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4. The proceedings on any further Message from the Lords shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.- (Helen Jones.)
Welfare Reform Bill
Consideration of Lords amendments
Mr. Speaker: I draw the attention of the House to the fact that financial privilege is involved in Lords amendments 11, 12, 19 to 21, 23, 25, 30, 31, 38, 44 and 48. If the House agrees to any of those amendments, I shall ensure that the appropriate entry is made in the Journal.
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The Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform (Jim Knight): I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 2.
Mr. Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government amendment (a) in lieu, and consequential Government amendment (b).
Lords amendments 3 to 12, 15, 25 to 27, 53 to 59, 78, 90, 91 and 94.
Jim Knight: I thank my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty), from whom I have inherited the Bill, my noble Friend Lord McKenzie of Luton, for his excellent stewardship of the Bill through the other place, and Members of both Houses for their scrutiny of the Bill, as I now seek to guide its journey to a safe conclusion this week.
In disagreeing with the Lords amendment, I shall also speak to our amendment (a) in lieu and the other Lords amendments in this group with which we agree. It will help the House if I give some brief background. The House will be aware that our policies for lone parents are based on the idea of family-friendly working. We rely on two key principles-that work is the best route out of poverty, and that parents, especially lone parents, must be allowed to fulfil their responsibilities to their children.
On the former point, we are mindful that the longer people are out of work, the more difficult it is to get a job. It is therefore vital that support be provided early, to help address the barriers to work. That is what we mean by work-related activity. We do not mean work; lone parents will not be required to take up employment until their youngest child is seven. We mean training, CV writing, help with literacy and numeracy and financial advice-overcoming a range of obstacles that often hold people back from helping themselves. Indeed, we mean the range of support offered so successfully in the new deal for lone parents, which has got 625,000 lone parents into work in the last 11 years. But it is equally important that this support must be convenient. It must come second to the welfare of the child, and depend on locally available affordable childcare. It must also allow time to drop off and pick up children from school and nursery.
Foremost in the amendments is the requirement that the well-being of a customer's child is always taken into account when a personal adviser and a parent agree the steps that they will take to prepare for, or move into, work when completing an action plan or, for lone parents with older children, a jobseeker's agreement.
Here we apply a definition of well-being found elsewhere in legislation that takes into account a child's physical and mental health and emotional well-being; protection from harm and neglect; education, training and recreation; the contribution made by them to society; and their social and economic well-being. These are covered in amendments 8, 27 and 54.
There has been much debate on good cause, and what is considered to be good cause for failing to undertake a work-related activity. As a result we have taken the opportunity to outline in primary legislation some of the most important things that should always be considered when deciding on good cause for failing to undertake work-related activity. Claimants of income replacement benefits will not be directed to undertake medical or surgical treatment to meet their work-related activity requirements. However, the amendments permit such customers to undertake such activity on a voluntary basis with informed consent. We feel that that is important, especially where an individual has a health condition that is in itself a barrier to returning to work. As a result, we believe that they should receive, on a voluntary basis, the appropriate help and support to make a return to work possible, such as counselling or physiotherapy if that is something they and their adviser agree on.
To ensure that customers are not penalised if they change their minds about the decision, we would allow them to fulfil their requirement to undertake work-related activity by completing another activity on their action plan. This change is covered by Lords amendments 9, 15 and 58.
Also, after listening to the views of both Houses, we have decided to introduce amendments to make it clear that good cause considerations must take into account the availability of childcare. In practice this already happens, but we want to put that principle beyond doubt and ensure that it is protected for the future. This is covered by Lords amendments 10, 26 and 78.
Mrs. Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab): Will my right hon. Friend clarify the situation in Scotland, where the Government do not have the administrative responsibility for the provision of childcare? Will there be full co-operation with the Scottish Government, who may or may not be able to replicate the child care coverage that exists in other parts of the UK, and will that be taken into consideration so that lone parents in Scotland will be treated in an even-handed and equal way in comparison with those in the rest of the UK?
Jim Knight: I can certainly give my right hon. Friend that reassurance. She and other colleagues from Scotland and Wales have been assiduous in raising these concerns to ensure that the legislation does not disadvantage lone parents in those parts of the country. Indeed, I have had conversations with Ministers in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland about the concerns about child care arrangements being different. That is one of the important reasons for introducing those three amendments. I hope that reassures my right hon. Friend.
We have also introduced amendments to define the policy boundaries for lone parents and to build on previous flexibilities that take into account their caring responsibilities for their children. The amendments would set out clearly in the Bill that only lone parents on income-replacement benefits who have a youngest child
aged between three and six will be required to undertake work-related activity. They put in primary legislation our intention that lone parents whose youngest child is under three will not be required to undertake any work-related activity.
The amendments also place in primary legislation an assurance that lone parents whose youngest child is under seven will not be required to meet the full job-seeking conditions for jobseeker's allowance, but instead will be able to claim income support, or modified jobseeker's allowance, until their youngest child is seven. They remove the requirement for lone parents whose youngest child is under one and who are in receipt of an income-replacement benefit to attend work-focused interviews. They also introduce flexibilities to allow lone parents with children between three and six who are required to undertake work-related activity to restrict the hours in which they do so.
It is intended that this flexibility will be used to allow lone parents of children up to the age of 12 to restrict their hours of availability so that they fit around their children's schooling or formal child care, or around hours in which locally provided, free, part-time nursery places are available. These measures are provided by Lords amendments 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 53, 55, 56, 57, 59, 90, 91 and 94.
We have also introduced an amendment that enables the job-seeking requirements for jobseeker's allowance recipients who have been the victims of domestic violence to be temporarily suspended for 13 weeks. Under this amendment, they will not be required to enter into a jobseeker's agreement if one is not already in place, and they will not be required to be available for work or actively to seek work during this difficult time. That is covered in Lords amendment 25. I hope that the House will agree that the package of amendments we have introduced means that parents, especially lone parents, will have the flexibility to balance the activities that they will be required to undertake with their unique family circumstances.
We are also introducing a new, more sensitive, sanctions regime.
Lynne Jones (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab): Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Jim Knight: I will happily give way before setting out, at a little length, the new sanctions regime.
Lynne Jones: I recently wrote to my right hon. Friend about a constituent of mine who is a lone parent with five children, three of whom have conditions including autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Asperger's and Tourette's. She is a carer-and indeed, she has a carer for herself, who is one of her children. As a carer, she is not required to attend work preparation, but she is required to attend six-monthly work-focused interviews. I have inquired of Jobcentre Plus, and an action plan has never been produced for her because it is clear that while she has responsibility for the children, she will never be able to work. The six-monthly visits to her Jobcentre Plus are, however, extremely onerous for her. I have asked whether some flexibility might be given to the jobcentre so that it could have the discretion to waive that requirement.
Mr. Speaker: I think that no detail has been omitted from that intervention, and I hope that subsequent interventions will be shorter, rather than longer.
Jim Knight: I am grateful that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones) has written to me setting out those details at even greater length than in her excellent intervention. I will need to reflect on this. In preparing a White Paper that will be published in the next few weeks, we have been examining the issue of flexibility, and the extent to which we can flex the regime so that it can be more tailored to the personal circumstances of customers on jobseeker's allowance, employment and support allowance and other benefits. In the change we have made for lone parents whose youngest child is under one, we have made it clear that there is no merit in requiring such lone parents to come in for a work-focused interview if no meaningful action follows from that. I am advised that if my hon. Friend's constituent gets carer's allowance, she is exempt from the conditionality. I clearly need to look at the details of the case and get back to my hon. Friend with a proper response.
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I was about to set out the new sanctions regime. Our new regime will allow for more up-front, in-depth engagement with lone parents, and there are a number of stages before a financial sanction will even be considered. We know that sometimes extenuating circumstances, such as a domestic emergency or a sick child, will mean that lone parents are unable to keep their usual commitments. Therefore, all lone parents will be given a further chance to comply before any action is taken. If a lone parent fails to take part in a work-focused interview, or undertake or complete work-related activity, without good cause, there will not initially be a sanction. Instead the adviser will discuss any issues that the lone parent may have and give them another opportunity to engage. Only if the lone parent fails to engage again without good cause will further action be considered.
If a lone parent misses two work-focused interviews and attempts to make contact fail, a formal written warning will be sent. Similarly, lone parents who have failed to carry out the minimum agreed work-related activity in their action plan over three months will be given an opportunity to explain any good cause, renegotiate the action plan or begin the work-related activity. If they fail or refuse to do so, a formal written warning will be sent.
After three missed interviews or three failures to take up agreed work-related activity, an individual case review will be done. That involves a senior adviser or manager undertaking an in-depth review of the lone parent's circumstances and the reasons for failure to comply. That could include home visits for parents. Only after this stage, once a lone parent has failed to comply on the fourth occasion, will a financial sanction be considered, with initial sanctions at a significantly lower level than those currently applied.
This model will provide lone parents with more opportunities to comply with the requirements and will ensure that they cannot face a financial penalty before a full review of their circumstances has been carried out. As now, lone parents will, of course, have the opportunity to ask for the sanction decision to be reconsidered and/or to appeal the decision. We believe that overall,
this approach will provide lone parents with every opportunity to engage with work-related activity, will lead to fewer financial sanctions but will provide the necessary backstops to ensure engagement and progression. If, after this process, someone still fails to comply without good cause, a sanction will be considered. However, as now, lone parents will have the opportunity to ask for the sanction decision to be reconsidered or to appeal.
Steve Webb (Northavon) (LD): The Minister started by setting out all the positive things that the Government are going to do to engage, and all the support that lone parents are going to get. However, these proposals are, in essence, about the stick; they are not about the carrot. They are about saying what punishment will be meted out to a lone parent with a three or four-year-old child if they do not do what the Government want them to do. Is it the Government's view that lone parents with children of that age are simply too stupid to see the good that this engagement will do for them, and so need to be threatened to persuade them to take it up? If it was all so good and so positive for them, why would they not take it up anyway? Why do we need a threat to make them do that?
Jim Knight: The hon. Gentleman is right to say that I have set out a range of positive measures that we are putting in the Bill. He talks in terms of "sticks" and "carrots". As he knows, it is normal in social security legislation to put the sticks in primary legislation and leave the carrots in secondary legislation and in other action. What is unusual is that we are putting the carrots-to use his language-in primary legislation, in the Bill.
Let us consider the substance of what the hon. Gentleman is asking about, and our disagreement with the Lords, which I was about to discuss. I believe, as I did when I took the legislation to raise the education participation age through Parliament, that there are circumstances in which one wants to make it more uncomfortable for people to do the wrong thing and more comfortable for them to do the right thing. As I shall go on to say, I think that in the case of some parents, it is in the interests of those individuals, of their children-in terms of tackling child poverty-and of the country as a whole, if they are actively encouraged to receive the help and support that will come about as a result of the conditionality that we want to introduce.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington) (Lab): My right hon. Friend talks about making things uncomfortable for people who will not do the right thing. Do not most Members find that the real problem is that it is the children of that mother who are made uncomfortable? However feckless or undeserving the mother is in his terms, it is the children who will suffer when he imposes his financial sanctions.
Jim Knight:
Naturally, I listened carefully to my hon. Friend and I hope that she also listened carefully to what I set out. My starting point was the change that we made to the legislation in the Lords that ensures that the well-being of the child comes first. Any notion that children will suffer is dealt with through that amendment, which is now on the face of the Bill. In respect of financial sanctions, as I have set out, we now have a much longer and deeper process to go through to consider the personal circumstances of the individual. Only if an
individual was wilfully ignoring the sanctions regime and the opportunities available to them would any financial sanction come into play.
John Mason (Glasgow, East) (SNP): The Minister mentioned child poverty immediately before he took that intervention. Does he accept that the fact that a parent has gone into work does not automatically mean that the child is not in poverty any more?
Jim Knight: In many ways, that misses the point. We are talking about work-related activity, not work. There is no requirement for parents whose youngest children are under the age of seven to take up employment. We are talking about work-related activities and receiving support such as that which lone parents receive in the new deal for lone parents. I do not know what the hon. Gentleman's party's position is on that, although I know that the official Opposition want to get rid of it.
Lords amendment 2 amends the Bill so that financial sanctions could not be imposed upon a "single" parent in receipt of income support with a child under five if they failed to undertake work-related activity. The amendment would not achieve the purpose that I believe it was intended to achieve. "Single" is not defined in social security legislation, so there is a risk that it could be interpreted to mean a non-resident parent, rather than the lone parent who has caring responsibility for the child. We must therefore amend the Bill today or risk an absent parent using the measure as an excuse to avoid getting back to work.
Nevertheless, to set that drafting error to one side, in both Houses there has been vigorous debate-we hear some echoes of it now-about when, based on the age of the youngest child, we should start requiring lone parents to undertake work-related activity. Based on those debates, and on the changes we have made to put the safeguards that I have described on the face of the Bill, we still believe that starting the process when a lone parent's youngest child is aged three is right, not only because there is normally a strong foundation of child care provision available for children in this age range, but because it will allow them gradually to build their confidence and skills at a pace that suits them over four years, rather than being expected to cram in the work-related activity that they need to undertake when their youngest child is five to six.
Some 76 per cent. of non-working lone parents use the free child care offered for three and four-year-olds that was developed by this Government. Most schools now have reception classes for four-year-olds. Surely it is reasonable to ask parents to use a fraction of that time to start to get ready for work? For example, 74 per cent. of non-working lone parents do not hold any qualifications. Three quarters use the free child care; three quarters have no qualifications. Why would not we ask them to take up the offer of free education to get a basic literacy and numeracy qualification in some of the time when their children are receiving an early years education?
The Conservatives, according to what their leader said today, think that
"the first step is to redistribute power and control form the central state and its agencies to individuals and local communities. That way we can create the opportunity for people to take responsibility."
If that is what they truly believe-if this is to be a new fresh start for the Tories on poverty-they have to support the Government amendment today. Work-related activity for lone parents of children aged three to five is precisely what the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) is talking about; it is creating
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