Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, the intention behind these amendments is a laudable one—to provide an incentive for parents to attend parenting courses. We recognise that parents are the single biggest influence on a child’s healthy development and we want to do more to support them. The Department for Education is developing a trial that will offer vouchers for high-quality parenting classes to mothers and fathers of children up to five years old. I know that parents can find parenting classes to be life-changing by helping them improve communication with their children and encouraging good behaviour. Parents should have the opportunity to attend good-quality parenting classes as and when they want to, not be told to attend them if they wish to receive extra benefit or be exempted from work-related requirements. Amendment 31B would provide a financial incentive to attend parenting classes and would, I suggest, send the wrong message to parents who are already doing a good job. It would also increase the overall cost, much of which would be for parents who did not require parenting classes at all. There are also a number of difficulties with Amendment 51E. It would be complex for my department to judge whether a claimant did understand or was committed to learning about the needs of the child they were caring for when determining the claimant’s work-related requirements. Perhaps most importantly, accepting this amendment could lead to more parents with young children being subject to inappropriate requirements, at least until they could demonstrate their understanding of, or willingness to learn about, their child’s care needs. Despite the very best intentions, this could well be detrimental to the child. I think everyone in this Room today agrees that good parenting is important for the future of our children. We value the long, consistent series of contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne; he has set himself up as the absolute guardian in this area, and I am always willing to talk to him about how we can push this agenda further. However, for the reasons I have explained, the Government cannot support these particular approaches and use universal credit and welfare reform in this way. I urge the noble Lord not to press these proposals and amendments.