Welfare Reform Bill

I thank my noble friend Lady Hollis for the amendment and for her express support for the policy thrust of the Bill. I say with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, that he has conflated issues in this amendment with the amendment that is to follow. I think that the thrust of this amendment is that there should be a work-related component available for those undertaking work-related activity. It is the next amendment which looks at a level of disregard, which my noble friend’s amendment seeks to increase. We need to unpick those things. I note also that my noble friend’s amendment has the support of the noble Countess, Lady Mar, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas. While the amendment has wider connotations, it is clearly directed at our intention, under Clause 2, to require lone parents and partners of benefit recipients to undertake work-related activity as part of the conditions for full benefit entitlement. We know that the vast majority of those on benefits aspire to work at some point and that paid work is good for them and their children in nearly every circumstance. To help more parents meet their aspirations and do more to eradicate child poverty, we have continued to invest heavily in evidence-based policy measures during the past 10 years. The changes that we are discussing today are a further step forward along that path. This is all positive. However, as we have taken forward evidence-based policies, we have learnt that there is more we need to do. We have learnt from the current conditionality and support regime that we have in place that there is still a very significant disparity between the numbers who would like to move into paid work and those who actually take steps toward achieving this. We therefore want those parents in the progression-to-work group to undertake appropriate and personalised requirements as part of the condition of their benefit entitlement. Here, I need to part company with my noble friend, because the thrust of the provisions in the Bill is focused on personalised support, the aspiration being that their level of support should be driven not be what benefit a person is on but by the help that they need in meeting those barriers to work. To deliver this, we will ask claimants to agree with an adviser the steps that they are willing to take to make progress towards a return to work at the appropriate time for them. To help them achieve this, we shall provide a system of highly flexible and personalised support from the outset. The model of conditionality and support that we want to test is based on an expectation that they will undertake these agreed activities as part of their journey towards employment. Without this, many parents who can move towards the labour market will not take up the assistance that is available so that they can start to move closer to the labour market and be better placed to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. In addition, we will ensure that we adopt a very broad definition of work-related activity that encompasses more traditional training, skills and job-related support, and wider, socially inclusive measures such as volunteering, undertaking parenting programmes or consulting a debt adviser. We therefore want to test this approach on lone parents and partners with a youngest child aged three to six by introducing pathfinders in 2010, as we have discussed in earlier Committee sittings. We do not believe that it is right to look at a single component of a particular benefit and compare it with another where the structure and client group are radically different. That is why we have decided, notwithstanding that the quotes that my noble friend read out, not to mirror the employment and support allowance provisions in the progression-to-work pathfinders. We acknowledge the extra difficulties and costs which lone parents face because of the caring responsibilities for their children. That is why they receive child tax credits and assistance with childcare payments. The extra expenses which occur when a lone parent on income support undertakes work-related activity are mainly for childcare and travel. That is why Jobcentre Plus will reimburse childcare costs and travel expenses, including those relating to travel to the childcare facility. Lone parents with a health condition can, of course, claim employment and support allowance and, if they do, they may qualify for the work-related component. I appreciate that linking the requirements to undertake work-related activity with the payment with a specific additional premium can seem attractive but I think the noble Baroness will recognise that it is only reasonable in the context of the support provided as a whole. On that basis, I ask my noble friend not to press her amendment.