Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 9 and 11, which seek to amend Amendments 8 and 10 respectively. These are probing amendments. I have tabled them to raise a very real question, as I see it. I welcome and support all the amendments that the noble Lord has tabled in relation to lone parents. I by no means ignore the very real problems that lone parents have and I support what the Government are doing. However, significant problems and injustices may arise as a result of prioritising lone parents in the way proposed. The Minister referred to shared parenting. I am not convinced that it is reasonable to assume that, because two people are living together as a couple, the second partner will be available to stand in for the other parent when they are called to the jobcentre. Is it reasonable to assume that a partner will be available, able to and qualified to take up childcare to suit the jobcentre, especially when substantial travel time may be involved? Is it not possible that sometimes the partner will be a totally inappropriate person? He might be an alcoholic, violent or aggressive. Being one of a couple does not necessarily guarantee that attending interviews or work-related activities will be any easier. Couple parents may also have problems; conversely, single parents who have good childcare facilities would be just as well off with their child being looked after in childcare as they would be by having them looked after by a partner. I raise this issue not only because I believe that the concerns of couple parents should be drawn to the attention of the House, but because there are problems. Penalising couple parents, which is what this will be seen as, creates a perverse incentive. It will discourage unmarried couples from making a home together for their child. Children need the security of family life, with two committed parents wherever possible. We already have a tax and benefit system that, for some parents, costs them 20 per cent more to live together than to live apart. The disadvantage that is implicit in the noble Lord’s amendments will tend to encourage one of the worst and most dangerous family structures for children—a home where the mother lives with short-term, often-changing male partners. The amendments that the Government and others have introduced to protect children of lone parents are excellent, but they should be extended to cover couple parents as well. If the Government say that this is a step too far and will cost too much, I would say that the availability of childcare should be the criterion. If childcare is available to the partner couple from the partner, or if childcare is available from any other source, that is fine. Those people should not be excluded from the obligations to attend the jobcentre. Where childcare from the partner or outside is not available, the exclusions in my amendments should be appropriate. I beg to move.