The noble Baroness mentioned earlier in her speech something that made me shudder: the very serious situation in which a lone
parent voluntarily leaves her work and therefore has sanctions applied to her. That might make sense for a young single man with no other responsibilities who has not been engaged in work and so on, but not for a lone parent. When a lone parent says that she left her job because her child was X, Y and Z, how does the Minister expect a 22 year-old man in a jobcentre to know whether that did or did not require, and was appropriate for, a sanction? It seems to me that these are different planets. I am baffled that the noble Baroness thinks that such highly sensitive issues, with every child being different in their needs, can be judged by a box-ticking mentality in Jobcentre Plus.