HC Deb 06 July 1998 vol 315 cc724-7
6. Mr. Jim Cunningham (Coventry, South)

What progress has been made in increasing the take-up of work by lone parents. [47473]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Keith Bradley)

The Government are committed to providing viable choices for lone parents who, in the past, were written off to a life on benefit. The new deal for lone parents is a major step in achieving this objective, and independent research has shown that it is having a clear effect on the number of lone parents getting off income support. Our approach is in tune with what lone parents want: the opportunity to work, and a better quality of life for their children. Progress is encouraging—10 per cent. more lone parents moved off income support and on to family credit in 1997 than in the preceding year.

Mr. Cunningham

I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. How many personal advisers are employed in Coventry to help lone parents? How many lone parents in Coventry has it been possible to assist? I congratulate him on the last quarterly figures, which show that 30,000 lone parents have found employment. Put another way, the number of lone parents now out of work is below 1 million, which is a lot more than can be said for the time when the Conservative party was in power.

Mr. Bradley

I thank my hon. Friend for his question, although I am not able today to give him the precise figures for Coventry alone; I shall look into that. I have visited the new deal for lone parents pilot area in the midlands and seen the quality of the personal advisers and of the support that they are giving lone parents, who welcome the opportunity to return to work. The national roll-out of the new deal for lone parents will follow in October and, currently, many more personal advisers are being trained, which will be of further major benefit to lone parents in the midlands.

Mr. Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale, West)

Can the Minister explain why his Department has rejected the model set out in the new deal for the young unemployed, which is that the objective should be to increase employability, and adopted instead in the new deal for lone parents an objective of getting people into work?

Mr. Bradley

I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's premise. The new deal for lone parents equally looks at the employability of lone parents, helps with the barriers to work such as child care, looks at the appropriate training they require and ensures that there is a link between that and the labour market. We have a common approach towards all unemployed people to ensure that they can maximise their opportunities to return to work, which is what they want to do.

Mr. Derek Foster (Bishop Auckland)

My hon. Friend will know that I strongly support the new deal for lone parents and the making work pay strategy. Will he investigate the circumstances, which I am sure neither he nor my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State intended should arise, in which a lone parent on family credit with one child leaving school at the end of June can be £25 a week worse off than a lone parent in identical circumstances on income support?

Mr. Bradley

I recognise that that matter has been raised in the press—the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) has already commented on it. The press report is totally inaccurate: the date for child benefit has not changed. Similarly, we inherited the date for family credit, which was changed in July 1996. Any proposal that now has an effect on work disincentives that we inherited will be looked at by the Government.

Mr. David Rendel (Newbury)

Does the Minister accept that the increase in the number of lone parents who are finding a job specifically as a result of the new deal is a mere 0.9 per cent., and that each costs about £22,000? Given the rate at which the money is being used, what plans has the Minister for continuing to help lone parents to get into work when all the money allocated from the windfall tax has been used up?

Mr. Bradley

Yet again, the Liberal Democrats are interested only in criticising a scheme that, by their own admission, is helping lone parents to get back to work. I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's figures, because much of the cost arises from the initial expenditure on getting the scheme up and running. For once, the Liberal Democrats should applaud a Government who are trying to help people to get back into work, instead of adopting their usual practice of criticising anything that comes forward.

Fiona Mactaggart (Slough)

My hon. Friend will be aware that many lone parents in Slough and elsewhere have been able to get into work, in part because of individual advisers. However, a matter that concerns me is that lone parents in work have nobody to share the burden of family crises and other problems that occur while they are at work. Is there a case for continuing support once lone parents are in work, to help them to retain their employment by helping them to deal with family crises? Does my hon. Friend plan to give lone parents better support so that, having won a job, they can hang on to it and earn a better income for their family?

Mr. Bradley

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have visited most of the lone parent schemes in the country and what is remarkable is not only the support given to lone parents trying to obtain work, but the fact that that support continues after they have got into work to ensure that any crisis can be addressed immediately, so that the person can remain in work and does not have to return to benefit. Linked to that is an obligation on employers to look closely at their own employment policies and to make them much more family friendly, so that they can appreciate the problems that a lone parent might experience and, in conjunction with the lone parent's personal adviser, sort out the problem and ensure continued employment.

Mr. Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green)

Is not the Minister avoiding the point? The Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel), made exactly the right point, which is that at a cost of £22,000 to £23,000 per job, the programme is very expensive. It is no good the Minister saying that those are the wrong figures and that they include start-up costs when there is a continuing rolling cost, such as the recent advertising campaign of £2.15 million which was intended to get more lone parents involved.

Is not the real truth that the Minister avoids the fact that there is a series of failings in the programme, such as 15 per cent. of women who are lone parents falling out of work within three months and 75 per cent. of the women written to not even bothering to reply? The Government are going national with the programme in October, and they have absolutely no idea of how effective or ineffective it is because they will have no measurement available until, at the very earliest, next year.

Mr. Bradley

Once again, I reject the figures that the Opposition spokesperson has identified. Independent researchers have said that the Opposition figures are "meaningless". Most importantly, we cannot afford to allow lone parents who want to work to remain on benefit without substantial help from the Government to get them back into work. The Opposition did nothing but leave lone parents to languish on benefit. No help was forthcoming; no schemes were brought forward which helped lone parents back into work. The Labour Government can be proud of the new deal for lone parents.

If the hon. Gentleman went round the country, met the lone parents who have got back into work and talked to them, he would see a great beam on their faces. For the first time, they are getting the help and support that they require. If the hon. Gentleman talked to them, he would not ask ridiculous questions in the House on the adequacy of the scheme.