SUPPLEMENTARY BENEFIT (AMENDMENT) BILL

HC Deb 24 June 1976 vol 913 cc1941-94

Order for Second Reading read.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine)

It may be helpful if, at Mr. Speaker's request, I inform the House at this stage that the scope of the Bill is narrow. It is limited to amending the extent to which earnings and other allowances are to be disregarded in the calculation of entitlement to supplementary benefit.

The Bill does not cover the provision of child benefits, and debate on the child benefit scheme itself, or alternative schemes for child and children's allowances, would not be in order. The House will in any case now be aware that an early opportunity will arise for a separate discussion of this matter.

9.5 p.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Mr. Stanley Orme)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The Bill is simple. It has two objects. The first is to increase the amount that a single parent may earn without affecting the amount of his or her supplementary benefit.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe)

I should like to know whether it will be possible for the Minister, in presenting his Bill, to find a solitary Labour Back Bencher who will come into the Chamber and provide some signs of interest from the Government Benches in respect of this Bill, which affects one-parent families.

Mr. Orme

That is a somewhat facetious comment. The three hon. Gentlemen sitting behind the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) may seem many when there is nobody sitting behind me. However, I should have thought that those in glasshouses should not throw stones, as I do not think that the Opposition may include the Members of the Liberal Party in the their total.

The present position is that single parents, like most other people receiving supplementary benefit, may earn up to £4 a week without any reduction in their benefit. Those who are required to register for work—that is, broadly speak- ing, the unemployed—may have up to £2 of earnings disregarded.

In a two-parent family on supplementary benefit the mother may earn up to £4 and the father—assuming that he is unemployed and signing on for work—may earn £2, making a total of £6 without the family's benefit being affected. A one-parent family is therefore somewhat at a disadvantage because, as there is only one wage earner, she or he cannot at present have more than £4 disregarded. I should remind the House, however, that anything his or her children earn is disregarded entirely. This was the result of an amendment that we introduced in the Social Security Benefits Act 1975. Previously, only £1 of any child's earnings had been disregarded.

But I think that there are other reasons for allowing a higher disregard for single parents. As the Finer Report said, the disregard: helps parents who can do the occasional or small job while spending most of their time looking after their family, and may thereby obtain some personal satisfaction and increase social contacts as well as extra income. Having a small part-time job, apart from the importance of the income, may help to relieve the loneliness and isolation that many single parents feel. It will also help them to keep in touch with the employment field and so make it easier for them to get back into full-time work when the children are older and do not need so much of the mother's or father's time.

The purpose of the supplementary benefit scheme is to bring a person's income up to a guaranteed minimum level. In principle, any income a person already has should be taken into account. National insurance and industrial injuries benefits are, for example, mostly taken into account in full. If any resources are disregarded this means that the person in question enjoys a higher income than other people receiving supplementary benefit. It would therefore be unfair to increase the disregards for any one group disproportionately.

We also have to consider the cost. About 36,000 single parents are taking advantage of the present disregard. That is the number who are known to have any earnings—though there may of course be more who, from time to time, earn amounts not exceeding £4, which they are not required to report.

We estimate that the cost will be about £1¼ million in a full year for the 15,000 single parents on supplementary benefit who are already earning more than £4. There will probably also be some further additional expenditure, because some single parents whose income, including part-time earnings, at present puts them above the supplementary benefit level, may be able to claim up to £2 of benefit on account of the higher disregard. Our hope is that the increase in the disregard will make it seem worth while for many more single parents to undertake part-time work. This will not cost any more in benefit payments.

I come to the second part of the Bill, which provides for the discontinuance of certain small disregards attached to the children's portion of widows' pensions and allowances. The pensions and allowances involved are national insurance widowed mothers' allowance, industrial death benefit and war widows' and similar pensions. I must make it clear how the disregards originally found a place in the scheme. Although this is a small amendment it is important to the many people who receive it and I ought, therefore, to go into a little detail to explain the thinking behind the Government's policy.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin (Wanstead and Woodford)

The Minister need not make any apology for spending some time in explaining why any benefit is being withdrawn, however small. The Government owe it to those concerned to explain clearly what is being done and why.

Mr. Orme

I hope to show that this withdrawal of benefit will not be disadvantageous. These disregards found a place in the scheme in the following way: in 1964, before the supplementary benefit scheme started, an increase was made in the children's allowances attached to the widows' pension at a time when no other benefit changes were taking place. To ensure that those widows who received national insurance benefits would benefit from that increase, it was decided that the amount of the increase—7s. 6d. for each of the first two children, and 5s. 6d. for each subsequent child—should be dis- regarded in calculating national assistance.

These unique disregards have continued since. They have never been increased, but on decimalisation they became 38p for each of the first two children and 28p for each subsequent child. However defensible the introduction of these disregards was, they would have remained anomalies since the general principle is that the main national insurance benefits, including the additions for dependent children, should be taken into account in full when assessing what supplementation is necessary. To do otherwise is to provide twice over from public funds for the same purpose.

When the supplementary benefit scheme was introduced in 1966 it was felt to be too soon to abolish these disregards, which had so recently been introduced. They were therefore allowed to remain. Now, however, and in conjunction with this measure to increase the earnings disregard, which can be of potential benefit to all one-parent families, we think the time has come to stop awarding them to new claimants. I strongly emphasise that existing claimants who already have the benefit of these disregards will not lose them.

The Bill is so constructed that provision for the disregards remains on the statute book for all those who have what are to be known as "preserved 1976 rights." All those claimants who now have the disregards will continue to receive them for as long as they continue to receive supplementary benefit in conjunction with the widows' benefit or other benefit involved. If, as sometimes happens, entitlement to supplementary benefit ceases because the widow enters hospital, that gap in entitlement will not affect her preserved rights; neither will other gaps in entitlement due, for example, to spells of employment if they are not longer than three months.

The existence of these preserved rights will mean that it will take a good many years for the disregards to work fully out of the system. Until they do, the Exchequer will not benefit by the full amount that is expected to be saved eventually. But we accept that it is right to protect the interests of existing claimants in this way.

By ceasing to apply the disregards to new claimants we shall be making a small but useful contribution to the simplification of the supplementary benefit scheme, which we all want to see. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House will agree that the scheme is already far too complicated. It is difficult for claimants to understand all that they are entitled to, and this presents tremendous problems to the staff, who do their best to ensure that everyone gets his fair entitlement. I hope that the House will agree to the removal of this out-dated anomaly.

The Bill will bring an immediate benefit to about 15,000 single persons receiving supplementary benefits who are already earning more than £4 a week, and potential benefits to many more, since it will make it more worth while for them to undertake employment.

I commend this modest Bill to the House as a worthwhile step forward in our efforts to help one-parent families, while at the same time by phasing out the disregards on widow's benefits we start to rectify the long-standing anomaly in the supplementary benefit scheme.

9.17 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe)

I welcome the Minister of State to the Dispatch Box in his first appearance on the Treasury Bench in his new role. We welcome him to the discussions on social policy. He has made a considerable contribution to Northern Ireland policy, and we await the advances he can bring to this Government's social activities. It is a pity that the Labour Party is not able to support him on his first appearance. Only his ministerial colleagues and his PPS are present to hear him tonight. It is extraordinary that the Labour Party in the House tonight is outnumbered not only by the Conservatives but by the Liberals, the Welsh Nationals, and the Social Democratic and Labour Party who have all succeeded in having Members present while the entire Labour Party seems to be otherwise engaged.

The official Opposition will in no way oppose or obstruct this legislation, but the Minister will not be surprised to hear that we give it only fairly faint praise. It is a small Bill with a very narrow and limited compass indeed. This is becoming fairly familiar in the realms of social policy, because the Government have so mismanaged the economy, and are so suffering from the consequences of the social contract, that they are unable to contemplate financing any major advances in the social field.

This Bill is something of a sop to single-parent families. It is an attempt to console them for the fact that there will be no significant advance in Government help to the poorest single-parent families in this country.

The Bill, with its small but worthwhile changes, is simply a means of diverting attention from the collapse in the Government's policy of family support, and their failure to do anything effective for one-parent families. This is the general style of government in this field at the moment. We have become accustomed to Government legislation being small diversionary measures brought forward in the hope that no one will notice that they are unable to produce anything more substantial.

There was a rather ridiculous attempt to make this a more dramatic diversion by picking a quarrel with the Opposition over where the debate should take place. A member of the Government issued a statement to the effect that we were not allowing the Bill to be taken upstairs. At one stage, we contemplated agreeing to its being taken upstairs, but that was before the dispute in this House arising from another matter. Of course in the situation which then existed in the House it was unreasonable to expect the Opposition to make way on the Floor of the House for other undesirable and controversial legislation while enabling this Bill to be taken upstairs. In any event the question of one-parent families is important enough to be debated on the Floor of the House.

Mr. Orme

I will not enter into that argument because there is a very good retort from our side of the House to it. When the hon. Gentleman criticises the Bill as being small and says that the Labour Government ought to be doing more about the problem he should bear in mind that the first disregard was £2 in 1964, which increased to £4 in 1975 and is now being increased to £6. Will he tell us what his Administration did between 1970 and 1974?

Mr. Clarke

I could give a long discourse on what we did including setting up the Finer Committee which is where the Bill originates. I am not surprised that the Minister of State does not enter into the point I was making about the Government's attack on us for not agreeing that the Bill should be taken upstairs. There is a joint statement from the National Council for One-Parent Families, Gingerbread and the Child Poverty Action Group which condemned the Government's attempt to create an unnecessary parliamentary fuss about the Bill. They said that they deplored the Government's crude attempts to pick a fight with the Opposition in a feeble attempt to divert attention for its failure to introduce a one-parent family allowance and its U-turn on Child Benefit. The three groups are writing to the Secretary of State for Social Services and the Opposition spokesman asking for the Bill to be taken on the floor of the House. They point out the advantages of a full debate on the Government's record for one-parent families before the 2nd anniversary of the Finer Report's publication on 2nd July 1976". However, we must not be diverted from the worthwhile part of the Bill by the fact that it was all that the Government could produce since they lack the ability in present circumstances to produce anything more. We go back to the Finer Report, published in July 1974. That report was initiated by the Conservative Government and it was presented and published when the Labour Administration had taken office. The Bill corresponds to recommendation 121 and it has taken two years for the Government to produce the Bill.

Mr. Orme

The hon. Gentleman has a great reputation in my Department for being accurate on his facts. I respect his ability, but he should correct himself on one point. The Finer Committee was set up by Dick Crossman in 1969.

Mr. Clarke

I do correct that. The Committee was set up in 1969 but it took a great deal of time to report. The central recommendation of the report was a guaranteed maintenance allowance, which was rejected for different reasons by both sides of the House, but largely because neither side thought it wise to contemplate a new means-tested benefit for the support of single-parent families, and because it was an extremely expensive way of dealing with the matter which neither side thought it possible to implement.

However, help for the single-parent families had to be looked for amongst these recommendations and action had to be considered. We always preferred rapid development of the child benefit scheme, and had we been successful in urging the Government to introduce it in April 1976, the idea was that we could refine it by 1979 to include age-related benefits and a premium for single-parent families. The Government contemplate things and so they do nothing. They delayed the child benefit to April 1977 and then introduced for one-parent families the child interim benefit which has now become payable.

We regard that as unsatisfactory for many reasons outside the scope of this debate—related, for example, to the question of taxation on family income for single-parent families. One of our objections to the introduction of child interim benefit was that it did nothing for the very poorest one-parent families. It is not disregarded for supplementary benefit, so for the 280,000 single-parent families receiving supplementary benefit the child interim benefit actually produces no improvement. Of the 250,000 single-parent families, only the 15,000 in part-time work will get an increase in the disregard from £2 to £4 with effect from November 1975.

One of the earliest suggestions from this side of the House was that another way of helping the poorest families on supplementary benefit would be to do something about the level of disregard. We pressed for this policy. In October 1975, when we at last debated the Finer Report, the Secretary of State had nothing much to offer one-parent families and her only announcement was a hint that she was considering action of the kind now incorporated in the Bill by increasing the disregards for single-parent families. She has since announced the rate. This is the latest in a series of small announcements. It was made at that time because the Government were unable to announce anything more substantial.

The Bill will benefit only 15,000 single-parent families out of more than 250,000 currently receiving supplementary benefit. I know the Minister of State has shown that other people may be helped, but that will make only a tiny difference to this total.

The final irony in this rather pathetic story of how the Government have been scratching about offering the odd item to single-parent families is that the policy is being presented and debated against a background of the complete collapse of the Government's policy for family support in the far more important area of child benefits—which we are to debate on Monday. This latest sop will make a very limited impact and will divert no attention from the matters we are to consider next week.

Against that background, we look as sympathetically as possible at the provisions of the Bill. The process of giving a special disregard for one-parent families, as opposed to other supplementary benefit recipients, must be seen as a temporary expedient. It would be wrong for the Bill to become the first in a line of measures giving different levels of disregard for selected categories of beneficiaries.

That would lead to complications in the system which neither side of the House would wish to see. This is a temporary expedient but no more substantial advance in family support is being made. Something must be done to give extra encouragement to single-parent families with some part-time work.

When we have a proper system of family support, based presumably on a child benefit scheme, the distinctions in the level of disregard for one-parent families can be brought to an end and when the disregards are next raised for all beneficiaries the general level will presumably be brought into line with that for one-parent families. I trust that is acceptable to the Government and that they do not intend to have different levels of disregard for different categories of beneficiaries.

There is a problem about the cohabitation rule—a thorny subject in our social security legislation. It comes up again here, as it is bound to do in any special provision for single-parent families.

Clause 1(1)(c) of the Bill refers to the cohabitation rule as a necessary precondition for the higher level of disregard. This is inevitable. It would be wrong to have anything for single-parent families if they were not living as single parents, but it is another reason why this should be only a temporary expedient.

I trust that in the Bill's operation it will be the modified system of the co-habitation rule that will be applied in practice. The Government have recently made announcements about improvements in the application of that rule as regards individual claimants, but they have been held up by the lack of training of the staff. I hope that the Minister will be able to say whether any progress has been made in carrying out that necessary training so that the new method that will apply to the cohabitation rule will be brought into practice.

My other reservation about the Bill's provisions for dealing with one-parent families is that unfortunately they are not worth very much against the present economic background. That is inevitable as the Government cannot afford to make the provisions worth very much. Their economic mismanagement has deprived them of the resources to allow them to do so. As the right hon. Gentleman has said, disregards were fixed at £2 each week as long ago as November 1966. There was a long and sad gap between then and November 1975, when they were increased to £4. In the meantime, the value of disregards fell substantially. It became a pressing priority and policy to increase them.

The level of £6 does not represent any great advance on the £2 that was established in November 1966. That £2 would be worth about £5 now. The £4 which the Government introduced in November 1975, thanks to the accelerating rate of inflation in recent times, would now need to be about £4.30 to reproduce its original value. The £6 that is being offered to one-parent families is not greatly above the real value of disregards for supplementary benefit fixed as long ago as November 1966. That is the disappointing aspect of the improvement that is now being offered.

The question of later disregards for supplementary benefit is an important priority and policy. It should remain a priority among those on both sides of the House who are interested in trying to minimise the disincentive effect of means-tested supplementary benefits by having as adequate a level of supplementary benefit as possible. Those are my reservations and comments on the detailed provisions of the Bill as regards one-parent families.

The other feature of the Bill—namely, ceasing to disregard certain allowances for the children of widows—is a matter that needs to be gone into in a little more detail in Committee, although not in very great detail. Potentially it is quite important financially because according to the Government's explanation there will be a saving of £500,000 per annum to be set off against the £1.25 million spent on one-parent family disregards.

My first reaction is that it is welcome for the reasons given by the right hon. Gentleman. It is normally the case that national insurance benefits are not disregarded for supplementary benefit purposes. That is an anomaly that sooner or later has to be removed. The only aspect we want to examine is preserved rights for beneficiaries. I hope we shall hear that about 13,000 of them will have their position protected. My understanding is that if they are now having their benefits disregarded, they will continue to have only 1976 preserved rights until they cease to collect supplementary benefit altogether, or cease to collect it for a 13-week break or more. After such a break, they will never be able to have the children's addition to their widows' benefit disregarded. That means that the 13,000 will be steadily whittled down and that fewer people will have the disregard.

It follows that the £500,000 the Government are hoping to save will be very much an eventual saving. It could be years and years before the first £500,000 is saved in any one year. We shall want to ensure, although it seems to be right from the Minister's recommendations, that the position of the beneficiaries is being properly protected. We accept that the anomaly should be ended.

That concludes my remarks on the narrower aspects of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman probably feels that I have given the Bill faint praise, but I want there to be no mistake about our attitude. We welcome the fact that 15,000 single-parent families will now be able to keep £2 more of their earnings. We are glad of that, and we accept that there is that limited advance. For that reason we shall give the Bill a smooth and easy passage now that the Government have presented its Second Reading on the Floor of the House.

I have given plenty of reasons why we are not throwing our hats into the air or getting carried away with wild excitement about a major social advance. The Bill could not possibly merit any such description. It is rather typical of the Government in social policy generally and towards one-parent families in particular. The Government are reduced to dotting the i's and crossing the t's where the dots and the crosses are not there already, or adding footnotes to their social policy when at present they do not have a text.

All this illustrates that the Government's mismanagement of the economy has meant their complete collapse as regards a social policy, and apart from odd, tiny worthwhile crumbs of this kind, the poor, certainly poor one-parent families, will have to wait for a very dramatic improvement in the management of our economic and financial affairs before they can see any worthwhile advance and an end to their present difficulties.

9.37 p.m.

Mr. Gerard Fitt (Belfast, West)

It is rarely that a Member representing a Northern Ireland constituency can take part in a debate on a Bill as it applies to the United Kingdom. The concluding words of the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) have made my participation in the debate worth while. I listened to the whole of his speech to hear whether there was any possibility that had the Conservative Party been in power, Conservative Members could have improved on the Bill and brought in greater benefits for those affected by this legislation.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman on one matter. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State is a Member who was deeply involved in Northern Ireland until fairly recently. He has shown deep humanity and compassion in regard to the problems of Northern Ireland. I have never been in any doubt that when he was brought back into the main stream of British politics he would still be involved in attempts to defend those who could not defend themselves.

This Bill may not do everything that is wanted by hon. Members on the Government side of the House. However, given the economic circumstances and conditions with which this country is now confronted, at least it is an attempt to bring us one little step along the way to trying to provide for people who are not in a position to defend themselves—sone-parent families.

I listened to the hon. Member for Rushcliffe to see whether he would say that the Conservatives would do more than the present Government are doing. However, all that he did was to criticise what the Government are doing. His brief contained a mass of academic and technical information and figures, but at the end of his speech I had left in my mind the same question that was there before he rose to the Dispatch Box—what would a Conservative Government have done, had they been in power, for the category of people who come within the provisions of the Bill?

Northern Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom. I accept it as being so. I have been a Member of this House for almost 11 years, and in social security benefits and laws I have never seen the Conservative Party showing any humanity and compassion.

Mrs. Lynda Chalker (Wallasey)

The hon. Gentleman has been away too often.

Mr. Fitt

I have been a Member for 11 years—long before the hon. Lady ever became a Member. When right hon. and hon. Members of the present Government were in Opposition, I remember them trying to put forward motions and to introduce legislation to try to better the way of life of people who were in no position to defend themselves. That is why I am here tonight.

The hon. Member for Rishcliffe has criticised the Government. He has said: "The Government are wrong; the Government have not done this, or done that; the Government will not do something else, and should have done the other thing." But the Conservatives will come to the House on Monday or Tuesday next week and demand cuts in public expenditure. They will ask for cuts in everything. They will say "Throw people on the dole". I find it difficult to understand the schizophrenic attitude of the Opposition. Hon. Members on the Conservative Front Bench are always shouting for a cut in public expenditure. They should say that the Government should not introduce this legislation. If the hon. Gentleman were honest, he should say "Do away with the Bill. Do not introduce it. We are opposed to the Bill, because it will mean an increase in public expenditure."

Mr. Kenneth Clarke

The hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) will recall that I said that it is not possible for the Government to do more than is proposed in the Bill because of the social contract and their mismanagement of the economy. If he thinks that that makes my argument inconsistent he should compare what the Government are proposing to spend on one-parent families with the amount to be spent on nationalising the aircraft and shipbuilding industries. Our arguments on public expenditure are not attacks on social priorities.

Mr. Fitt

In 1973–74 the Conservative Government put forward a philosophy and policies that were totally rejected by the electorate in February and October 1974. If they had put forward compassionate social and economic policies they would have been supported by the United Kingdom electorate, but they failed abysmally.

The credibility of the Conservative Front Bench is not enhanced by their carping criticism of the Labour Government and particularly of the Labour Minister who is handling the Bill. Let the Conservatives stand up and say what they would do if they were in power. The people of the United Kingdom would then have a chance to decide. The Conservatives are attempting, in a rather bitchy way in Northern Ireland, to criticise that which everyone else is attempting to do, without putting forward any constructive alternative. That is why I support the Bill and why the majority of people will support it. They will look with contempt at the speech by the hon. Member for Rushcliffe.

9.44 p.m.

Mr. Peter Bottomley (Woolwich, West)

I am glad to be able to follow the speech by the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) because he may have missed something that my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) said. He gave a welcome to the Bill. It is the implemention of one of the Finer proposals—No. 121. Forty of the proposals out of over 200 are being acted on, but that still leaves the more important and expensive ones untouched.

The hon. Member for Belfast, West should have looked through the 1974 election manifestos of the Labour, Liberal and Conservative Parties because he would have found that there was unanimity on an issue which I shall not go into today, because it was the child benefit scheme—the child endowment or the credit for children scheme, whichever title he prefers. Perhaps one of the reasons that there was not a fuss about that in October or February 1974 was that the three major parties were agreed. The election kerfuffle involved matters of disagreement.

During the past two years the Labour Government have spent money on many things against which most people voted—nationalisation and the extension of indiscriminate subsidies, which have made this country far worse off because of an over-burden of Government spending, combined with the effect of withdrawing help that all of us would like to give to those in most need. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, like me, would judge a society by the way in which it treats widows and children. By that test—the way in which we treat one-parent families, whether headed by a man or a woman—we stand condemned.

What can be done? We should start by saying what we are prepared to give up if we want to see increased benefits for those who need them most. As Members of Parliament, we earn £5,750 per year, substantially more than nearly all one-parent families and two or three times as much as the 300,000 one-parent families on supplementary benefit.

We receive more than our fair share of the £500 million spent indiscriminately on subsidising food. I should be happy to give up my share of the food subsidy. I have a wife and two children. My children benefit from the school meals subsidy, which costs £382 million per year. It has gone up drastically in the past two years, and it went up in the years before that. I pay 15p a day for each of my children's school meals, which cost more than 41p a day. That is a subsidy of 26p per child each day, amounting to more than 50p a day for my two children, five days a week—a £2.50 subsidy each week.

I do not believe that I deserve that. It would be better if it could go to providing more help to those who need it. Instead of making a blanket criticism, which we are often tempted to do, instead of saying what we want for ourselves, we should say what we are willing to do without so that others may have what we agree they need.

Mr. Fitt

I am completely in agreement with the hon. Gentleman. I may not agree with the salary and tax allowances that we receive for the job we do, but does not the hon. Gentleman agree that there are many ways in which he could help others, if he had the humanity and compassion of which I spoke earlier, if he had a conscience about receiving benefits which should go only to those in greater need? I have many ways of giving to charities and under-privileged people in Northern Ireland. I could show the hon. Gentleman the stubs in my cheque book. One does not have to take advantage of the tax situation and then say in the House "I am a beneficiary." One can use whatever benefits there are to help one's constituents or people throughout the United Kingdom.

Mr. Bottomley

I take the hon. Gentleman's point. But my point concerns indiscriminate benefits going to people who do not need them. We can all make a case for higher earnings. One of my first votes in the House was for substantially higher pay for Members of Parliament. But I do not believe in a system which scatters food subsidies around to people with twice the average income.

If I took you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and the hon. Gentleman out for a meal, and if we spent £20 on lashings of cheese, butter, bacon and all the other foods which are subsidised, we should be receiving considerable benefit from those food subsidies. With indiscriminate subsidies it is impossible to give the help to those who really need it.

Mr. George Cunningham (Islington, South and Finsbury)

On this principle, does that mean that the hon. Gentleman would support any move to abolish tax relief on mortgages above the basic rate of tax, which is not only giving an indiscriminate high level of relief but giving it indiscriminately in favour of those who are most wealthy? Will the hon. Gentleman support any move to abolish that?

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. I think the hon. Gentleman is being led slightly astray.

Mr. Bottomley

My answer to the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham) as an individual is "Yes". The sooner we get to the stage of rationalising our housing situation, the better. This includes the effect of Land Acts and of the forbidding of council tenants to put their money where they would like in housing and the effect of having such high levels of taxation that we have to have income tax allowances. I hope that perhaps we can find a consensus in fields such as that where we are willing to make sacrifice ourselves. Perhaps we can join together and establish the middle ground which will enable us to have a sensible housing policy and family income support. I congratulate the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury, who is willing on occasions to put his vote where his hopes and ambitions lie in these fields.

If we were to spread the £1.25 million among the 600,000 one-parent families in this country, and took away the £500,000 which will be saved from the children's disregard, we should be sharing out £750,000. This would come to just over £1 a year, or just over 2p a week week, each. This is at a time when we have had massive increases in Government spending—£7,000 million a year in real terms in the last two years.

Last year many of us had an increase of £6 a week, and this year many of us will have an increase of £4 a week. That is £10 a week for many people at work. But the one-parent family has averaged only 2p a week. Obviously, that is not a very fair comparison. If we were to take the whole of the £1.25 million and distribute it among the 300,000 families on supplementary benefit, it would come to 8p a week—four times as much—but that is still not a large amount.

If that is the best this House can do, we should take the advice of the Con- servative Party—put forward week after week for the last two years—and look at both the total of Government spending and the priorities.

It is interesting to note how few of us are here this evening. I wonder what would have happened if we had been dealing with another group of people, perhaps 300,000 miners, or people in some other occupation. Suppose we were proposing to allow them to earn only an extra £2 a week before they suffered from an income tax rate of 100 per cent., would there be just a handful of Members here? Or would there have been 186 Members such as myself, who are members of unions—185 of them actually sponsored by their union? I sure that the attendance would have been very different. But just because we are talking about 300,000 one-parent families and their children, we have an almost deserted House.

We all know the disincentive of high rates of taxation. Perhaps we are talking only about 15,000 people who are earning potentially up to the £6, but they will be facing a marginal rate of taxation of at least 100 per cent. when they start to move between the £6 and their supplementary benefit entitlement. In between they get nothing extra at all. It is a disgrace, and they are being let down because there are so few of us here to take part in the debate. Let us remember that a child who was born when the Finer Committee was set up will now be seven years old.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Eric Deakins)

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not want to give the House or the country a misleading impression. The fact that there may be no more than a dozen or so hon. Members present for this debate does not mean to say that this small, essential and useful Bill is not fully supported by the two major parties, and possibly by other parties as well.

Mr. Bottomley

I am grateful for that intervention. I thought I dealt with that question when I said that there was general support for the Bill. The point I tried to make was that had we been dealing with 300,000 workers in the mining industry, we may well have had present in the Chamber a much larger number of Labour Members.

I conclude by making three points relating to the situation of one-parent families. My understanding is that a head of household in a one-parent family who is at work will receive the benefit of disregards week by week. If a person has a casual job and earns perhaps £12 the first week and nothing the next week, I understand that there is no way of averaging out earnings. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell the House whether that view is right and whether there will be any averaging out in terms of family supplement.

The second point is an economic one. It must be appreciated that in the range with which we are dealing there are not that many jobs around. Indeed, the fact that 15,000 people are affected by the increase in disregards shows how many people find difficulty in finding a job.

The third point is that if we want to encourage heads of one-parent families to go out to work, we must make it possible for such families to take advantage of day-care facilities. We cannot rely only on local authorities. We must also encourage voluntary efforts of the kind that have made the pre-school playgroups such a success in recent years.

There is much more to be done, and we cannot yet congratulate ourselves on what we have achieved. The reason the Government changed the guaranteed maintenance allowance was based on the fact that the child benefit allowance was about to come in. Since we are now in the situation in which a child benefit allowance is not to be paid, the Government should see what more they can do.

9.58 p.m.

Mr. Bob Cryer (Keighley)

The House is empty, not because of lack of interest in this subject but because of the confusion that has arisen about tonight's business. This has occurred because of the breakdown in the usual channels. The business of Parliament and our procedures are being undermined by the sulky attitude adopted by the Opposition in the past few weeks.

I must say at the outset that, although this is a minor Bill, I welcome it.

Mrs. Chalker

The hon. Gentleman may have forgotten what happened on 27th May—a matter that the Opposition sought to clear up yesterday. The hon. Gentleman will have a chance next week to state his views on that topic, and I hope that he will do so. However, the reason why this Bill has come on for debate a little later than was anticipated is nothing to do with that issue but is—

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Ordered, That the Supplementary Benefit (Amendment) Bill may be proceeded with at this day's sitting, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr Tin.]

Question again proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Mrs. Chalker

The reason why the Bill has come up for debate a little later than we thought has nothing to do with the difficulties in the usual channels; it is due to the complexity of the Development Land Tax Bill, which the House has been discussing for the past three days and for which proceedings the hon. Gentleman was certainly not present today. The fact that so complex a Bill needed to be thoroughly examined in this House put back the Bill that is now before the House.

Mr. Cryer

I cannot understand how the hon. Lady could know whether or not I was here. I came into the Chamber now and then, and I did not see the hon. Lady; but it is rather a petty argument. I recall the events of 27th May, when the Conservative Opposition chose, on a technicality, to stop the passage of a Bill which affects a number of jobs and may well place people in such difficulties that they must have resort to supplementary benefit. For the Opposition to take this attitude of pious virtue is hardly relevant to the position that we are facing tonight—

Mr. Kenneth Clarke

rose—

Mr. Cryer

Perhaps I may finish my sentence before the hon. Gentleman interrupts. People always seem to do so when I am speaking. Although this is a minor Bill it is greatly to be welcomed. It is very interesting that the first supplementary benefit disregard for single-parent families was set in 1966 at £2, was not increased by the Tory Government in the early 1970s for some strange reason, although hon. Gentlemen opposite are full of pious concern tonight. and was increased by a Labour Government to £4 in 1975; and now we find a Labour Government again increasing the disregard to £6. Congratulations are certainly due to the Labour Government, although one has one's criticisms. At least they have done something which Opposition Members did not do when in office.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke

The benefit most relied upon by single-parent families is the family income supplement, produced by the last Conservative Government, now being used by this Government as its main source of support for one-parent families. This small disregard affects only the small number of one-parent families in part-time work.

Mr. Cryer

That is perfectly right, and I am not enthusiastic about it, either. I criticised it when it came in and I criticise it now. We want to reduce the number of means-tested benefits. This is slightly at odds with the assertion of the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) that we ought to stop State subsidies, because whatever their vices they at least do not involve means testing. They involve a general distribution of support through tax policy and back into the whole taxation system. If we take subsidies away and say that support should go to families who are directly in need, we have to select those families by some process—generally a means test—so we cannot have it both ways, which is what we are trying to do.

The Bill affects only 15,000 single-parent families, and it is a pity that the disregard could not have been further extended so that more families could be brought into its net. It is a pity that general maintenance allowance, considered to be fairer, could not have been invoked and accepted by the Government. It is a pity that the child benefit scheme, which we are to debate, could not have been introduced in April 1977, as originally envisaged, but the fact is that, day by day and week by week, we have the Opposition carrying out its scrutiny. That is what an Opposition are there for, and no one can blame them for doing so, but one can blame hon. Gentlemen opposite for shedding crocodile tears on the position of single-parent families and then going to the Dispatch Box week after week and saying "The country is in an economic crisis. Why is the Chancellor of the Exchequer not cutting public expenditure?".

One has only to recall the devaluation of the pound. There was the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer rushing on to television and to every newspaper he could get hold of and saying "There must be a swingeing cut in public expenditure as an emergency measure". The Government have resisted that, but we cannot get away from the fact that we face an economic crisis of considerable proportions and that we have an enormous external debt. Facing this situation, the Government have said they are not deserting single-parent families and that they are going to make this small concession. They could go much further than this, because I do not think they have their priorities absolutely sorted out.

In my view we have to look at the whole span of public expenditure to see where we can cut back, so that we can channel more money into areas covering single-parent families and education.

The largest area that we can prune is defence, but, at the first mention of that, the Opposition go purple and come out with the hoary old tales of "Reds under the bed" and the readiness of the Russians to take us over. As a consequence, they say that we must spend more on defence. It is true that some of the less extremist elements in the Conservative Party do not take this attitude, and keep well below the parapet, but the Right-wing fringe wants us to spend more on defence.

I find it staggering that a party can exhibit such concern—much of it genuine—and at the same time exhibit explicit support for the mistaken decision of the Government to spend money on death-dealing weapons that are horrific in their magnitude.

We are talking about single-parent families able to earn a little more and still get their supplementary benefit to eke out a life that is not at the most lavish level and can never be imagined as such. We believe that these people, placed in an unfortunate position, need assistance, because we do not accept the philosophy of the weakest going to the wall.

If that is contrasted with another element of Government expenditure supported by the Opposition, in which we devote people's brains and resources to the most effective ways of killing people, it simply does not stand up to examination. That is the sort of priority that the Government ought to look at, and they ought to tell the Secretary of State for Defence that he should not be so intransigent and obdurate, and that he should give a little, so that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer wants to cut our defence expenditure by £600 million or so, he should yield and say that we will get rid of that expenditure through planning—because that is a philosophy that we share.

We do not accept market forces; we plan ahead, and switch resources into areas of greater need, such as that of single-parent families. The proposed concession will cost £1.5 million. If we can save £600 million on defence, we get some idea of the scale of benefit that we could offer if only we got the priorities right. What is more, the priorities are not laid down on any tablet of stone; they are laid down by the Labour Party conference, which is the deciding factor in our achieving political application through Parliament.

Mr. Andrew Bowden (Brighton, Kemptown)

The hon. Gentleman referred to defence expenditure. Will he concede that the Soviet Union is spending a substantially higher proportion of its gross national product on defence than we are, and that we could do a great deal more to help one-parent families if we dropped nationalisation and all the costs involved in it?

Mr. Cryer

That is an interesting thought. I know that the Secretary of State for Defence has these amusing notions that the Russians are armed to the teeth. But anyone examining, for example, the NATO figures for central Europe will find that although it is true that we are inferior, given the total numbers of men under arms in the NATO Alliance and in the Warsaw Pact, NATO has substantially more. It is all bound up with definitions of people who are under arms—

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Order. I think that the defence debate can best take place on another day.

Mr. Cryer

I was merely drawing attention, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to the important level of priorities, and the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Bowden), with the Opposition's usual hysterical fervour, diverted the debate into this area. I did not want to stray into it, but it is an important point to make, nevertheless.

The other matter to which attention should be drawn is that these resources will be channelled towards working mothers and fathers. In Gingerbread meetings that I have attended, the point has been made that the mothers or fathers of single-parent families want to go out to work and do not want to be subjected to a means-tested benefit system which prevents their working or tends to inhibit their opportunity to work.

These proposals are a very useful step in the right direction. However, a brief sent out by the One-Parent Families Association points out that it really does involve the provision of more day care, so that the talents and abilities of one-parent families can be involved in work and productive resources. Hopefully, they will be involved in the provision and development of British manufacturing industry and not waste their resources on the massive amount of defence research and technology that we waste our resources on.

In my constituency of Keighley there is a very good and active Gingerbread group, which took over a closed commercial nursery. It ran an enormous risk, because here were people who were actually single-parent families themselves. By and large, the group did not consist of people who were better off; the members of the group were not in a financially strong situation, but they took over the nursery, which involved employing three people, because it was a full-time day nursery run in a local mill which had closed down.

The group obtained grants from a number of charitable organisations and redecorated the premises, and so forth. In fact, it considerably improved the standard of care that the premises had provided before. Yet it found that the local authority required higher standards in that nursery than it had applied before, although it was, similarly, a professional nursery.

The members of the group found that the local authority wanted a much tighter ratio of trained adults to children. This was so oppressive that they almost reached the point where they had to abandon the project with debts around their necks—debts which, being genuine single-parent families living on supplementary benefit, they clearly could not afford. Those problems were resolved, but not without a great deal of heartache and anxiety. One recognises that we cannot introduce a massive amount of day care overnight, but the Minister should encourage local authorities to give every possible assistance to help groups and organisations which are prepared to venture into the sort of scheme I have outlined.

I await with interest the Minister's comments on this aspect, because sometimes I think that where people take over a situation like that and start to operate a nursery system, there is a sort of inbuilt bureaucratic bias. It may be seen as an implicit criticism of the day-care facilities that we operate. That is not true, but it is a possibility. I appeal to the Minister to ask local authorities to give every possive encouragement to the provision of day-care facilities on a professional, semiprofessional or voluntary basis, in the absence of a massive amount of help to provide day-care facilities by the Government.

I hope that the Minister will agree that this Bill is very much to be welcomed. He must recognise that there are criticisms of the piecemeal approach, but he should also recognise that we support the Government because we believe their heart is in the right place. They must be inhibited at the moment from providing the comprehensive care which they would like to see, and it is only because of stark economic necessity that this is so. I am convinced that with a Labour Government in office we shall eventually see the sort of provisions we all believe are necessary for single-parent families and others.

10.14 p.m.

Mr. D. E. Thomas (Merioneth)

I would add my welcome from the Plaid Cymru bench to what I must describe as a rather minuscule and pathetic piece of legislation. I choose my words carefully. I welcome the second part of the Bill in that it puts right an anomaly within the supplementary benefits system. But, of course, the reason why so many national insurance beneficiaries have to be dependent on supplementary benefits—and why this disregard provision is necessary—is that the general level of national insurance benefits is so low. This applies to the benefits introduced and upgraded by both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. It is because the national insurance benefit threshold is so low compared with the poverty line that there is such a high dependence by all national insurance beneficiaries on supplementary benefits.

I will not follow the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) into the argument about defence expenditure, but at least I can defend increases in public expenditure because I have consistently voted against cuts in public expenditure and will continue to do so. With inflation, those on low incomes, particularly those facing multiple social deprivation, suffer most.

Mr. Cryer

I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not mind my reminding him that he voted against the defence review. I think that he would be happy to vote for cuts in defence expenditure.

Mr. Thomas

Indeed yes. I was referring to meaningful public expenditure on social policy. But I will not be drawn further into the defence argument.

With inflation, those on supplementary benefit, particularly those with multiple deprivation—for example, the housing problems of one-parent families—suffer most. So cuts in, or lack of spending on, both income maintenance and social policy programmes make the position of those people relatively worse within society. It has already been proved that the inflation rate for low-income families—one-parent families are overwhelmingly the majority in that category—can be as much as 4 per cent. above the general inflation rate.

In the references to rejection of the guaranteed maintenance allowance, we have heard no clear statement of alternative policies. I look forward to a clear statement of the alternative Conservative policy and its costing next week, as well as a statement of the public expenditure savings which are to be made in other areas to finance that policy.

Although the guaranteed maintenance allowance has been reduced, the reduction has been based on a false argument—that this would be yet another means-tested benefit. Yet neither major party is willing gradually to phase out existing means-tested benefits and to reduce in real terms dependence on supplementary benefits.

I do not want to anticipate a later debate—no doubt lasting all night—of the uprating but we have seen in real terms no reduction of the dependence on means-tested benefits. Indeed, it has substantially increased over the years.

Mr. Orme

Would the hon. Gentleman not acknowledge that the present Government are spending record amounts on national insurance benefits and, under the Order which is to come, on uprating short-term benefits to an unprecedented level which will offset the increase in inflation?

Mr. Thomas

I should like later to develop the point that in my view the proposed uprating will not meet the rise in inflation, particularly for people on supplementary benefit. Despite this Government's figures for their increased income maintenance programme, it has in fact been an attempt to take inflation into account—to make pensions inflation-proof, for example. But there has not been a transfer, in broad real terms, of resources into this area of social policy. I do not want to deal with the general social policy argument. Therefore, I shall restrict myself to the provisions of the Bill.

A number of recommendations—both short-term and immediate—to bring immediate relief to one-parent families were put forward in the Finer Report. I put down some parliamentary Questions on this matter earlier this year. We all mourn the absence of the Minister's predecessor from this debate and the area of general social policy. I asked the Minister's predecessor what would be the cost at current prices of the supplement proposed in paragraph 5.254 of the Finer Report. The Minister said: The current amount would be £2.50. The cost of introducing such a supplement would be of the order of £35 million and about 270,000 single parents would benefit".—[Official Report, 29th January 1976; Vol. 904, c. 334.] Tonight we must consider the benefit for 14,000 single parents in the context of the 270,000 who might have benefited if we had found more money from the Government's overall expenditure.

In the same series of questions I asked about the cost of reducing the qualifying period for the long-term rate of supplementary benefit from two years to one year for lone parents. I was told that the cost would be about £6 million a year and that about 44,000 single parents would benefit.

I also asked what would be the current level of earnings disregard for those receiving supplementary benefit. I was told that it would be £4.76. I asked what would be the annual cost of increasing the earnings disregard for single parents to that level. I was told that the figure would be about £500,000. I asked what would be the cost of increasing the disregard to £8. I was told that the cost would be of the order of £2 milion.

If there were an additional disregard of £2, which would bring the figure in the Bill up to £8, an additional 14,000 claimants would benefit. By increasing the disregard further, at an additional cost of £2 million, we should be able to help twice as many one-parent families.

I stress those points as they arise from previous Questions on this issue. They confirm clearly what the Government are doing. Here I agree with what the Opposition spokesman said tonight. This measure is being introduced as a palliative, but minuscule, measure, and as a pretence for a social policy and a family income support strategy. It is being introduced to divert attention from the issue of, and the remedy for, family poverty.

The immediate introduction of some form of child endowment or child benefit scheme was a commitment in the Labour Party manifesto. Tonight we see a pathetic attempt to help a small number of one-parent families. I regret that the Government are not prepared to find more money from their resources to help up to 170,000 one-parent families at a total cost of £35 million. It is in that context of what ought to be spent, of what is the real need, that we must look at this pathetic measure.

10.25 p.m.

Sir George Young (Ealing, Acton)

Perhaps I could start by placing on record the fact that there are at the moment four Members on the Government Benches and 11 Members on the Opposition Benches. This is a fair reflection of the interest in this Bill. The only Back-Bench Member on the Government side who listened to the Minister of State introduce the Bill was a Member representing a Northern Ireland constituency whose presence here—while we welcome it—was somewhat remarkable since under Clause 2 (2) we read that the Bill does not extend to Northern Ireland.

Mr. Orme

The hon. Gentleman would like me to put the record straight, I know. An Order in Council applying the provisions of the Bill to Northern Ireland will be produced which will have the same starting date in Northern Ireland as the Bill will have in the rest of the United Kingdom.

Sir George Young

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the clarification. If he reads Clause 2 (2) he will see the statement I have made. In his introductory remarks he did not make that important qualification.

Mr. Cryer

rose—

Sir George Young

No, I will not give way. The hon. Gentleman was not present at the beginning of the debate.

Mr. Cryer

rose—

Sir George Young

Very well.

Mr. Cryer

Will the hon. Gentleman accept that while it is all very well making criticisms about the absence of Members from the Chamber, the technique of the Opposition over the past few weeks has been to keep a handful of their Members here knowing full well that the Government, to safeguard their position, have had to keep between 200 and 280 Mem- bers present night after night? The Parliamentary Labour Party did not—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving)

Order. I do not believe that those remarks have any bearing on what we are debating.

Sir George Young

I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do not want to be side-tracked. I hope to make a brief contribution because I would like to catch your eye of Monday and I am aware that the length of one's contributions is taken down and sometimes used in evidence against one.

It would be churlish not to welcome the Bill, particularly Clause 1 (1). It is, however, important to try to put the Bill into some sort of perspective and to ask whether it represents a section of a coherent and well-thought-out strategy to deal with the problems facing single-parent families as described in the Finer Report or whether it is a one-off and rather desperate attempt to try to keep quiet a well-organised pressure group.

I quote the former Secretary of State for Social Services, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), to shed some light on this basic issue of how the Bill fits into the Government's strategy. When the Finer Report was published on 2nd July 1974 the right hon. Lady said: I can now say that the Government accept in principle that additional support should be provided for one-parent families although I cannot accept commitment to the particular recommendation made by the committee. The committee's proposal for a new social security benefit comes at a time when the Government are preparing their promised scheme to help the low paid and other families in poverty by introducing child cash allowances for every child, including the first, payable normally to the mother. We shall therefore consider most carefully in the light of the report the appropriate form and scale of provision for one-parent families in relation to the broader system of family endowment as it is developed."—[Official Report, 2nd July 1974; Vol. 876, c. 92.] The broader system of family endowment has since been abandoned. That means that there is a gaping hole in the Government's policy towards single-parent families. In no way does this modest measure before us fill that large hole.

The Bill raises many more questions than it answers. What is to happen to the suggestion that the waiting period before single-parent families are eligible for long-term benefit should be reduced? What about the other suggestions, such as that there should be a supplement for single-parent families? Are all these other recommendations to be permanently dropped and is this all that single-parent families are to get for the next three or four years? These are the basic questions raised by the Bill. The Bill is indeed an inadequate response to the issues raised by Finer.

If we read what the right hon. Member for Blackburn said at a conference in Caxton Hall on 21st February of last year it will be seen that she made it clear that the child benefit scheme was to be the Government's main vehicle for helping single-parent families. Now that that scheme has been abandoned, or postponed, what do the Government intend to do in the meantime to help single-parent families?

Inevitably reforms of this nature give rise to anomalies. My hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) touched on some of them. One anomaly immediately springs to mind. If there should be a reconciliation and an unemployed husband returns to the home of a wife and mother who is earning, the moment he returns the disregards for the wife's earnings drop from £6 to £4. There is no point whatever in a wife earning more than £4 a week should the husband return, so there is a disincentive here—either to reconciliation or to work. Whichever it is, it is most unfortunate.

Another anomaly is that there are certain other sections of the community who are faced with serious problems. They are not single-parent families, and their disregard remains at £4. This poses the question whether their problems are not so severe that they, too, should be included. However, I am prepared to accept this anomaly as a short-term solution in the interests of single-parent families.

Many of my hon. Friends may not agree with me, but I believe in the guaranteed maintenance allowance, which is perfectly consistent with Conservative philosophy. I see this as an interim solution. Perhaps the Government could give us an idea when they will fill in the gap left in their strategy for single-parent families.

An undesirable facet of the Bill is the sharp cut-off at £6. I am in favour of a tapered disregard, where there is not an immediate pound-for-pound cut-off at £6. I would be happier with a sliding scale where a single parent family could keep 50p of the extra pound over £6, rather than being subject to what is, in effect, 100 per cent. income tax.

Connoisseurs of the subject will remember that in 1975—a vintage year for social security legislation—we debated these issues in Committee. I recall Amendment No. 59 in the Committee Stage of the Social Security Benefits Bill. It was a provocative little amendment, which encouraged the Government to adopt a tapered disregard. The Minister who replied to that debate, said: However, I take the point about the sliding scale."—[Official Report. Standing Committee B, 16th January 1975; c. 392.] He promised to keep these matters under constant review.

The Government could, with advantage, have introduced a sliding scale on this occasion to see how it worked. No objection to it was raised in principle in Committee. If there were a sliding scale for disregards it would be much fairer for single-parent families, as it would reduce the disincentive caused by the sharp cut off.

The frequency with which disregards are reviewed is another matter which causes concern. It seems strange that we need legislation to change the level of disregards but are able to change the rate of benefit by Order. This is another anomaly. The level of disregards was set in 1947, and not reviewed until 1966. This level remained in force until 1975. One could say we have disregarded the disregards, and that the value of disregards has been eroded by inflation but that we in this House never paid any attention to it.

Clause 1(2) has not attracted much attention, yet it is a provision which contains bad news. I expect that the Government had hoped that no-one would notice it because the good news contained in the Bill for single-parent families would overshadow it. This provision is not concerned solely with single-parent families going out to work but with depriving widows, whether they work or not, of part of their supplementary benefit. The Government introduced it rather quietly and they covered their tracks rather well. The Long Title of the Bill is to amend paragraph 23 of Schedule 2 to the Supplementary Benefit Act 1966", yet when I went to the Library and asked for this legislation I was told that it did not exist. The true name of it is the Ministry of Social Security Act 1966.

We are then told in Clause 2 that that Act is to be amended in paragraph 24 of that schedule, and we are invited to insert various words after the word "except". I looked for it in paragraph 24(3), and the one word that does not exist is the word "except". One has to go to the Social Security Benefit Act 1975, which amends the 1966 Act, to find out what is going on. In the Social Security Benefit Act one finds sub-paragraph (3), which was closely related to the Social Security Act 1973 and which is not mentioned anywhere in the Bill. There is a new sub-paragraph (3) which has the word "except" in it. We wonder why no one comes to our social security debates. The answer is that it is so difficult to find out what the Government are doing because legislation is scattered so widely.

The Minister of State said in introducing the Bill that it would simplify things. I hope so. If at some point we could consolidate all social security legislation we would never make it intelligible but at least we could put all the unintelligible aspects in one document, and that would make life easier for those of us who try to follow these matters.

The Minister did not say why we should have this amendment now. We went over this ground thoroughly in 1975. We debated Schedule 3 of the 1975 Act when this disregard was put into the legislation. The Government had the opportunity then to say that it was inconsistent with other social security legislation, but they did not. Now the new Bill is brought forward but we are not told what has happened in the last 15 months to make it so important to deal now with a matter which was overlooked in the major review only 15 months ago.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe referred to the 13-week rule. It can be a bit harsh. There is an exemption for those in hospital, but there are equally deserving cases which do not involve hospitalisation where it would be wrong to deny people their preserved rights. No doubt my hon. Friend will deal with that aspect in Committee.

I do not like Clause 1(2) and I did not find the Minister of State's reasons for it very convincing, bearing in mind that no mention was made of the apparent glaring anomaly only a year ago. But I look forward to the Government explaining at some point what they will be doing about the Finer Report and what help they will be giving single-parent families because those families will get very little help from this Bill.

10.39 p.m.

Mrs. Lynda Chalker (Wallasey)

I apologise for not having been here when the Minister of State began his speech, but I had sat through two-and-a-half hours of the Development Land Tax Bill, and even those of us on diets need sustenance.

No one regrets the introduction of the Bill, only its limited scope. We could rehearse arguments in favour of one sort of cut or another in the Government's spending programme. Each different cut would be supported by one of the different groups within the House, each believing that it was correct. But no proposal will leave the single-parent family any better off until we stop the fall in the value of benefits which these families are already receiving. That must be the Government's top priority.

One of the major considerations for me in trying to assist one-parent families has always been to allow these people a continued contact with the outside world, perhaps away from their children, in order to live the more normal life they experienced either in marriage or in some other relationship before they had to assume sole charge of children.

One of the ways in which this sort of outside contact is most successfully maintained is through the work place. I do not doubt that the increased number of younger men and women who have had to seek help from their doctors because of frustration and severe depression through dealing with children and trying to make ends meet could be much alleviated if they could take at least a worthwhile part-time job. This aspect of the disregard legislation worries me more than any other.

There is also the question of self-respect. Anyone who has lost a partner in or out of marriage has a great climb back to establish his or her position in society, particularly if there are dependent children. Another means of doing this is through contact at work with those in the normal nuclear family or others with similar experience of the single parent's unhappy circumstances.

That is why I would always put encouragement to work for one or two-parent families above the indiscriminate handing out of benefits which we see in many areas of social policy. We do not yet have a sufficiently accurate way of giving to those who are really in need and encouraging those who would benefit from going to work to do so.

Before anybody gets the idea that I advocate the abandonment of small children to an outside person while mothers go back to work, I should stress that for the first few years a mother should be more tied to children but that when they go to school, it is necessary for single parents—mothers or fathers—to go back to work. Perhaps this is even more important for the 80,000 single-parent fathers to help them to regain their self-respect. My hon. Friends have spoken about the importance of pre-school playgroups and the tremendous work done by their association. We hope that that will continue, and we welcome the increased grant to that organisation.

There was, for once, something in what the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) said when he referred to the need for greater flexibility by local authorities to ensure that the facilities in pre-school playgroups and day care continue in order to help single parents who work and also to allow them to get the benefit of the disregard, which has been increased for the second time in the past year.

I hope that the Minister will discuss with the Minister of Education the situation facing single parents who wish to undertake training in order to get back to work. Those who have been given money to go on courses—such as the TOPS courses—to fit themselves for work in the longer term, have lost the benefit of the disregard. This has been one of the problems of the increased training opportunities provided by successive Governments, and it needs to be rectified.

We must remember that there are about 80,000 new single-parent families every year. No one has fully calculated the burdens which will be imposed if we do not move to the system advocated by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young). We need to increase the disregard and, above that new level, gradually lessen the amount lost by a person at work. We must also consider the situation faced by a woman going through a separation or divorce or a change in her financial circumstances due to becoming a single parent. Many wives who lose a husband's income find themselves thrown back on to the State. The disregard hardly applies to them. They tend to lose out badly anyway. A tax credit system for single-parent families and other groups in need of Government support would help to overcome many of these problems.

The inflexibility of our social security system means that we are unlikely to achieve that happy state where those in need receive the benefits that are available and those who do not need them do not get them. Such a system would avoid the wastefulness of one Government Department paying out and another clawing back.

All my hon. Friends—or all those on the Back Benches—know the benefit that a guaranteed minimum income would bring, especially to single-parent families. If the Government can see their way through the earnings disregard by a gradual increase, worked in with the social security benefits and supplementary benefits received by the one-parent family so that the benefits given by the Government become a topping-up procedure, we shall be working towards one of the Finer recommendations.

A whole host of work has to be done, but as long as we continue having one small piece of legislation after another we shall make the eventual sorting out of benefits and earnings incredibly more complex. The late Member for Rotherham, Brian O'Malley, responded happily to me in Committee on some social security Bill when I expressed the wish that we should move not merely to solidation but towards a simplification of the whole system. Although the Government are introducing a welcome measure, it is merely a drop in the ocean. There is no sign that we are working towards a system which is more easily computed, which more easily provides for those in true need, and which benefits those who could be encouraged to work by removing some of the many tax and disregard disincentives.

I hope that the Government will make an increased effort to think about the problems that face the 80,000 single-parent fathers. That group, above all, needs more support—perhaps even more than single-parent mothers. The fathers cannot always undertake as many of the tasks that a woman can carry out for small children. That is another area where the Government, for all their good works, have not sought clearly to put forward their point of view in the debates that we have had over the past two and a half years. I look forward to hearing it.

I have not strayed into the business for next week, although there is a great deal more that can be said about earnings and disregards. I merely say that we shall do better by encouraging individuals to work and to care for themselves. We shall do better by ensuring that they receive the right remuneration, rather than creating disincentives, and the right to lead an individual life, whatever the individual circumstances.

10.49 p.m.

Miss Jo Richardson (Barking)

A number of comments have been made by Opposition Members about the few Government Members present this evening. There have been a number of Government Members around the House this evening. They were waiting with anticipation for this debate, but they have been put out by the changes of business which seem to occur with great rapidity. If one leaves the Chamber for a few minutes one finds that the business has changed.

Mrs. Chalker

If we had not had a move at around the hour of midnight last night, the amendments to the Development Land Tax Bill could have been dealt with through the night and we could have commenced this business at 7 o'clock this evening.

Miss Richardson

I am grateful for the hon. Lady's intervention. I was quite happy to stay all night. I had brought a change of clothing with a view to doing so. I understood that an agreement had been reached between the Government and the Opposition. I was rather surprised, therefore, when I opened my newspaper this morning, to find that some row had apparently taken place after I had left. But that has nothing to do with one-parent families. All I am saying is that many Labour Members are very conscious of the problems that are heaped upon one-parent and other deprived families and that they would have wanted to take part in the debate if it had not started quite so late.

I add in passing that, having been here for the last few nights—as perhaps all those present in the Chamber have been—I find it rather curious that the number of Labour Members could be counted in hundreds while the number of Opposition Members, in some Divisions, could be counted only in dozens. It ill becomes Opposition Members to talk about who is present and who is not.

However, let us return to the Bill. I very much welcome the Bill, and the uprating Orders which are to come later tonight. I should like to do so with wild enthusiasm. I do not do so with wild enthusiasm because in my view—other hon. Members have spoken on this theme—it is a drop in the ocean when one considers the difficulties that face the people about whom we are talking. Nevertheless, I think that all of us will know one-parent families to whom this extra disregard will be of enormous benefit. This is one of the problems that face all hon. Members. We have probably more constituency correspondence from one-parent families and others who are doing a part-time job, and so on, than correspondence on any other problem. Therefore, the Bill will be helpful.

The hon. Member for Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker) talked about heads of one-parent families of either sex. I entirely agree with her. The men who are the heads of one-parent families, particularly those looking after a number of smaller children, are in special difficulties. Their problems should not be underrated. One came to see me at my surgery only last week. He has a particular difficulty concerning his mother, whom he has to bring from several miles away each day to look after the children and who must be there when they return from school. She is unable to get accommodation near him. There is this perpetual difficulty. It is more of a difficulty for men in some respects, perhaps because women have become more used to managing.

Nevertheless, in spite of the welcome for the Bill, I believe that one-parent families would have preferred to see the Government introduce a guaranteed maintenance allowance for one-parent families. That was one of the recommendations of the Finer Report. I hope that the Minister will refer to that point. That would be a much more satisfactory way of dealing with the matter.

I want to comment on the operation of the cohabitation rule. Although it is not specifically a matter for the Bill, it comes into view when one considers Clause 1(2), to which the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) has referred. The discontinuance of disregards for the children's allowance attached to widow's benefit, industrial death benefit, and so on, leads my thoughts always to the cohabitation rule. I hope that the Minister will comment on that—although he looked slightly askance when I said that. However, when one mentions widows and one-parent families, one inevitably thinks of the difficulties that face such families in regard to the operation of this rule.

I confess that I had hoped that with the publication of the report of the Supplementary Benefits Commission "Living Together as Man and Wife", there would have been a marked improvement—and I mean a "marked" improvement. Although the recommendations were limited, they were welcome. I would prefer the abolition of the cohabitation rule but, even within the limits of the report, I hoped that its instructions would have had a more marked effect.

In my constituency I have sympathetic and helpful social security and supplementary benefits office, but I am distressed by cases in other areas of widows and one-parent families who still feel disadvantaged and subjected to over-scrutiny by investigating officers. I hope that before long there will be more officers in training and more money to spare for their training, to enable the rule—while we have it—to be operated in a more humane manner. But I shall still go on flogging away for the abolition of the rule.

My real complaint is that the Bill is piecemeal rather than a real attack on poverty in a planned and careful manner. We operate benefits, increase the disregard—and that is welcome, but it adds to the complexity of the social security and supplementary benefits provisions. I wonder how ordinary folk, who are earning their living and looking after their families, can understand all the regulations. When I go to my surgeries I take with me the supplementary benefits handbook plus the explanation of it by the Child Poverty Action Group. Even 1. au fait as I am supposed to be with the subject, need that explanation. We should be thinking of ways of reducing the number of provisions that apply to one section of the community but not to another.

I hope that the Government are working towards a real attack on poverty. Although I know and welcome the record of some Opposition hon. Members on social problems, I find it difficult to accept the crocodile tears shed by the official Opposition about poverty and one-parent families. They are always talking about public expenditure cuts but they never talk of cutting expenditure on defence, as my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) said. They do not talk of the poverty involved in the hospital waiting lists. The theme of the Opposition in the Committee on the Health Services Bill centres round the better-off section of the community who can afford to pay for a bed, rather than on those who cannot afford private treatment. I cannot think of a one-parent family in my constituency which could afford to go to a doctor privately or take a private bed in hospital. I find it ironic that the Opposition should talk of their concern for the poorest in the community yet still mount an attack on the Government's policy to phase out pay beds.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin

Is the hon. Lady saying that she thinks that no widows with children are members of BUPA or PPP? When my mother was widowed when I was a boy she was a member of BUPA.

Miss Richardson

I did not say that. I said that I did not know of one-parent families or widows who were members of BUPA. The right hon. Gentleman may, but the great generality of the people about whom we are talking, whose earnings will be disregarded by a further £2, are not the kind of people whom we are discussing in the Standing Committee on the Health Services Bill, where the Opposition speak of protecting the interests of those who want to take advantage of private practice. I find it difficult to relate what Conservative Members say about people in the category affected by this Bill to what we are talking about in the Committee on the Health Services Bill.

One-parent families, and those who will benefit by the upratings to which we shall come, welcome these extra provisions, but they would join in and appeal to the Government to think ahead for five or 10 years—we know that it is not possible to do it now—and to reduce the complexities so as to show the country that we have not a piecemeal, tactical approach of helping here and there but a strategic attack on a poverty that still exists.

11.2 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Eric Deakins)

We have had an interesting and wide-ranging debate, particularly in view of Mr. Speaker's ruling. But we did not discuss child benefit because that awaits a perhaps more important and probably more controversial occasion on Monday.

I should like to reply to the individual points raised by hon. Members and then deal with the more general points—Finer, our policy towards one-parent families and so on—and try to give a reasonable ending to what was a stimulating debate, even if it was not all directly relevant to the subject of this small Bill.

The hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) gave a cautious welcome to the Bill. He accused us of offering it merely as a sop to single-parent families. He seemed to be casting around for something controversial to say. I do not think that the way in which the Opposition Front Bench has received the Bill will go unnoticed. I am glad to say that that slight churlishness of approach was not echoed by some Conservative Back-Bench speakers. I suppose that the bad grace and degree of sourness shown by the Opposition Front Bench are to be understood only in the light of its appalling record from 1970 to 1974. But I do not want to become controversial.

I hope that I can now proceed, without entering into the party politics which have dominated some of the speeches, to answer the detailed points on the Bill and on family support which have been asked by all hon. Members who have taken part. By their presence tonight and on previous occasions, they have all shown their support for the attack on family poverty. Whatever may be thought of the Government's measures, there is a great deal of good will in all parts of the House for what is being done and, more important, for what still needs to be done.

The hon. Member for Rushcliffe mentioned the cohabitation rule, and staff training. My hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Miss Richardson) also mentioned the cohabitation rule. It is certainly generally agreed that any benefits relating specifically to one-parent families must be subject to a cohabitation rule. That is common ground between the major parties.

The Supplementary Benefits Commission has proposed in its recent report, "Living Together As Man and Wife", certain changes in the administration of the rule. This depends very much on the recruitment and training of specially selected staff. I cannot say when these changes can be implemented, but I assure the hon. Gentleman there will be no unnecessary delay. We are aware that this is a contentious issue, which can be clarified to the satisfaction of most people who have had strong views about this issue only when we have these trained staff in operation.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned that the disregard had hardly kept pace with inflation and yet at the same time he also wants to see the disregard figure—as does the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley)—even bigger. But, as the hon. Gentleman himself pointed out, once we start increasing these disregards specifically for one-parent families, we are then distinguishing the one-parent family in this particular respect from all other supplementary benefit beneficiaries, and there may be some equally worthy and deserving cases for special earnings disregards.

We do not want to make the supplementary benefit scheme any more complicated than it is at the moment. There is probably all-party agreement that we want to try to get owards simplicity, but at the very least we want to alleviate many of the complexities of the scheme which makes it so difficult for people to understand, particularly—and most importantly—the users of the service.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke

Will the Minister confirm that it is his intention that this should be a temporary distinction made for single-parent families with disregards until such time as the House agrees something more satisfactory for single-parent families in general, and that it will then be the intention to go back to having one level of disregard for all supplementary benefit claimants?

Mr. Deakins

I shall come to that in my more general remarks. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I shall not miss that point.

The hon. Gentleman the Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) referred to a lack of Conservative commitment on public expenditure. Although I do not think he actually accused the Opposition of being hypocritical, he said that it is one thing to propose enormous cuts in public expenditure and another to suggest that every step the Government take, in a very modest way, to increase public expenditure in a very limited area of social policy ought to be doubled or tripled and that there ought to be a lot more money forthcoming. We have to bear in mind the economic situation generally when we are considering general support, but I shall come back to that point later.

The hon. Member for Woolwich, West has apologised to me and to the House for having to leave. He made a number of very interesting points. I did not agree with them all. Fortunately, he gave me some fair warning by going on the "Today" programme this morning, so that I was appraised of the burden of his remarks here this evening.

I shall not go into the hon. Gentleman's remarks about food subsidies. That would take this present debate rather wide of the mark. I think I can safely leave defence of the Government's policy on food subsidies to my ministerial colleagues in the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection. Equally, on the subject of school meals, the hon. Gentleman suggested a redistribution in that area of expenditure to the poor. However, I do not think that would be the type of redistribution that would be welcomed by Labour Members, or indeed by some Opposition Members.

The hon. Gentleman also asked me a specific question about casual earnings. He made the point that heads of one-parent families may earn a small amount one week and receive disregard, earn nothing the following week, and so on. He asked whether the system could be averaged out because he felt that such families would be badly hit. I assure the House that for supplementary benefit purposes earnings are usually taken into account week by week. That is the general system at present. But where this is impracticable because earnings are received at irregular intervals, they can be averaged over a period. It may be that there is scope for the exercising of more discretion by the Supplementary Benefits Commission, but it would take us into areas other than those covered by this debate. Judging by a recent speech made by the chairman of the commission, it would appear that he would rather that the area for discretion were reduced, and I would go along with that.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin

Since the Minister has mentioned Professor Donnison, it is only right to put on record the number of speeches he has made and articles he has written. They have provided valuable background material for our debates on these matters. I refer particularly to the Seth Memorial Lecture given by Professor Donnison earlier this year, which was a most valuable contribution to thinking of this subject.

Mr. Deakins

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for making that point, which I wish to endorse. This is certainly a suitable opportunity to express appreciation of the work carried out by Professor Donnison. I am sure that that work will be continued in the annual report of the commission to be published later this year.

I turn to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer), who gave a wholehearted welcome to the Bill. He mentioned guaranteed mainten- ance allowance, which I shall mention later in my remarks.

My hon. Friend referred to the hypocrisy of the Conservatives—he did not actually use that word, but that was what he implied. I do not necessarily think that is fair to the Opposition. I would rather use the word "schizophrenic" as applied to their activities in respect of public expenditure. On the one hand, they call for wholesale across-the-board cuts in public expenditure and, on the other hand, they call for wholesale increases in various aspects of public policy. I shall go no further along that road now, because it is entering too much into controversial areas.

My hon. Friend underlined the need for more day-care facilities for one-parent families, and the hon. Member for Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker) also took up that point. She wanted to see more heads of single-parent families out at work and thought that this Bill would be valuable in achieving that end. I recognise that the provision of day-care facilities is a stumbling-block in this respect. The situation at present is that virtually all local authorities now regard young children of single parents as having priority in day-care provision.

The basic problem is still that of resources. It has not yet been possible to meet the needs of all priority classes. Further progress depends on manpower—or perhaps I should say "people-power"—being available and also on the provision of financial resources. Obviously, resources in the immediate future will be limited. Therefore, it is not possible to give a commitment on a timetable to meet the day-care needs of one-parent families.

In some other countries—not all Communist countries, incidentally—many industrialists find it to their advantage in recruiting and retaining good workers, particularly women workers to provide day nursery and care facilities at factories and offices. Although I accept that this would be an additional burden on employers, who are facing problems like the rest of the community, I hope that we shall not get a position where we regard local authority day care provision as being the complete answer to the problem of the single-parent or two-parent families where those parents have to go out to work.

Mr. Cryer

In my remarks, I mentioned the attitude of local authorities towards Gingerbread groups and other organisations which take over the running of nursery schools themselves, and I asked him to encourage local authorities to give every assistance in their power. Will my hon. Friend reply to that?

Mr. Deakins

It is not our direct responsibility in the Department, of course, but we shall do our best to push this along. However, we have to bear in mind that in the present public expenditure climate it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to ask local authorities to take on further financial commitments.

I come next to the speech of the hon. Member for Merioneth (Mr. Thomas), who called the Bill a pathetic one and gave it a rather half-hearted welcome. He mentioned the guaranteed maintenance allowance, which I shall be coming to later. He said that he would like to see the phasing out of means-tested benefits. Who would not? It is probably generally accepted that we should be moving away from means-tested benefits as far as possible towards benefits as of right, especially where they can be geared to the needs of the classes of individuals who require them.

The hon. Member for Merioneth also asked about the Finer recommendation for a supplement to supplementary benefits for one-parent families and the cost. He gave some figures of the cost which I think he got from a parliamentary Answer. I shall deal with the principle of that later when I discuss some of the Finer recommendations.

The hon. Member also mentioned the £8 disregard. Why not £8? Why not £10? Once it is felt that one can go beyond what the Government propose, there is no reason in logic for stopping at any particular sum.

The hon. Member was rather grudging in regarding the Bill as a diversionary tactic. He underrates himself and the House generally if he thinks that any Government could get away with a Bill of this kind and regard it as a diversionary tactic. The Bill is good in itself, and it stands up in its own right. The fact that it may not be related to anything else need not worry us. What the hon. Gentleman fears is that this is all that is being done or all that will be done for one parent-families.

The hon. Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) gave a positive welcome to the Bill, but he asked a more general question about Government support for one-parent families. I shall come to that in a moment. He asked about the Finer recommendations, which I shall deal with presently. He made an interesting point about the one-parent family where the other partner returns—in other words, there has not been a death or a divorce, but just a separation—and the loss of disregards. I am afraid that that, inevitably, will be the case. But what has happened in those circumstances is that the one-parent family has become a two-parent family, and it has to be considered in the light of the concessions being given through the social security system to two-parent families. Certainly nothing that we are proposing will make reconciliation more difficult. I believe that that is a matter for the individuals themselves.

The hon. Member also asked about a sliding scale. That idea was also mentioned by the hon. Member for Wallasey. There is an objection to the idea of a sliding scale. It would introduce yet another complication into the supplementary benefit scheme. Certainly it would make it more difficult for the staff to operate it. Even more important, it would be more difficult for claimants to understand it. I am informed that it was tried between 1959 and 1966, when the supplementary benefit earnings disregard was £1 10s. plus half of the next £1. That became complicated, and the succeeding flat rate of £2 disregard was introduced as a positive simplification of the scheme.

The hon. Member also made a valid point when he said that disregards were not uprated often enough. Well, they were not uprated at all when his own Government were in office. We have at least uprated the disregards for the second year running. That is not to say that we shall necessarily uprate on a 12-month basis, like other social security benefits. But I take the point that this is one means of helping one-parent families who wish to go out and help themselves and not depend on supplementary benefit. It is a matter to which we shall have to have regard in the future.

The hon. Member for Ealing, Acton was one of the few hon. Members, perhaps the only one, who spoke about the ending of the widow's child allowance disregard. He asked why it was not done a year ago. I will answer that point in my more general remarks.

I have many general points to make. I am in the happy position of answering the debate and I hope that I shall be able successfully to answer every single point raised in it. In addition, I am not under any pressure of time nor, indeed, is the House and I can take a thorough look at what has been said.

The hon. Gentleman's last point was about consolidation. I did not know of this. I have just been handed a copy of the Supplementary Benefits Bill [Lords], which is a consolidation Bill, on supplementary benefits. At least it is a start, although I appreciate that there is an awfully long way to go. The trouble with our social security structure is that it is like a building in which the cement is never dry and it is never at a proper stage for an opening ceremony. But I take the point.

The hon. Lady the Member for Wallasey made an important point about wanting to see more one-parent families going out and getting jobs. In a modest way this measure will help in that regard. She then referred to the training of single parents who wanted to go back to work, or even to start work for the first time. Although it is not directly relevant, my Department will be willing to look into this with the other Departments involved, presumably mainly the Department of Employment, to see whether any other measures are needed and what can be done within the general context of industrial retraining.

The hon. Lady also mentioned the complication of the whole system of benefits, earnings and taxation. I must admit, as someone who would love to see simplication, that I have great sympathy with her. With all the social security legislation over the past few years, perhaps next year—I am touching wood when I say this—there might be a breathing space in which we can digest the legis- lation which has gone through this House and then look at the relationship between different parts of the social security system, the taxation system and earnings. We could also consider whether there should be a minimum wage, equal pay and so on, to see whether we could tie them up more closely than they are tied up at the moment. This is where the notorious poverty trap stems from and also the disincentive for some people on supplementary benefit to go back to work.

Having dealt with the individual points, may I come to the more general themes of the debate? I am not sure whether hon. Members have been waiting with bated breadth. I will start with the implementation of the Finer Report. I shall not go into those recommendations which the Government have implemented because I take it that they go almost without saying and are accepted by both sides of the House.

I think that the hon. Member for Woolwich, West said that many recommendations had not been implemented. I think he was quoting from the leaflet, or letter, sent round by the National Council for One-Parent Families which listed what we had accepted, what we had rejected, what was still under consideration and what was in limbo. The figures in that document are quite correct but, at the same time, they are a little misleading.

Many of the recommendations which have not been implemented are concerned with points of detail and the implementation of major concepts. For example, 54 recommendations deal with the guaranteed maintenance allowance and the associated proposals for the recovery of maintenance. Hence, 54 recommendations have been rejected because the Government did not legislate on the recommendation for a guaranteed maintenance allowance.

Twenty-six recommendations deal with the recommendation for family courts, which the Government have been unable to accept because of the demands which the implementation of this proposal would make on new accommodation and trained manpower. There were also recommendations about social services which, although generally in line with the Government's own views, are mainly for implementation by local authorities, and further progress here depends very much on local authorities' own priorities and the availability of manpower and financial resources.

Many hon. Members mentioned two specific recommendations. The first was Recommendation 118: Lone parents should be entitled to a special addition of £1£50, in terms of 1972–73 benefit rates, and whichever single person rate they would otherwise receive. The Finer Committee recognised that the major expenses of one-parent families were difficult to quantify and that the need for them varied from household to household. As it has not been shown that all one-parent families have consistent and measurably greater needs than two-parent families on supplementary benefit, the Government consider that special individual needs should continue to be met through the existing discretionary powers of the Supplementary Benefits Commission. The cost of this special addition at the rate of £2£50 would be about £35 million.

The second recommendation which has been specifically mentioned is Recommendation 120, that the qualifying period for the long-term addition should be reduced from two years to one for families with children. The Government did not feel able to consider the position of one-parent families separately from that of other groups who qualify for the longer-term rates after two years but they will consider reducing the qualifying period for all the groups as resources permit.

There is one other Finer recommendation that I should mention. That is Recommendation 125, the easement of the full-time work qualification for one-parent families in the family income supplement scheme. This is under consideration at present and has not been accepted or rejected. But at least there is a possibility that something could be done about it.

I now turn to the main Finer proposal, for a guaranteed maintenance allowance. The hon. Member for Rushcliffe said that the Opposition on the whole supported the Government's view about this allowance. I think that some of his hon. Friends and some of mine still feel that, although the two Front Benches may be in accord on this, there is still a strong case for some form of guaranteed maintenance allowance.

The Government have rejected this allowance, first of all because it would be means-tested. Second, it would be expensive in manpower. We reckon that about 8,000 more civil servants would be required to administer the allowance and the associated full scheme of administrative orders, which would cost £250 milion a year net of savings on supplementary benefit and family income supplement and recovery from liable relatives. If there were no means test the cost would be about £400 million a year. In the present economic climate, when the Government have to contain public expenditure, we just cannot afford to introduce a new benefit on that scale.

I now turn to more general policies of support for one-parent families, the theme running through this debate. There has been no dispute that more needs to be done. One could say that, of course, about a number of other social security benefits as well, but our debate tonight is about one-parent families.

Of course the Bill helps one-parent families, despite some of the carping criticisms which have been made. It fulfils one of the major recommendations of the Finer Committee. But apart from that, the Government have taken other measures, recommended both by Finer and by others, to assist one-parent families. After all, we increased family allowances in 1975. They were not increased during the period 1970–74. A substantial improvement has been made in the tax position of one-parent families through an increase in the additional personal allowances which heads of those families can claim.

Easements have also been made in the supplementary benefit scheme, on which so many lone parents depend. I shall list them. Young mothers under 18 who are not householders now get the full adult non-householder's scale allowance. Lone fathers are no longer required to register for work. Children's part-time earnings are ignored in subsequent assessments. Supplementary and widows' benefits have been increased periodically and will be uprated a fourth time next November, when rent and rate rebates will be improved again. In July the family income supplement, which is of particularly importance to one-parent families, will be raised for the third time since we took office. One-parent families have been the first to receive cash support through the child interim benefit introduced in the Bill. When child benefit comes into force next year those families will be paid an extra 50p on top of the £1 for the first child, so that they will continue to enjoy the benefit that they now receive by way of interim benefit.

The total cost of the measures introduced up to now by the Government amount so £150 million, which is £25 million more than was necessary to offset the effects of inflation. There has been a real increase in the value of social security benefits for one-parent families. One-parent families will benefit from the forthcoming unratings which are the subject of our next debate.

Sir George Young

The Minister promised to explain why Clause 1(2) was being amended, and why it was not amended in the 1975 Act.

Mr. Deakins

Clause 1(2) of the previous legislation was not amended in the 1975 Act. Nor was the anomaly amended at any time in the 1960s and the 1970s. When major pieces of legislation occurred under previous Labour Governments it was felt that the time was too short and that an anomaly had been introduced to remedy what was thought to be an unjust situation at a time when the national assistance scheme was changed. As a result no action was taken. Perhaps both parties have delayed too long in putting right this anomaly. Nevertheless I think that we may do so now, justifiably, especially as we are protecting the position of those who benefit from this anomaly at present.

I know that the hon. Gentleman has one or two points which we may consider in Committee. However, I do not think that this is a blot on the Government's copybook by any means. Any Government would have needed to simplify the scheme of disregards, especially when the original reason for introducing disregards no longer apply.

This has been a very wide debate. Although you, Mr. Speaker, were not present to hear it all, I assure you that it ranged very widely. The House behaved well. We all resisted the temptation to go into the subject of child benefits or child interim benefits in any detail, although we touched on defence and a number of other matters. I have not dared follow the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley, although his point of view is shared by a number of his hon. Members on both sides of the House.

I have answered the points raised to the best of my ability. I hope that I have done so fairly thoroughly. I am sorry to have taken so long. This has been a debate on Government support for one-parent families, what the Government are doing and whether they should do more. We may always do more. Within the constraints of public expenditure—which I think most hon. Members on both sides have recognisedone-parent families will be one of the major priorities for social security expenditure by the Government.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

c1994
1. SUPPLEMENTARY BENEFIT (AMENDMENT) [MONEY] 62 words