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The Committee consisted of the following Members:

Chairman: Miss Anne Begg
Abbott, Ms Diane (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Baron, Mr. John (Billericay) (Con)
Beresford, Sir Paul (Mole Valley) (Con)
Blackman, Liz (Erewash) (Lab)
Clappison, Mr. James (Hertsmere) (Con)
Flint, Caroline (Don Valley) (Lab)
Goodman, Helen (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions)
Gray, Mr. James (North Wiltshire) (Con)
Hodgson, Mrs. Sharon (Gateshead, East and Washington, West) (Lab)
Rowen, Paul (Rochdale) (LD)
Smith, Mr. Andrew (Oxford, East) (Lab)
Smith, Geraldine (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)
Stanley, Sir John (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
Stoate, Dr. Howard (Dartford) (Lab)
Webb, Steve (Northavon) (LD)
Wright, David (Telford) (Lab)
Mr. M. Oxborough, Committee Clerk
† attended the Committee

Fifth Delegated Legislation Committee

Tuesday 23 February 2010

[Miss Anne Begg in the Chair]

Draft Jobseeker’s Allowance (Lone Parents) (Availability for Work) Regulations 2010
4.30 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Helen Goodman): I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Jobseeker’s Allowance (Lone Parents) (Availability for Work) Regulations 2010.
May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Miss Begg? The regulations, together with an explanatory memorandum, were laid before the House on 20 January, and I can confirm that, in my view, they are compatible with the European convention on human rights.
I am pleased to be here to present the regulations, which introduce a new right for certain lone parents who receive jobseeker’s allowance. Provided that a parent’s youngest child is 12 or under, the changes will give them the right to restrict their availability for work to their child’s normal school hours.
We are committed to helping parents to achieve the right balance between working and caring for their children. This new right will give lone parents with younger children the assurance that they will, if they wish, be able to seek work that fits with their children’s school hours.
Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab): How does that impact in terms of school holidays?
Helen Goodman: The regulations will not enable people to work fewer hours in school holidays than during the rest of the year. We felt that that was reasonable because people will be getting tax credits, which they can use to pay for child care in the holidays. Saying that people do not have to work at all in the school holidays would make it extremely difficult for them to find work at all. We feel that that is the balanced approach.
Mr. James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con): Perhaps we can dispose of one matter now. Will the Minister confirm that, under the existing jobseeker’s allowance rules, if an adviser agrees that a lone parent cannot find appropriate affordable child care during the school holidays, the lone parent can be treated as being available for work during that period, even though they are not working?
Helen Goodman: Yes, if the child care is very expensive and the lone parent’s earnings are not adequate, the flexibilities in regulation 13 of the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations 1996 will allow that.
We are committed to helping parents achieve the right balance between working and caring for their children, and the new right will give lone parents with younger children the assurance that they need. Before we get under way, I would like to outline some of the regulations’ key aims and provisions. I would then like to explain what we have already done to help lone parents back into work.
Normally, a person receiving jobseeker’s allowance is expected to be available for, and to seek, full-time work of up to 40 hours a week. That has been a core feature of unemployment benefit rules for many years. However, those rules recognise that the personal circumstances of some jobseekers may make full-time work difficult or impossible. None the less, they still expect claimants to seek the work that they can do or can be assisted to do. Consequently, there are a number of flexibilities in the rules to allow people with real constraints on the work that they can do to limit their hours of availability.
One existing flexibility for our jobseeker’s allowance customers enables parents with child care responsibilities to restrict their availability for work to 16 hours a week in agreement with an adviser. Such customers may restrict their availability even if there is no reasonable prospect of finding employment given their restricted hours. The new right introduced in the regulations builds on the flexibility for lone parents in that group by providing them with an assurance that they have a right to restrict their availability. It is a simple, unqualified right, which focuses on lone parents whose children attend school during conventional hours. It is appropriate and automatic. It will cover the normal experience of the large majority of customers. The new regulation is designed to enable lone parents to balance the need to provide for their children with the need for their children to grow up in a stable home with an involved parent.
By understanding that lone parents have specific and difficult obligations, the new right will mean that lone parents are not inadvertently penalised for being less available for work. Our new regulations are about balance and fairness. They recognise the practical difficulties that lone parents face day to day, and that lone parents looking for work should be given a right to greater leniency in respect of the hours for which they are available. They do not penalise two-parent households; they are equally able to limit their hours of availability to 16 in agreement with an adviser.
However, the regulations also recognise that children aged 13 and above are more capable of looking after themselves and require less parental support. By the age of 12, almost all children will have started secondary school and their family life will have adjusted. It is only fair that we expect lone parents receiving jobseeker’s allowance to assume a greater level of availability in their working patterns.
Our new regulations are flexible. They do not attempt to provide a catch-all definition of school hours, because those are subject to significant variation around the country. They do not attempt to legislate for every possible variation of schooling arrangements or child care responsibilities, because we recognise that statutory measures would be too blunt a tool.
Lone parents whose children’s school hours fall outside a regular pattern of attendance or are subject to other, specific circumstances can instead make use of the existing flexibility that I have mentioned. I am referring to jobseekers being able to discuss their individual circumstances with an adviser and to agree hours tailored to their availability. We want to foster an environment that is as conducive as possible to getting lone parents into work, but we know that they are the best people to assess their own circumstances and availability. This new right will put the decision-making power back in the hands of lone parents.
This change does not stand alone. We are proving our commitment to establishing a greater balance for jobseekers with special commitments, so that their children do not lose out in the course of our efforts to help them find work.
I want to remind hon. Members of what we have already done to help lone parents back into work. The Welfare Reform Act 2009 introduced a range of family-friendly measures designed to cater better to the needs of lone parents. It ended the requirement that lone parents receiving income support or employment and support allowance attend work-focused interviews if they have a child aged under one.
Since last October, lone parents of children aged 10 and over claiming income support have been required to move on to jobseeker’s allowance if they are capable of work. From October this year, those with children aged seven and over will have to do the same, and in limited areas lone parents with children aged between three and six will be expected to undertake activities that will help them to prepare for work. We want lone parents to have the support they need to re-enter work and for the transition to be as smooth as possible, so we have guaranteed that lone parents with children under seven will not be expected actively to seek work. Children benefit from involved parents as much as they do from parents who can provide for themselves and their families, so those adjustments further recognise the need for a balance.
The measures promote working and are effective. The changes in the lone parent obligations will see about 150,000 people move from income support to jobseeker’s allowance, providing them with better opportunities to gain employment, as well as access to a professional adviser. Our changes are fair and reasonable. Lone parents with older children are no longer allowed to claim benefit solely on the basis of their child care, but the new right fits in with a range of flexibilities that we have brought in, including the ability of all parents, whether single or not, to continue to claim jobseeker’s allowance in the event of a family crisis that affects their availability for work. Furthermore, the 2009 Act introduced provisions requiring Jobcentre Plus advisers, when drawing up an action plan or a jobseeker’s agreement, to consider the well-being of any child affected by an agreement, regardless of the parental status.
However, let me be clear that this measure, to give lone parents the right to limit their availability while claiming jobseeker’s allowance, is not intended to undermine the Government’s commitment to support lone parents moving towards work. By recognising that lone parents have to be flexible in their working patterns, we are accepting the realities of their situation. I hope that hon. Members will accept this new measure for the simple and important change that it is.
4.39 pm
Mr. Clappison: It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Miss Begg. As the Minister rightly said, the background to this statutory instrument lies in the Government’s announcement in 2007 that they were going to move the lone parents of older children from income support to jobseeker’s allowance. That announcement received the support of my party, which is not surprising because it was something we had been suggesting. We are not looking to place obstacles in the way of this measure, but we have a number of questions about the way in which the scheme will operate.
It is important to make it clear at the outset that the change is to be introduced on a staged basis, according to the age of the youngest child of the lone parent. In fact, the change has already begun. From 24 November 2008, lone parents claiming benefit solely on the ground of being a lone parent and who were capable of work were required to claim jobseeker’s allowance rather than income support if their youngest child was aged 12 or over, so that provision has been in place for a year for such parents. Parents whose youngest child is aged 10 or over faced the measure from 26 October 2009, so that has just got started. Parents whose youngest child is seven or over face the change from 25 October this year.
On 26 October 2009, the Minister produced a written statement on the right of single parents to restrict their availability for employment to school hours, which forms the basis of this statutory instrument. The statement said:
“We are referring to the Social Security Advisory Committee proposals for new regulations under section 6 of the Jobseekers Act 1995 to allow lone parents with a child aged up to 12 the right to restrict availability for employment to hours that reflect the child’s normal term time school hours. The draft regulations will then be submitted to Parliament for approval. Guidance to Jobcentre advisers will ensure that this is implemented in practice.”—[Official Report, 26 October 2009; Vol. 498, c. 6W.]
I am curious about one point in that written statement. I do not want to make too much of it, but I want very gently to probe the Minister about it. Her written statement refers to a child aged up to 12. That could lead to the interpretation that the right of the single parent to seek employment in that way only lasts until the child’s 12th birthday. The measure was implemented and the statement made on 26 October. From that date onward, the child’s 12th birthday was established as the point at which the single parent would be moved from income support to jobseeker’s allowance. However, when the Minister then wrote to the Chairman of the relevant Select Committee and the regulations were eventually issued, they referred to lone parents who are responsible for a child under the age of 13, so a lone parent retains the right to restrict their hours of employment in that way until the child reaches his or her 13th birthday.
Helen Goodman indicated assent.
Mr. Clappison: The Minister is nodding, so I take that to mean that that is the effect of what she is doing. Without wanting to make too much of this, I would gently probe whether that has been the Government’s intention all along, or whether there has been some change. Will the Minister say whether the Government intended to apply the provision to parents of 12-year-old children, or whether there a change of policy, and if so, why? If it was the Government’s intention all along that it should apply to the parents of 12-year-olds, why did the statement of 26 October refer to a child of up to 12? Why did the Government choose 26 October to announce the change for children on their 12th birthday when the parents of children aged 12 had been subject to the new regime for almost a year? I do not want to make too much of that, but I would like the Minister to address that strange coincidence.
Until 24 November 2008, it was possible for a lone parent whose youngest child was under 16 to remain on income support. As has been said already, the age limit changed to 12. We have had more than a year’s experience of lone parents moving from income support to jobseeker’s allowance when the youngest child has reached the age of 12. We would like to glean some information about what has been happening to single parents whose youngest children were aged under 12 since 24 November 2008. The explanatory memorandum states:
“A comprehensive, multi-method evaluation of the new Lone Parent Obligations is underway...The evaluation will begin to report from February 2010”.
Here we are today, well into February 2010, so I was wondering whether the Minister could share with us today any of the results yielded by the evaluation. How many lone parents have moved from income support to jobseeker’s allowance as a result of the changes since 24 November 2008 and, perhaps more importantly, how many of the lone parents who have moved from income support to jobseeker’s allowance have found a job? How many of those have found part-time employment and how many full-time employment? If the Minister has any information, it would be interesting to hear how many jobs have come about as a result of what we are discussing.
Does the Minister have any information on the number and proportion of parents in the same group who were moving from income support to employment before the introduction of the changes on 24 November 2008? It would be useful to compare how many lone parents have moved since the change was made, and, once they have moved from income support to jobseeker’s allowance, have then moved into employment, with the number of such parents in the same position, with children in the same age range, who were on income support but found jobs from income support directly, without the move to jobseeker’s allowance, before 24 November 2008. That would give us an interesting perspective on the change of policy and allow us to evaluate just what was taking place. If the Minister does not have those figures to hand, I would be happy to receive a letter from her, but I would make the additional request, if I may, having dealt with a number of these statutory instruments, that the reply be reasonably timely.
The Minister mentioned the figure of 150,000 for lone parents moving from income support to jobseeker’s allowance. Can she give us a little more information about that and possibly give us a breakdown in terms of the number of such parents who moved from 26 October 2009 when their children were aged 10 and 11 and how many parents of such children will be moving from 25 October this year when the children will be in the seven, eight and nine age category?
Let me move on to a different subject. When the change began to be made in November 2008, a number of additional flexibilities were introduced into jobseeker’s allowance to deal with the particular circumstance of single parents moving from income support to jobseeker’s allowance. For members of the Committee who are interested, those flexibilities are set out in annexe A of the explanatory memorandum. As jobseekers, this group of single parents could be liable to sanctions, because someone who fails to comply with the directions of an adviser, for example, or with other requirements of the more stringent jobseeker’s regime can be liable to sanctions. Changes were made to the hardship payments regime for those subject to sanctions so as to provide for the particular circumstances of single parents.
Since November 2008, how many single parents have been sanctioned under the jobseeker’s allowance regime and therefore how many of them have become eligible for hardship payments? Sanctions cannot be imposed where a jobseeker has good cause. The particular flexibilities for lone parents provide that child care responsibilities will be taken into account where a parent with child care responsibilities refuses or fails to carry out a jobseeker’s direction or refuses to apply for or accept a job because those responsibilities make it unreasonable for them to stay in a job, take up a job or carry out a jobseeker’s direction. How many times have good cause and just cause been found on those grounds?
Jobseeker’s allowance regulations already allow parents with caring responsibilities for a child to restrict their availability for work to 16 hours a week in agreement with an adviser. It would be interesting to hear whether the Minister has anything further to say about how the new right in these regulations for single parents to restrict their availability for work to the child’s normal school hours interacts with the existing right that parents have to restrict their availability for work to 16 hours a week in agreement with an adviser. Presumably, such a parent has the right to restrict their hours of work to 16 hours within their child’s normal school hours if, as seems likely to be the case, the child’s school hours are longer than 16 hours. Perhaps the Minister could confirm that that is the case, and could she tell us what information she has about the interaction of those two flexibilities?
The right hon. Member for Don Valley has already raised the question of jobseeker’s allowance and availability for work within school holidays. On the existing jobseeker’s allowance rules where an adviser can agree that a lone parent cannot obtain appropriate and affordable child care during the school holidays, will the Minister tell us whether the lone parent can be treated as being available for work during that period? Has the Minister any information about the operation of that provision, and how many such parents have been treated as being available for work during school holidays when no appropriate affordable child care was available?
We agree that it is good for lone parents to work. We want to assist them into work because it is good for them and their children. Their children have a better outcome in life as a result of the parent being in work, which is something that we have said all along. None the less, I am sure that the Committee will understand that there are questions that have to be asked.
 
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