POWER TO EXEMPT DISCRIMINATION IN FAVOUR OF LONE PARENTS IN CONNECTION WITH TRAINING FOR EMPLOYMENT (Hansard, 17 May 1989)

§ The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. John Cope)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker)
With this it will be convenient to take Government amendment No. 4.

§ Mr. Cope
This clause stems from the provision in employment training of special help for lone parent3. When ET was designed by the Manpower Services Commission in January 1988, it included special help for lone parents with child care problems. As the House will recall, we accepted all the MSC's proposals on ET, including this one. As a result, lone parents of either sex can receive child care costs of up to £50 a week per child if they need to pay for child care when they undertake training on ET.
These advantages are available to lone parents, and lone guardians, regardless of their sex or marital status. We accepted these special provisions for lone parents being proposed by the MSC because they are a disadvantaged group who find it difficult to return to the labour market. These measures help them to do so and were widely welcomed when they were first proposed by the MSC and when they were introduced into ET. Many lone parents who would not otherwise have been able to enter ET and return to the labour market are being helped by these provisions. Over 3,500 lone parents in ET are 341 receiving help with child care costs. About 2,000 lone parents are now in training, having entered through the special eligibility route, which we also introduced.
However, as things stand, we may have to cancel this help because of an interpretation placed on marital discrimination under section 3 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 by an industrial tribunal in relation to our payment of child care costs for lone parents in ET. This has placed our special arrangements in jeopardy. Without a clause like this, we would have to pay the same amount to every parent in ET. That would magnify the cost and nullify the advantage that lone parents receive.
I do not believe that that was the intention of section 3 of the 1975 Act. When they introduced the Act, the Labour Government of the day said that the intention was to attack restrictive practices by employers against the employment of married women—the so-called marriage bar. This is a far cry from the sort of special help for lone parents that we are providing under ET. We want to continue to give this special help to lone parents, and that is what the clause is designed to do. It will remove from the scope of marital discrimination under section 3 of the Sex Discrimination Act special treatment afforded to lone parents in named training programmes. It is an enabling clause. It will permit the Secretary of State to make orders specifying special arrangements for access to training, or special payments for lone parents. The Secretary of State would have to specify the particular programme or programmes to which the arrangements would apply. The order would be subject to the negative resolution procedure.
4.45 pm
We shall introduce such an order with regard to employment training to continue the arrangements that I have outlined. We want to continue the status quo in ET and to safeguard the important existing provisions for lone parents. Therefore, if the clause is passed and the Bill becomes law, I propose to come back to the House with a specific order for that purpose in due course. Meanwhile, I commend the new clause and the associated amendment to the House.

§ Ms. Richardson
The Opposition would have preferred it if the Government had drafted a new clause that would have opened up training provision and child care allowances for women in general. The Minister acknowledged that there was a difficulty—in other words, a single group, in this case lone parents, is being catered for specially. We understand the reasons for that. We shall not oppose what the Government are doing because half a loaf is better than none, and lone parents are in a special position. Some 90 per cent. of the 1 million lone parents are women, and many of them are desperate for jobs and training, and need considerable help.
Although we shall not oppose the new clause, we are committed to opening up training provision and child care provision in general, and regard this simply as a first step. It would have been nice if the Government, with their recent but much vaunted support for child care in the 1990s with the demographic changes that are coming about, had been able to be generous and, as well as giving this special provision to one-parent families on ET, extended it right across the board to all women. However, 342 we shall not get any more out of the Government and at least this new clause will be of benefit for one-parent families. Therefore, I welcome it.