Welfare Reform Bill

Yes; I was referring to jobseeker’s allowance and income support. For people who are in the JSA full conditionality regime, there is an exclusion for lone parents who are in receipt of carer’s allowance—so the allowance attaches to the lone parent—or who have a child in receipt of the middle-rate or highest-rate care component of DLA. I understand that the carer’s premium is only for middle-rate or higher-rate DLA; so they would be protected. Parents with children in receipt of the lower-rate care component of DLA were not exempt because we considered that such a child, by definition, would not require the amount of care that precluded the parent from undertaking paid work, in the case of those parents on jobseeker’s allowance and, therefore, should not preclude parents with younger children, in the same circumstance, from undertaking work-related activity. It is certain that we will mirror these exemptions, but we need to continue to engage with stakeholders to consider the full range of customers with special needs. The full exemption provisions would then be prescribed in regulations. As was mentioned several times, we will ensure that safeguards are in place whereby claimants are not put in a situation where they are being asked to comply with a requirement that is unreasonable or inappropriate to their individual circumstances. This is especially important when they have a disabled child. In all cases, we would ensure that the activities they agreed to were discussed and considered in depth, so that the action plan was suitably tailored to the needs not of only the parent, but the disabled child. Again, I assure noble Lords that it is not our intention to penalise parents, but to give them the opportunity to undertake activities that would help to improve not only their future prospects, but those of children in their households. I should say that lone parents with children on the lower rate of DLA at present have to attend work-focused interviews. I shall deal with some issues around the safeguards that will be in place for parents undertaking work-related activity. As we discussed earlier, we proposed to adapt the flexibilities introduced into jobseeker’s allowance when in 2008 the entitlement conditions for income support for lone parents changed for those within the progression-to-work group. Therefore, we would expect the same flexibility for parents who could not find suitable childcare and are required to undertake work-related activities to be available to parents who are required to actively seek and be available for work. This would also include: allowing parents to refuse or leave work-related activity because there is no appropriate childcare available; allowing parents to be deemed as undertaking work-related activity for a maximum of eight weeks a year when a bereavement or domestic emergency has occurred; deeming parents as being treated as undertaking work-related activity if a child has been excluded from school and the action plan cannot be adapted to take this into account; deeming parents as being treated as undertaking work-related activity if no activity can be found in the area; counting activities within a parenting contract towards work-related activity; taking into account a parent’s travel time to an activity, including time required to drop off and pick up their children from school or childcare; and making at least one attempt to contact the parent by telephone and sending them a letter on the day to advise them of the need urgently to contact their adviser within five working days, otherwise benefit sanctions may be applied. Perhaps I may mention other groups that we are planning to exempt from work-related activity, such as those on the middle and higher-rate components of disability living allowance and those entitled to the carer’s allowance and parents who are fostering. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, raised an interesting question about the propensity for appeals to be upheld and what that might mean. I think that we are right to reflect on that point as we need to understand the thrust of the issue that she is pursuing. Voluntary activity can be accepted as an activity on the action plan. It would then become a requirement, but that could be renegotiated if need be.