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9 Jun 2009 : Column GC31
9 Jun 2009 : Column GC31
9 Jun 2009 : Column GC31
Tuesday, 9 June 2009.
Welfare Reform Bill
Main Bill Page
Copy of Bill
Explanatory Notes
Amendments
7th Report from the Delegated Powers Committee
14th Report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights
9th Report from the Constitution Committee
Committee (1st Day)
3.30 pm
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux): If there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting—which there will be—the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung, and resume after 10 minutes.
1: Before Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
Nothing in this Part shall affect single parents who have children under school age.”
Lord Skelmersdale: I start what I am afraid will be fairly protracted proceedings in Grand Committee with an amendment that I confess is deliberately somewhat loosely drafted. I wish to use the opportunities afforded by debating the Bill in Grand Committee to allow your Lordships to have a wide-ranging discussion on the issue.
The Minister has no doubt been briefed by his department that one reason to reject this amendment is because it is, in the favoured term of parliamentary draftsmen, “technically deficient”. He should not worry overly about that. When we return to this part of the Bill on Report, I will likely have tabled slightly altered amendments. That, of course, depends very much on how he replies to my questioning.
The real targets of this exclusionary amendment are Clauses 1 and 2. I seek to exclude single parents with children under school age from requirements to take part in “work for your benefit” schemes and work-related activity. I hope that I may count on a certain amount of support from other noble Lords across the Committee—I know that I have it from outside groups such as Gingerbread, which has been able to provide me with plenty of real-life stories, and Z2K.
My amendment would place a clear ne plus ultra line on the creeping revision of the relevant age of one’s children for welfare purposes. Until last year, it was possible for a single parent to remain on income support until the youngest child reached the age of 16. However, in June 2007, the Government announced that they were moving lone parents from income support to jobseeker’s allowance in stages. That process began last year, when the age limit for single parents to remain on income support was reduced to the youngest child reaching the age of 12. The process of transferring lone parents from income support to jobseeker’s allowance is proceeding apace. The age of children at which lone parents are transferred to jobseeker’s allowance will fall to seven in October 2010. Lone parents with
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My understanding from the compendious Peers’ information pack, for which I am grateful, is that the Government propose that lone parents are to be part of the progression-to-work group from the time that their youngest child is aged one year. The Government have set out how they see that group in their discussion paper on the implementation of the Gregg review. According to their response to that review, lone parents with children aged between one and two years will be:
“Required to attend Work Focused Interviews and agree an action plan. They are not mandated to undertake any activities recorded on the action plan”.
Paragraphs 103, 107 and 108 of the Peers’ information pack, however, say something that is rather different and, to me, confusing. Paragraph 103 makes it clear that there will be no conditionality applied to lone parents with children under one year old. The fact that this paragraph precedes the other two that I have mentioned must mean that there is a requirement to attend an initial interview in the child’s first year of life. Indeed, paragraph 107 cements this conclusion by stating:
“It is intended that those groups”—
that is, the preparation-for-work groups—
But there is an anomaly here. Paragraph 108, which covers paragraph 3 of Schedule 1, says that:
“In the pathfinder areas groups such as lone parents who have a child under 1 will no longer be required to undergo work focused interviews”.
What exactly is the proposal? Is the child to be under one, under two or under three? Whichever, I find it hard to accept that any of those is an appropriate age. What effect do the Government believe that will have on the subsequent development of the child?
I return to the Bill. The intention is that when the youngest child reaches the age of three, lone parents will be:
“Required to follow the full progression to Work regime based around Work Focused interviews, action plans, work related activity and the backstop of adviser direction”.
I presume that that means that lone parents with children over three will be subject to the regime of sanctions for failing to comply with the requirements in the Bill. Am I wrong in that presumption? Will it be over two or over one, even? My amendment would substitute the age of three with school age as the point at which the proposed regime and all its requirements would begin. I expect that that would translate to five years of age in the large majority of cases. That age was not plucked out of the air; it was specified in the Government’s July 2008 Green Paper as the appropriate age at which requirements could begin to be made on lone parents. The Green Paper envisaged piloting a requirement for lone parents whose youngest child was five or six to attend relevant skills training where that would address the skills gaps identified as a barrier to starting work. As I said, the amendment is
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The question at the heart of this is what approach we should be striking towards those lone parents with young children. We can all agree that it is desirable—indeed, necessary—to guide the unemployed back into work. However, where very young children are involved there will be a cost in terms of the bond developed, especially as we are talking about the bond between often—perhaps invariably—young mothers and their infants being disrupted or prevented. If we who are legislating on these matters are prepared to legislate for sanctions to be imposed on those who do not comply with the requirements we set out for them, we must be careful not to do more harm than good. The Conservative Party believes that it is inappropriate to allow advisers the power to direct parents of pre-school and young children to take part in any activity the adviser feels will move them towards work.
I understand that recent research for the Department for Work and Pensions looked over three years at the experiences of working single parents who had moved into paid employment voluntarily. That resulted in DWP research report 536, Work and Well-being Over Time: Lone Mothers and Their Children. Those single parents and their children believed that, as the report says,
- “lone mothers could and should work but that this was a personal choice which depended on individual circumstances and mothers should not be compelled to work”.
As well as being necessarily paternalistic, by directing people back to work we should also be realistic. If parents feel that they are required to do something that compromises the welfare of their child, they are more likely to resist those requirements.
I note that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, has amendments later on in the Marshalled List. Perhaps it is pertinent to mention now his question on 21 May—it was,
- “does the Minister agree that the quality of the relationship and attachment between a mother and her child in the first few years of that child’s life is crucial in the way in which the child develops?”.
In response, the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, replying on behalf of the Government, said,
- “the noble Lord is absolutely correct. I pay tribute to the huge amount of work that he has done in your Lordships' House to support parents and parenthood. He is absolutely right: we”—
- “recognise the importance of supporting parents in the early years of a child’s life”.—[Official Report, 21/5/09; col. 1428.]
That is a government view that I, and I hope all of us, commend, but I am far from certain that it fits comfortably with the threat of placing sanctions on parents who feel that they are being wrenched away from their very young children. The burdens on parents of young children are already great without the threat of sanctions. The Zacchaeus 2000 Trust has raised the worry of the mental strain becoming too much and of young mothers
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I should not need to repeat this as I feel that we have made it abundantly clear at so many stages, but I reiterate the support of my party for the principles in the Bill. By tabling an exclusionary clause in my first amendment, I am not undermining any of those principles: I am establishing a clear principle in support of single parents—one that will help their children, help them to find work at an appropriate time and ultimately reduce poverty. I beg to move.
Baroness Thomas of Winchester: We support the amendment. There is clearly a balance to be struck between the state supporting lone parents to stay at home to raise a child and sooner or later requiring them to seek work or prepare for work as a condition of receiving benefit. On the one hand, there is the mindset that says that a single mother bringing up a child could not be doing more valuable work and it is an insult to call her workless even when her child reaches 12. On the other hand there is the view that, with the right childcare and personalised support, the best route out of poverty and off benefits is for a single parent, usually a mother, to get a job as soon as she can.
We on these Benches believe that the best solution is for single parents to have a choice, at the very least until their child is of school age. Yes, of course it is true that some single mothers wish to get back to the workplace to earn money as soon as possible so that they do not lose touch with the world of work. They may have perfectly adequate childcare and may be able to juggle any other commitments with a job, but there will be a huge number of mothers in a quite different position—perhaps in a rural area with more than one child, or with transport and childcare problems, not to mention the difficulties of finding a suitable job with flexible working.
There is something faintly ludicrous about a lone mother desperately trying to find the right person to look after her child while she dashes off to an unfulfilling part-time job, when the person who should be looking after the child is herself. In all legislation, the welfare of children, particularly very young children, must take precedence over all other considerations. We therefore think that lone parents with children up to at least school age should not be required to seek work.
Baroness Turner of Camden: I, too, support the amendment moved so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale. I am particularly concerned about the position of single parents with children aged seven and over, who will from October 2010 have to claim JSA if they have no other source of income. Lone parents often face extra barriers to employment. A high proportion have low or no skills and very often a significant proportion will have care of a disabled child who may need full-time care. Those parents are often more vulnerable than other groups and may find themselves unemployed for more than two years and thus mandated to take part in this programme.
I hope that my noble friend will understand that there is widespread concern about the provision in the Bill which extends the requirement to take part in the
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3.45 pm
Baroness Meacher: I agree with much that has been said. On the other hand, it is quite important to put on record the fact that research, cited by the Children’s Society in its report A Good Childhood, into the effects on young children of being placed in childcare tends to support the general thrust of the Government’s attempt here to encourage young children to be placed in childcare while the mother works her way back into employment. The findings of the research are interesting. I have to say that they surprised me. They tend to show that even children less than 18 months old can benefit and that the effects on cognitive development are not very substantial either way. The effects on the happiness and well-being of really quite young children who are placed in childcare are interesting. Apparently, according to the research, they are more gregarious, although the research shows that they can be more aggressive. The research is complex, but it certainly does not support my argument. I would have thought that it would have shown otherwise, but it does not. One has to hang on to that and have that on the record.
My concern, and my reason for supporting the amendment, has to do with the pressures on parents. I worked many years ago with young mothers who were bringing up young children and frankly having a hell of a job—a very difficult job; I should use proper language in the House, I suppose—managing just a home and a child. I say “just”; I brought up four children and know that it is a big challenge to manage a home and a child or children. The mothers with whom I worked would be unable to cope with the pressures of having to undertake work-related activities while threatened with a loss of benefits. That is why I support the amendment. For many young mothers who are struggling, to be encouraged back into work will probably be good for them and may be good for the children, but the added stress and pressure may, I fear, knock some of these mothers off their perch. They will be unable to cope. I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about these mothers. They are not disabled, and they do not have a disabled child, so they do not seem to fit into any of the exemption categories. However, a lot of mothers will not be able to cope with the challenges of this clause.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: I have a lot of sympathy with the concerns behind the amendment. I am not sure that I agree all the way with the noble Baroness’s point about childcare. Like her, I have also read the research, but I think that the jury is out on the gains
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I wonder whether, in our discussions so far, we are failing properly to distinguish between a requirement to work, with appropriate sanctions, and progression-to-work training, which I understand we are asking lone parents of children between the ages of three to seven to go for. Why I support that, subject to certain considerations, is that we know that the longer someone is out of the labour market, the harder it is to get back. The best way of getting children out of poverty is to help their lone-parent mothers get back into the labour market. That does not mean requiring them to work 16 or more hours a week when their child is three, four, five, six or seven but, following the best practices of employers with staff on maternity leave for a year, trying to keep them connected with the labour market through interviews and perhaps encouraging them to do an evening course one evening a week to keep some up-to-date skills. That is helpful and positive, providing heavy sanctions are not attached and, ideally, that there is some financial reward for doing it with grace and willingness.
I hope the Minister will assuage the well founded worries of noble Lords by saying that the Government are not seeking to produce a regime for parents with children under the age of seven that requires them to be in work, but are seeking to keep them attached to the labour market because it is in their best interests and the child’s best interests. The best way to do this is not to go heavy on sanctions, but to go light on sanctions and heavy on financial support and encouragement. That way we will get lone parents wanting to stay attached to the labour market with grace, and when their child is old enough they will then be the sort of employee any employer would want to have.
Baroness Afshar: I support this amendment. Research by the Mother and Infant Research Unit of the University of York has found that in Yorkshire there is no childcare that a woman on a low income could pay for. I do not see what jobs women with no or low incomes, no education and few skills could train for at the same time as looking after their children. Most of them are working as cleaning ladies, and trying to train them to become better cleaning ladies would not help. We need to have a different vision. I am concerned that the work that women do free of charge is not recognised as work. If we want to help them, surely we should pay them for the childcare that they provide.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds: I support this amendment. I do not want to get involved in a debate with the noble Baronesses around me on the report,
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Parts of the Bill have an almost old fashioned tinge at the moment because one of the issues is whether there is any work available. I think particularly of inner urban areas in Yorkshire, where the number of jobs has declined sharply in recent months. That means that it will be difficult to find jobs. If we go ahead with the Bill as it stands, there will be more pressure on single parents and others to find jobs in a difficult market.
My only hesitation about the amendment is whether school age is the right age and whether, if we are looking for an age under which single parents should be encouraged to stay with their children and work with them, it should not be higher than five. There is a danger of a continuing gradual erosion of childhood, which is exemplified in parts of this Bill. We need to work hard to ensure that parents, whether they are lone parents or couples, are available to their children. This amendment would provide considerable support for and contribute to the family in looking after their children. I hope that we will proceed with something along these lines.
Lord Northbourne: I support the principle behind the amendment, although I am not sure that the wording is exactly as I would hope. Not entirely surprisingly, I also support everything that has been said today. I want to make two short points. First, I challenge the Minister to define what he means by work: I have just spent a weekend looking after my five grandchildren. Seriously, it is an issue. It is almost rude to say that looking after children and keeping a house is not work.
Secondly—it may not be appropriate to mention this now—the amendment would take the element of compulsion off the back of parents. It is very difficult for one person to be a trusted adviser and a policeman. To a considerable extent, the social services find that. I suggest that if the client is to feel that the worker in the jobcentre is an adviser and a friend, the longer we can keep the sanctions out of the picture, the better.
The Countess of Mar: The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, briefly touched on parents in rural communities. As I come from a very rural community, perhaps I may say a few words in support of the amendment from that point of view. Public transport in our area is almost non-existent. I think that there is a bus in the morning and a bus in the evening, not at school time, and that is it. There is nothing in between. Childcare facilities are almost non-existent. Schools are fairly far between. A lot of Church of England schools have been closed, so people would have to travel quite a distance. If a parent has one child going to school and another who is very young, she will have to do a lot of juggling to meet any timetable for training. Access to training facilities is almost non-existent. The nearest town with any colleges is seven miles away and there is
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