Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, for introducing this amendment. As noble Lords will be aware, "work for your benefit" is a programme for jobseekers who reach the end of the Flexible New Deal, usually after two years of claiming JSA. The programme is designed to fit within the overall jobseeker’s regime, and will consist of individually tailored work experience placements backed up with additional job search employment support. That will ensure that those long-term jobseekers, who may have little or no recent experience of a working environment, can gather skills and experience of real value to them and to potential employers. We are tabling an amendment, which will come later, to ensure that where a jobseeker is a lone parent, their child must be over seven before they can be eligible for "work for your benefit". That is because it applies only to those who are subject to full jobseeking conditions. Amendment 2 aims to ensure that those jobseekers to whom this clause applies could be required to participate in a "work for your benefit" programme only where there is a guaranteed and predicable source of high-quality, flexible and affordable childcare available to them that they and their child find acceptable. I am supportive of the thinking behind this amendment and I have no disagreement in principle with the eloquent arguments that the noble Lord has put forward, but I hope that I can reassure your Lordships that the amendment is unnecessary. Many of the parents who will be required to participate in "work for your benefit" pilots will need childcare in order to do so. Like all parents, they will need assurances that their children will be cared for in a safe and secure environment. Some will prefer to use friends or family to provide that care. This is the option chosen by many working parents. Others may choose formal sources of care. It is important to understand some of the background of the jobseekers regime in order to put this amendment in context. Parents claiming JSA are able to agree restrictions of their availability for work where their caring commitments make this necessary. It is possible, for example, to restrict availability for work to as little as 16 hours a week. Jobseekers will be able to carry those restrictions forward into the "work for your benefit" programme, so that they may, for example, need to take part only for 16 hours a week. In the majority of cases where such restrictions apply, parents will be able to fulfil their obligations within the hours that their children are at school. If this is not possible and formal childcare is needed, affordability should not be an issue. Suppliers contracted to deliver "work for your benefit" programmes will be responsible for funding childcare for customers’ children where a need for childcare is identified. This will ensure that childcare is affordable and that participants are not worse off. The amendment requires a guarantee that childcare will be available. There can be no absolute guarantee that a parent will be able to access precisely the childcare that they want at the precise point they want it. Judgments about predictability and quality are also almost impossible to make. The effect of the amendment, therefore, would be to wreck the clause in respect of jobseekers with children, although I know that that is not its intent. Therefore, the Government propose to deal with this issue in the same way as for other provisions that have increased the obligations that we have placed on parents. We will use regulations to ensure that JSA claimants who are parents, including lone parents, will not be sanctioned if they fail to participate in "work for your benefit" because they cannot secure appropriate childcare. This arrangement is currently working in Jobcentre Plus and there is no reason to believe that it will not work for "work for your benefit". We are cognisant of the fact that many parents will be unable to participate in "work for your benefit" schemes if suitable childcare is not available to them. We will therefore ensure that appropriate safeguards are put in place. Amendment 3 would require 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"." In other words, the amendment would require that the childcare was provided via the employer, although I am not sure that that was the intent. I should make it quite clear that it is for parents to choose the childcare that they feel is appropriate for their child. We do not seek to influence that decision. Our broader childcare strategy is based on the principle of giving parents as wide a choice of provision as possible. In a small proportion of cases childcare is available via 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. And, of course, this will be underpinned by the safeguards that I have just outlined. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, was talking particularly about concerns in Scotland and I acknowledge that it is quite right to look at the comparison between childcare in England and childcare in Scotland. In England, over £25 billion has been invested in childcare and early years since 1997. He made reference to children’s centres. At the moment there are already over 3,000 in place, which is ahead of target for extended schools. The Childcare Act has been in effect since 2008, but it does not apply in Scotland and it has not been possible for us to ascertain how much the Scottish Government have spent on childcare since 1997. I understand that the Scottish Government have no plans to introduce children’s centres, no plans to introduce extended schools and no plans for graduate leaders. The noble Lord referred to the Scottish Government’s publication The Early Years Framework. I understand that one of the key objectives included is ensuring that parents are supported to access employment and training to reduce the risk of child poverty, including through the provision of flexible, accessible and affordable childcare. That is all to the good, but I understand that no new initiatives and no new money have been made available. It may help the noble Lord if I say that we are not proposing to pilot "work for your benefit" schemes in Scotland, so there is a bit of time for Scotland to catch up in terms of childcare provisions. So far as problems with parents in school holidays are concerned, we will allow parents to flex the hours that they do to just term time if that is necessary. Let me be clear that conditionality in this Bill depends on the existence of the means to comply. For example, where there is no childcare, there is no right for Jobcentre Plus to require activity for a lone parent that would require childcare to be available. I hope that that has been sufficient to give assurances to the noble Lord on the very real issue that he raised and that he will feel able not to press the amendment.