parents with young children to stay at home to look after their children?
"It feels good to be back at work. I haven't had a proper job for 14 years and I wouldn't have had the confidence to go out and look if it wasn't for the New Deal."
Of course, we are evaluating the programme. That was decided at the outset. We are spending the best part of £1 million on an evaluation between the eight pilot areas and six matching control areas, so the hon. Gentleman's point about a lack of evaluation is complete nonsense--like, unfortunately, so many of his other points. Does he welcome the help that we are giving to lone mothers, such as the one in Cardiff whom I mentioned? I shall give him the opportunity specifically to put it on the record. Does he back our new deal for work for lone parents?
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