Welfare Reform Bill

As I said earlier, children at the age of 14 are due to be in school for 30 hours a week, and a parent can restrict their availability to 16 hours a week. Therefore, routinely, there would not seem to be an issue; they would not necessarily be dependent on childcare outside of school. In any event, that issue would be part of the reasonableness decision if a parent continued to maintain that the provision that was there was not suitable because it was not, in practice, suitable for the particular child. On the earlier issue on the age that children can be left at home, the law is not clear because it does not state an age when children can be left alone but parents can be prosecuted for wilful neglect if they leave a child unsupervised in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to health. That is in the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. I hope that that has dealt with the queries from noble Lords.