Minister defends fines for single mothers who fail to prepare for work » Bill Payments » 24dash.com

Welfare Reform Minister Jim Knight has defended plans to fine jobless single parents with pre-school age children if they do not prepare for work while receiving benefits.

Mr Knight said it was "reasonable" to expect the parents to take up free education and training while their three and four-year-olds were in Government-provided childcare or reception classes at school - and right to hit them with financial penalties for not doing so.

He was seeking to overturn a Lords amendment to the Welfare Reform Bill, which would see the fines applied only to lone parents whose youngest child is aged five or over.

Shadow work and pensions minister James Clappison said this would still give parents two years of "work-related activity" before they were forced to find work - which happens when the youngest child turns seven.

But Mr Knight told MPs: "We still believe that starting this process when a lone parent's youngest child is aged three is right.

"This is not only because there is normally a strong foundation of childcare provision available for children in this age range but also because it will allow them to gradually build their competence and skills at a pace that suits them over a four-year period rather than being expected to cram the work-related activity they need to undertake when their youngest child is aged five and six."

He said 76% of non-working lone parents were using free childcare for three and four-year-olds and most schools started reception classes at age four.

"Surely it is reasonable to ask those parents to use a fraction of that time to start to get them ready for work," Mr Knight added.

Mr Knight said safeguards had been added to the Bill to ensure it was convenient for parents to take up work-related activity that would improve their numeracy and literacy.

Availability of childcare, health conditions and a child's well-being would now all be considered good reasons why parents might not be able to fulfil the new conditions.

Parents with children younger than three would not be required to prepare for work, while those with children younger than one would not be subjected to so-called "work-focused interviews".

The system of financial penalties had also been watered down so that parents would not face fines until they had broken the rules four times, Mr Knight told MPs.

And in response to concerns from both Houses, Mr Knight offered a further concession that the proposals would be piloted first and that Parliament would have another chance to debate the regulations before they were rolled out nationwide.

"I hope that the House will now agree that the package of amendments we have introduced mean parents, and particularly lone parents, have the flexibility to balance the activities they will be required to undertake with their unique family circumstances," he said.

The Government believes requiring parents to prepare for work would help lift them out of poverty.

Mr Clappison said the Tories broadly agreed with the objectives of the Bill, which also brings in sweeping changes to impose a tougher regime on unemployed claimants, requiring them to work for their Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) and the use of private sector providers to help people back into jobs.

He agreed it was right that lone parents should prepare for work but said this should not happen until their youngest child was aged five - as proposed in the amendment from Lord Freud who resigned as a Government adviser on welfare to become a frontbench Tory peer.

But he expressed concern at the number of safeguards introduced by the Government, saying they suggested there was something wrong with the measures themselves.

"There still remains the possibility that lone parents with pre-school age children - children of three and four years of age - could face financial sanctions as a result of failing to comply with the regime that is being put in place," he said.

"One wonders why is the Government so stuck on this provision? Why is it so obstinate in its refusal to consider the issues that are at stake?"

Labour backbencher Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) said children would suffer if fines were imposed on parents.

And Liberal Democrat spokesman Steve Webb asked: "Is it the Government's view that lone parents with three or four-year-old children are simply too stupid to see the good that this engagement does for them, that they need to be threatened to take it up?

"If it was all so good and so positive for them, why would they not take it up anyway? Why do we need a threat to make them do so."

Mr Clappison said the Government needed to set out a "better case" against Lord Freud's amendment.

"We remain concerned about this matter, we think the House of Lords were right in this and nothing we've heard so far from the benches opposite has dissuaded us of that view."

Labour's John Grogan (Selby) said the Government's plans were "mean-spirited, cold, austere and technocratic".

He expressed surprise that Labour ministers were adopting a "more hardline" position than both Lord Freud and the Tories.

"There are all these safeguards but at the end of the day, what may happen in a few months' time ... is there will be vulnerable single parent at one end of the table and at the other end of the table there will be an official.

"And that vulnerable single parent will have to justify their actions."

Mr Grogan asked ministers "in the spirit of Christmas" to drop their opposition to the Lords amendment.

For Liberal Democrats, Steve Webb said he had "real concerns" over the plans as the sanctions revealed that the "State knows best".

He warned that such sanctions could be counter-productive as lone parents would believe they were only in work "under duress".

The Government was not encouraging people to seek work but "blackmailing and forcing" them.

He said the safeguards were "extremely messy" and lone parents with young children already had a lot to worry about.

"By all means, let's contact them, let's support them, let's give them options, let's make them as attractive as possible and then I envisage many will take them up...

"But if a lone mother decides (not working) is in the best interests of herself, her children and her family, she should have the right to do so."

Labour's Diane Abbott (Hackney N) said many Labour members would be "shocked" at the hardline stance of the Government.

Most single mothers wanted to get back to work, she said, but they should have the right to decide when they did so.

Finding childcare was "not that easy", she said.

"Speaking as someone who was a single mother, albeit a well-paid single mother, there are some children who skip happily to nursery at the age of three and never look back.

"There are some children that don't like nursery, there are some that are sick every minute...

"Only the mother is best judged as to whether she can leave that three-year-old and go out to work."

Labour's Lynne Jones (Birmingham Selly Oak) spoke out against the Government's plans.

"There is an agenda out there that you have got to be tough. And I just do not accept this idea of tough love.

"I think we need positive encouragement and incentives for people to live a more fulfilled life that they can often experience by going out to work."

Mr Knight accused the Tories of attempting to "play politics rather than be serious" on the issue.

Addressing concerns of Labour members he said: "The principle here around family-friendly working is that we believe work is the best route out of poverty but, first and foremost, those parents have a responsibility for their children and any requirement that we put upon them has to ... bear in mind the needs of their children and their needs as parents.

"I hope that it never comes to using any of these sanctions at all but having them in place helps to focus the system."

MPs overturned the Lords amendment by 286 to 236, Government majority 50.

Mr Knight later told MPs the Government would re-name Council Tax Benefit, calling it Council Tax Rebate instead in a bid to encourage greater take-up. Many older people reportedly do not claim because of what some see as the stigma associated with claiming a benefit.

Mr Knight said: "This re-naming is something we believe is right to do...it is an important measure which will enable the Government to continue...to help pensioners receive the help we have put in place and to which they are entitled to."

The change was welcomed by Tories and Liberal Democrats.