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"the opportunity for people to take responsibility."
Mr. James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con) rose-
Jim Knight: I challenge the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison), as he rises to intervene, to say that he will agree with us and be consistent with the approach of his party leader.
Mr. Clappison: I think that we have been consistent about this matter. The Minister seems somewhat uncomfortable talking about sanctions affecting very young children, but I do want to ask him a question. There is not much between us otherwise, but why is it so important to have financial sanctions that can be imposed on parents with children as young as three and four? If the sanctions became available when children were five, that would still leave two years for the parents to be engaged in work-related activity with the threat of sanctions behind them. Why is it so necessary to have sanctions when children are so young?
Jim Knight: It is worth the House noting that the Opposition believe that it is appropriate to have financial sanctions in respect of work-focused interviews for lone parents whose youngest children are from three to five years old. They agree that financial sanctions are appropriate in those circumstances, but in his question the hon. Gentleman wondered about work-related activity. If he believes in the work-focused interview, which sets out an action plan for parents but has no means of enforcing that plan, he is being inconsistent.
I have said already that I believe that we need to have the opportunity to configure the support for longer than two years. Many lone parents face substantial problems, and that means that we must be able to configure the support on offer to enable them to overcome the obstacles to getting into work. It would appear that not only are the Opposition inconsistent but they are not serious about tackling poverty. If they are serious about poverty, why are they voting against this proposed action to cut child poverty? If they are serious about responsibility, why are they voting to take away the responsibility for lone parents whose children are in education to take up the support that they need?
We know that the Opposition want to abolish the new deal for lone parents, and now they want to oppose creating the opportunity for people to take responsibility. However, we appreciate the concerns raised by stakeholders, and those raised by Labour Members. They are nervous that our good intentions may not work in practice so-ever reasonable-I am seeking the House's agreement to offer, in lieu of the Lords amendment, an amendment of our own that would provide yet one more safeguard.
The House will be aware that the Bill serves to set out the framework of the work-related activity proposals that we wish to test before national implementation, and that the detail of those proposals will be set out in regulations. The amendment that I propose would require all work-related activity regulations, in so far as they relate to lone parents with children under seven, to be brought back to the House for further affirmative debate before being introduced nationally. That should reassure
the House that passing the Bill will not have the effect of shutting the door on further debate about work-related activity for this customer group. Any regulations made within five years after royal assent will come back to the House and the other place, and Members of both Houses will have every opportunity to consider whether work-related activity is working in practice.
I believe that it is right for lone parents to begin the journey towards work in good time, so that they can take positive steps to prepare for rejoining the labour market and help take themselves and their families out of poverty. To remove their responsibility to start to get ready for work early would also remove the responsibility of Jobcentre Plus to provide support from an early stage.
That would be wrong. It would be a backward step, and could only come from the motivation to save money at the expense of those who need support the most. That may be the Opposition's agenda, but it is not ours. We are proud of the new deal for lone parents that the Opposition want to abolish. We are proud that more lone parents are getting into work, and that they see that these measures are necessary if we are to continue our good work on tackling child poverty through work. I look forward to hearing whether the Opposition are really serious about poverty, or whether with them it is all talk and no action.
I urge the House to overturn Lords amendment 2, and to support Government amendment (a) in lieu.
Mr. Clappison: May I begin by welcoming the Minister to the proceedings on this Bill? He has obviously spent some time studying the provisions, and he will know from previous debates that we on this side of the House have expressed broad support for the Bill and its objectives. We support many of the measures in the Bill-as we should, indeed, since we suggested many of them before the Government took them up. I admire the dexterity with which the Minister has approached the Lords amendments, and the main issue that lies at the heart of them.
The House could be forgiven for forgetting about Lords amendment 2 altogether, given how long it took the Minister to come to it. From the outset, therefore, I want to make it clear that this is the issue that lies between the parties as far as these Lords amendments are concerned. I shall take a little time to go through the issue, as I think that the Minister will have to accept, when he hears what we have to say about it, that we have been completely consistent. We welcome many of the safeguards, but he has spent such a long time putting them in place and speaking about them that it makes one wonder what is the point of the sanction in the first place. We remain uncomfortable about that sanction for reasons that I shall explain.
4.15 pm
In approaching the question of what is to be required of lone parents, I agree with the generality of what the Minister said about getting them ready for work. We certainly believe that it is important that lone parents be helped to prepare for work, and we have not opposed general moves to take a more active approach in that field-far from it. We were at the forefront in suggesting that the age at which income support would come to an end should be lowered, and that there should be a
transfer from income support to jobseeker's allowance. The Minister knows the thinking of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) on the issue, and that seems to have played a part in shaping the Government's thinking.
We note that until last year single parents were entitled to remain on income support until their youngest child reached 16 years old. Such parents were, therefore, under what has generally been described as a passive regime, which neither made many requirements of them nor, certainly for parents of children up to 16 years old, contained the threat of sanctions that is now in the Bill. The effect of the Government's proposals is to lower the bar for those sanctions from the age of 16 to the age of three.
The Government announced the reform of the income support regime for lone parents only in the summer of 2007, and began its phased implementation last year. We have heard from the Minister about amendments in another place introducing safeguards on the requirements to be made of single parents when it comes to work-related activity, and we broadly support those safeguards. They were, in fact, announced as policy when the Bill was in Committee in our place, so in a small way I suppose that they mark progress.
However, the important part of this debate is that, after all that the Minister has told us about safeguards, and the lengthy process of missed interviews, case reviews, written warnings, further warnings, home visits, fourth warnings and so on, there remains the possibility that lone parents with pre-school age children of three and four years old could face financial sanctions as a result of failing to comply with the proposed regime.
Mrs. McGuire: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Clappison: Yes, I shall certainly give way. The right hon. Lady has experience of these matters.
Mrs. McGuire: Will the hon. Gentleman explain why the noble Lord Freud, who is no doubt watching these deliberations from on high somewhere, said that the Conservative party was not against financial sanctions? Indeed, he said:
"Our amendment is drawn deliberately narrowly"
and that his party was not against
"established financial sanctions for not complying with its-
"rather light requirements."-[ Official Report, House of Lords, 22 October 2009; Vol. 713, c. 835.]
There is an inherent contradiction in the Opposition's case, which makes me think that it is more about opportunism than about supporting lone parents.
Mr. Clappison: The right hon. Lady has made her point, but may I draw her attention to Lords amendment 2? It says:
"Nothing in this section shall cause any financial sanction to be imposed in the case of a single parent with a child under five years of age."
That amendment was moved by my noble Friend Lord Freud, and it could not be more explicit. The right hon. Lady knows that we have been consistent throughout and argued that five years old should be the age at which work-related requirements are followed up with sanctions.
We have been quite consistent about that throughout the Bill's passage in this place, as I think she knows, and in the other place; and the issue comes before the House today because of that amendment.
I shall take the House through what is proposed. Parents of pre-school age children could be required to undertake work-related activity. They could be directed to undertake work-related activities by advisers. Presumably that means that their advisers may direct them to undertake specific work-related activities. After the process that the Minister has proposed, they could still face sanctions-including financial sanctions-if they fail to comply, as such sanctions remain part of the Government's arrangements. I wonder what the purpose is of these financial sanctions. The Minister did not give a sufficient explanation of why sanctions are considered to be so necessary for parents of children as young as three and four. We heard such a lot about safeguards, and that makes me think that something in the detail of the Bill is wrong. More and more safeguards have been added to the Bill during its passage through this House and another place.
Why are the Government so stuck on this provision, and why are they so obstinate in their refusal to consider the issues at stake? Is the possible application of sanctions justified by what is at stake? After all, when the youngest child reaches the age of five, there will still be two years in which the lone parent can be engaged in work-related and progression-to-work activities before the child reaches the age at which the parent will be migrated from income support to jobseeker's allowance. We accept that that group may include many lone parents who face barriers to work and are not work ready, but two years will amount to a significant period in which they can be helped, backed throughout by the threat of sanctions, from which we do not demur. That will come on top of whatever other help they have received in the preceding period from the ages of three to five years, not backed by financial sanctions.
We must consider whether the attainment of the child's school age is the appropriate point at which lone parents can be fully engaged in the Government's progression-to-work regime in its full rigour, backed by sanctions. As the right hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs. McGuire) will know, we have been consistent in advocating the age of five and have argued for that throughout. In Committee, I moved an amendment on those lines, which was defeated. We moved an amendment on Report when the matter came back before the House, and it was voted on and defeated. Therefore, prior to the passing of the Lords amendment, the age stood at three at which parents would come into the progression-to-work regime in its full rigour, with directions and mandatory work-related activities, and backed by sanctions. The Lords amendment has altered that so that the age now stands at five, which we think is more sensible.
We must set this in the context of the progression-to-work model set out by the Government in their response to the Gregg report, which, notwithstanding everything that the Minister has said, remains the Government's policy. I look to him to demur from what I am saying if that is not the case. We are told that lone parents with children aged one to two years are:
"Required to attend Work Focused Interviews and agree an action plan. They are not mandated to undertake any activities recorded on the action plan or any other activities, although they will be encouraged to do so on a voluntary basis".
Once the child has turned three, the lone parent is:
"Required to follow the progression to work regime based around Work Focused Interviews, action plans, work related activity and the backstop of adviser direction".
On any view, the full rigour of the regime kicks in at three. The Lords amendment suggests that at least these parents should not face the liability for financial sanctions under the regime.
The Minister announced as a great concession amendment (a) in lieu of the Lords amendment. I think that he possibly put it a little strongly when he suggested that it was a great safeguard. I am not saying that the amendment is unwelcome, but I invite the House to consider it and set it against the issues at stake. The Minister did not deal with it in great detail, so it might assist Members if I provide a little more detail to enable them to assess how much value should be attached to it. It requires the affirmative resolution procedure to be followed in respect of regulations imposing work-related activities on lone parents of children under seven. Although that is welcome in itself, it does not address the questions that arise from the motion on amendment 2. The amendment in lieu deals with work-related activities to be imposed on the lone parents in question, not the sanctions that are to be imposed as a result of a breach of those requirements.
Ms Abbott: I do not want to sound cynical, but affirmative resolution procedures are invariably not worth the paper they are written on. By the time the matters in question come back to the House, people have forgotten the details of the original debate and the votes are whipped, so they are worthless undertakings. They should not be allowed to deflect Members from the issue at stake today, which is women with children as young as three having financial sanctions imposed on them because of the Government's proposal.
Mr. Clappison: I think I was a little kinder than the hon. Lady in what I said about the value of affirmative resolutions. As a parliamentarian, I always welcome the affirmative procedure and argue in favour of it when considering Bills, but one needs a tinge of realism when discussing the subject.
I am always in favour of parliamentary debates, but following the hon. Lady's point I would say that even when the regulations come before the House, they will not deal with the issue in question. The affirmative resolution procedure will relate to the regulations, not to the sanctions that will back them up. We will have no say on the sanctions. Also, the affirmative resolution procedure will be in respect of requirements for children under seven. The question is what will happen to people with children under five, not under seven, so I respectfully argue that the amendment in lieu does not make a great deal of difference. The Minister put it a little too strongly when he said that it was the necessary safeguard in lieu of the Lords amendment, because it does not address the question at all. It is a bit of a misrepresentation to say that it is an amendment in lieu in the sense of forming a satisfactory replacement for the amendment from the House of Lords. It is off the point altogether.
Similarly, the Government have introduced other amendments, which the Minister spoke about at great length earlier. I broadly welcome many of them, but again I question whether they address the point at issue
between us. The amendments that the Government introduced in another place were put forward on the basis of addressing the concerns that have been expressed about the requirements made of lone parents with younger children. Many such concerns were widely expressed in another place. The Government brought forward amendments described as a package of concessions-I believe that the Minister himself has described them as such-so let us see how good the concessions are on the point about protecting lone parents of younger children from financial sanctions.
Lords amendments 3 and 4 are Government amendments designed to ensure that lone parents with a child under three could not be required to undertake work-related activity. However, that is not a change in policy, because the Government have always stated that that was their intention. They said that right from the start and throughout Committee stage in this place. They stated that their intention was that lone parents with children under three would not be subject to the full regime of work progression. The amendments put that policy intention into law, but they do not in any way answer the question of what should happen to lone parents of children aged between three and five, which is what Lords amendment 2 is about.
Similarly, Lords amendment 5 would give lone parents entitled to income support a right to restrict the hours for which they will be required to undertake work-related activity. We are told that it could be used to enable them to restrict such activities to their child's hours of schooling or formal child care. Even then, if they had made that restriction and were found not to be in compliance with the requirements, they would face financial sanctions. That amendment therefore does not address that question either.
Lords amendments 10, 26 and 78 provide that regulations prescribing just cause for failing to undertake mandatory activities must expressly state that availability of child care and the claimant's physical or mental health or condition will always be considered. Again, however, we had already been told that the availability of child care was to be taken into account as a matter of policy. The Minister introduced that as a concession today, but we were told that in Committee by his then ministerial colleague, the right hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty). He told the Committee, before the Bill went to the other place that
"the absence of such provision will be taken fully into account when discussing the details of an individual's work-related activity at three." --[ Official Report, Welfare Reform Public Bill Committee, 24 February 2009; c. 120.]
That has been included in the Bill, but it would have been the Government's policy in any case. I will leave the House to judge the value of that concession as part of the package of concessions.
4.30 pm
Taking the concessions in the round, they are either on a different matter or they put into law what would be Government policy in any case. They still leave open the possibility of lone parents of children as young as three or four facing the threat of financial sanctions. Although we may welcome the amendments, we do not think that they tackle the matter at stake. The Minister went through them carefully, but as a package of concessions, it misses the point, which, for us, has been an issue all along.
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