Welfare Reform Bill

My noble friend is exactly right. Sanctions are appealable and before that stage there is an opportunity to revisit the conditionality imposed on someone. There can be no absolute guarantee that parents will be able to access exactly the childcare they need at the point they need it, and a judgment about predictability of service is almost impossible to make. Therefore, while I entirely sympathise with the amendment, its effect would be completely to neutralise the new provisions in the case of those with children. Rather than deal with the issues as the amendment proposes, we will use regulation-making powers to introduce provision that mirrors that which we introduced to support the new lone parent obligations introduced last November. These regulations deal with decisions on good cause, as I just outlined, for any act or omission on behalf of the claimant in relation to certain jobseeking obligations, such as non-compliance with a jobseekers direction or failure to take up a suitable offer of employment. They prescribe that good-cause decisions must take account of both the availability of childcare and the suitability of any provision in relation to the specific needs of the parent or child. This will ensure that JSA claimants who are parents, including lone parents, will not be sanctioned if they fail to participate in "work for your benefit" or work-related activities because they cannot secure appropriate childcare. The availability of childcare is an important consideration for many of our clients who are seeking a return to work, not just those required to participate in schemes under Clauses 1 and 2. We understand that, and we will ensure that the safeguards already in place will be replicated for these new programmes. Amendment 5 requires jobseekers to participate in "work for your benefit" schemes with a view to improving their prospects of obtaining employment, ""with guaranteed and predictable access to high quality, flexible and affordable childcare acceptable to the parent and child"." The principle that we will adopt here, as we do in other areas of welfare-to-work provision, is to allow parents to source from the childcare market the provision that suits their particular needs. In some cases, this childcare is provided by employers, for example, through workplace crèches, but in the vast majority of cases it is not. We will continue to adopt the principle of allowing parents to source appropriate provision as this offers them the widest possible choice. This will, of course, be underpinned by the safeguards I have just outlined relating to good cause for failure to participate, ultimately through an appeals route, as my noble friend said. I shall pick up some of the individual points. We will not make people work for their benefit if there is no childcare to support them. Safeguards exist so that customers will not be sanctioned if lack of appropriate childcare prevents them participating in "work for your benefit". I want to make that absolutely clear. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, asked why we do not wait until we have completed the wraparound childcare and it is in place. According to our information, the availability of childcare places has more than doubled since 1997. The Childcare Act 2006 places a duty on local authorities in England and Wales, and we believe that the Scottish Government’s published objective to support access to employment and training through the provision of flexible, accessible, affordable childcare will continue to improve coverage over time. If that belief is misplaced, which is the thrust of some of the comments that have been made, there cannot be consequences for the lone parent in terms of conditionality, directions or, ultimately, sanctions, to be imposed upon them. A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Skelmersdale and Lord Kirkwood, referred to the Childcare Act not applying in Scotland. Of course, we have yet to decide where the "work for your benefit" pilots will be. However, the Scottish Government recently published a document entitled The Early Years Framework, which includes a key objective of ensuring that parents in Scotland are supported in accessing employment and training to help to reduce the risks of child poverty, including through the provision of flexible, accessible and affordable childcare. A number of comments were made about the current extent of provision in the UK. My data say that we have over 3,000 children centres in England and are on target for 3,500 next year. I have visited some as well—I do not remember how many we have in Luton, but about three of them. There is a robust plan to have a couple of dozen, maybe more, and these are fantastic facilities that are really making a difference to people’s lives. Seventeen per cent of primary schools and 79 per cent of secondary schools are already offering a core extended service for childcare and support. On contracted-out provision, our contract specifications will make clear that decisions on the type of support and work experience undertaken must be taken in consultation with the client and not in spite of them. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, talked about the balance of power in the relationships. We want the Gregg vision of co-ownership, and directions backed up by sanctions are for hard cases. All the evidence we have shows that they are necessary. However, I can guarantee that there will be no conditionality where there is no childcare acceptable to the parent. On the quantity of provision available, for August 2008, taking into account turnover, over 664,000 new Ofsted-registered childcare places, net, have been created since 1997. At that date, the stock of registered childcare stood at over 1.3 million places—more than double the 1997 level. Registered places are being delivered by 89,000 childcare providers, including around 64,000 child-minders. In 1997, there was a registered childcare place for one in eight children under eight, whereas now there is a registered place for one in four. There are 12,000 out-of-school clubs. There is extensive provision—