Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, with regard to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, on how we could take it slightly easier, I regret that I cannot apply it to myself because my children have gone way past that age, although they do not seem to be any less stressful. Our policies for lone parents are based on the key principle that work is the surest and most sustainable route out of poverty. In June last year we announced our intention to align the age at which lone parents could reasonably be expected to work with the time their youngest child enters school. Current legislation, yet to come into force, provides that income support must be made available to lone parents with a child under the age of seven. This clause lowers that age to five so that lone parents with children aged five or over will no longer be entitled to income support solely on grounds of lone parenthood. We would effect this change through regulations, and implement it drawing largely on the experience of having progressively lowered the age from 16. Support for these lone parents will be available through jobseeker’s allowance or employment and support allowance if they meet the relevant conditions of entitlement, or through income support if they qualify on grounds other than lone parenthood, most notably if they are carers. We want to encourage lone parents to enter work but not at the expense of the crucial role they play as parents. We intend to carry forward the current safeguard that allows those with children aged 12 or under to restrict their availability for work to school hours. It is worth reminding noble Lords of the powerful impact that this policy has. When the age was brought down to 12, 16 per cent of lone parents leaving income support went straight into work and 56 per cent went on to JSA, many of whom will have subsequently gone in to work. We estimate that bringing the age down to five could lead to an extra 20,000 to 25,000 lone parents in work. Children in workless lone parent households are almost three times more likely to be in relative poverty than those where the lone parent works part-time, and five times more likely to be living in relative poverty than children of lone parents working full-time. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked about flexible work. The Government are keen to promote flexible working and have a strong commitment to greater family-friendly working practices. We have committed in the coalition agreement to consult on extending the right to request flexible working to all employees. The public consultation process ended recently and we intend to respond to the comments by the end of the year. We understand that stimulating real culture change to make flexible working practices the norm across the whole labour market requires more than just regulatory change on the right to request. There also needs to be help for employers to operate in a more flexible way and demonstration of the benefits it can bring to them and their employees. The Government have a role in leading culture change. This is why we are working with business leaders and employers to promote the business case for flexible working and ensure that employers know where to go to find support to implement practices in their organisation. This clause also amends Section 8 of the Welfare Reform Act 2009, which relates to the possibility of requiring work-related activity from certain lone parents with children aged under seven. Section 8 as it stands would require regulations in this respect to be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. This clause lowers that age from seven to five, in alignment with the lowering of the age for withdrawal of income support on grounds of lone parenthood alone. The key question asked by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, was whether it is right to make this change now rather than waiting for the introduction of universal credit. Introducing this change before introducing universal credit will help more lone parents into work, with knock-on reductions on child poverty. A recent evaluation of lone parents’ experiences of moving into work also found that working had had a number of positive effects on their children, both direct and indirect. These range from children having the opportunity to go on school trips because of extra family income to observing the good example of a working parent and greater independence, both financially for the parent, once in work, and for the child, in terms of their role in the household. Help with childcare costs is currently available through tax credits and the flexibilities in JSA mean that childcare responsibilities are taken into account. There are a range of flexibilities available: lone parents with a child aged under 13 can restrict their job search and availability to their child's school hours, while lone parents will not be sanctioned for failing to meet requirements if they had good reason for the failure. Access to appropriate childcare will be taken into account before a decision is made. On the state of the economy, we have to bear in mind that even in difficult times—which I accept that we are in—Jobcentre Plus holds an average of 275,000 unfilled vacancies at any one time, around a quarter of which are part-time opportunities. Clearly those figures are a snapshot which hides the number of new job opportunities that come up all the time. On average, about 10,000 new vacancies are reported to Jobcentre Plus alone every working day, while many more come up through other recruitment channels. It is not worth getting into a huge debate about the meaning of these figures but, as noble Lords understand, much of our approach to the work programme is aimed at trying to help the people who have not managed to get a job reasonably early back into the market. As the numbers of unemployed get bigger, one factor we are looking at is the average length of time that people are unemployed. As I say, there are flows all the time and many lone parents have excellent opportunities to find a job. Even in difficult times, there are still jobs going. On that basis, I commend Clause 57 to the Committee.