Social Security Regulations (Lone Parents) (Hansard, 7 July 1998)

§ Mr. Simon Burns (West Chelmsford)
I beg to move, That the Social Security Amendment (Lone Parents) Regulations 1998 (S.I., 1998, No. 766), dated 16th March 1998, a copy of which was laid before this House on 18th March, be revoked. I am pleased that we are having this debate tonight on the regulations—[Interruption.]

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael J. Martin)
Order. I appeal to hon. Members to leave the Chamber quietly.

§ Mr. Burns
I am pleased that we are having this debate on the regulations because they are a direct consequence of the rebellion last December when 47 Labour Members came off-message and voted against their Government on the decision to equalise the benefit system with regard to lone parents and married couples. If that rebellion had not taken place, I can assure the House that we should not be having this debate tonight.
It is worth looking further behind the wider issue before questioning some of the details of the regulations. Perhaps the area of our greatest domestic failure is in the system of welfare. There is a deep sense of dissatisfaction among recipients and Government alike about what welfare has become during the past 30 years and where it seems to be going. The rebellion on the lone parents policy last December typifies the tensions and conflicts that arise in any attempt to reform the system.
Welfare is many things to many people. To the recipient, it may be the difference between living and surviving. To the taxpayer, facing rising inflation and mortgage payments, it may be an unwarranted imposition on an already overburdened tax bill. The unchallengeable fact is that the bill is rising further every day. With this enormous public expenditure, it might be expected that the recipients would be satisfied, but they are not hence the problems last autumn when the Government proposed those changes to lone-parents payments.
Lone parents and other recipients of social security are as dissatisfied with the social security system as everyone else in Britain. To some, that may be considered gross ingratitude, or is it more a sign of how the welfare system has failed? What are we to make of a system that seems to satisfy neither the giver—in this case the taxpayer—nor the recipient, and which embitters all those who come in contact with it? More basically, welfare has done much to divide our people; to alienate us from one another. That is why, however tortuous their journey, I welcome the Government's conversion on the road to Damascus on the question of lone parents.
The root problem is in the fact of dependency and the feeling of uselessness and the despair of unemployment. No one would argue that the answer to the problem, and what would help lone parents, is work, jobs and self-sufficiency rather than—

§ Audrey Wise (Preston)
Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House what his Government were doing for 18 years if the welfare system is the shambles and disgrace that he describes?

§ Mr. Burns
The problem with the welfare system—over those 18 years and before that—is that its cost has 966 risen inexorably. Although more people are being given help, some of whom had previously been unable to get assistance, the system is still inefficient, riddled with fraud and not targeted properly. That causes the tensions between taxpayers and the recipients of welfare, who all too often think that they should get a better deal from the system. [Interruption.] I shall return to discussing the system; the Minister for Welfare Reform, who is good at intervening from a sedentary position, should listen for a moment.

§ The Minister for Welfare Reform (Mr. Frank Field)
Will the hon. Gentleman answer the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Audrey Wise)?

§ Mr. Burns
I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman was listening. I said to the hon. Member for Preston (Audrey Wise) that the problem with the welfare system is that its cost has risen inexorably—year after year, and during those 18 years and before that. Recipients of welfare, many of whom have been brought into the system by the Government expanding the basis—[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman should listen; he may not want to intervene again. Many recipients are not happy with what they are receiving, because it is not properly targeted, and the taxpayer is similarly unhappy, as are the Government, because of the ever-increasing bills.

§ Mr. Field
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

§ Mr. Burns
No, I will not; I have answered the point.
It is a myth that all the problems of poverty and lone parents can be solved simply by an ultimate extension of the welfare system to guarantee everyone a certain income paid for by the Government. That cannot provide lone parents with a sense of self-sufficiency, self-respect and a job. To many people, work is a mundane and unglamourous word, but it is, in a real sense, the meaning of what we are all about. We need work as individuals, as a society and as a community, so we must ask whether the regulations will help to achieve that for lone parents.
Whatever the regulations achieve, it will not be as a result of a coherent and consistent approach to welfare reform by the Government. The regulations prescribe the circumstances in which lone parents will benefit from the family premium in council tax benefit, housing benefit, income support and jobseeker's allowance. Additionally, they introduce the concept of a 12-week eligibility criterion for maintaining the higher-rate premium in income support and JSA if a lone parent works for less than that period and then returns to the benefits system.
The Government are simply and cynically attempting to buy back some of the support that they lost among their Back Benchers and among the special interest groups that were misled and supported the Government at the previous general election. That led to the fiasco in December when, for the first time in this Parliament, some Labour Members had the guts to stick up for what they believe in, come off-message and go into the Lobby to vote against their Government.
Labour Members have been to-ing and fro-ing on this whole issue since my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley) announced the policy 967 of equalisation of benefits back in November 1996. The Government's flip-flop has been justified by various members of the Government, including the Prime Minister, as simply implementing a policy that they inherited, or as a policy to save money because of the constraints on public spending. If they really believe the latter, how much will the U-turn in the regulations cost, and what is the net gain to the Treasury from this exercise? I say it every time we have a debate, but perhaps in the run-up to a reshuffle, the Minister will change the habit of a lifetime and answer the questions tonight.
Similarly, do the Government appreciate the irony that, given their cost implications, the regulations completely undermine the initial savings that would have been made from the policy that was voted through the House in December, and totally destroy the argument that the Government made to their Back Benchers to try to justify their policy and stop them voting against the Government?
The Government justify their actions by claiming that the regulations will create an incentive to work. Do they not understand that, far from being an incentive to work, the regulations will be a disincentive for some lone parents? They encourage those with entitlement to the lone parent premium benefit to keep that benefit if they get a job, but work for less than 12 weeks. I suspect that a number of them will simply not bother to go down that route because of the hassle and bureaucracy that they will have to put up with. When they come out of the job after such a relatively short period, they will have to return to the Benefits Agency to reapply for their original benefit. I should be grateful to the Minister if he would explain what plans the Government have to minimise that bureaucracy and to counter the view that will be abroad with some lone parents that it will simply not be worth the candle.

§ Dr. Lynne Jones (Birmingham, Selly Oak)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

§ Mr. Burns
No. Time is limited in this debate.
Furthermore, the regulations fail to prevent abuse of the system. What will stop some people arranging contracts with unscrupulous employers to work for less than 12 weeks to protect their benefit status? It is unclear how the Government intend to prevent such potential abuse.

§ Mr. Field
You cannot have it both ways.

§ Mr. Burns
The Minister may say that, but some lone parents may believe that the 12-week rule is a disincentive to get a job, whereas other lone parents and employers will abuse the system. It will not be the same people. After all, some 962 lone parents are currently on income support so there will be wide variations in behavioural patterns.

§ Mr. Field
There are more than 962.

§ Mr. Burns
There are 962,000. Once again, the Minister is displaying to the House the breadth of his knowledge of the welfare state. We are grateful to him 968 for ensuring that we get the right number of noughts on the figure. We have now established, without making a big meal of it, that there are 962,000 lone parents.

§ Mr. Gordon Prentice (Pendle)
You should have got it right the first time.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman may wish to get into the debate, but he cannot do so now.

§ Mr. Burns
On the minutiae of the rules and regulations on the 12-week period, why have the Government chosen 12 weeks? Why did they not make it a longer period—perhaps 12 months—to encourage more lone parents to seek full-time employment? Why was 12 weeks considered to be a magical, relevant or applicable period? Why could not the Government consider making the period longer to create a greater incentive for lone parents who may think that 12 weeks is too short a period and cannot be bothered with it? It would not be that costly to take such a measure and I wonder whether the Government have given any consideration to it.
The regulations neither create enough incentive to encourage some lone parents to take up permanent employment nor produce the savings for which the original cuts were passed in December, and about which the Government made such a big deal at that time, not least to their own Back Benchers.
As the Minister will know, 75 per cent. of lone parents totally disregard the invitations that they receive to attend a new deal interview. Only 2,017 lone parents have got jobs under the new deal, and 309—which is 15 per cent.—have since gone back on benefits because they have lost their jobs after a relatively short time. As the Department of Social Security's figures show, 1.4 per cent. of lone parents get jobs, over and above those outside the pilot areas. However, the figure can be reduced by 0.8 per cent., because 0.6 per cent. are leaving income support but are not going into work.
The new deal achieves only a 0.8 per cent. success rate, which is 201 lone parents at a total cost of £6.1 million. The taxpayer is spending about £24,000 per job. If the present trend continues, the £200 million that the Government plan to spend on the new deal for lone parents will help just 6,566 out of a possible 9,600—sorry, 9,600.

§ Mr. Field
The figure is 962,000.

§ Mr. Burns
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. It will help 9,000—62,000.

§ Mr. Field
It is 962,000.

§ Mr. Burns
Thank you—962,000 lone parents. The regulations do virtually nothing to alleviate the problem. If the Government are not careful, the new deal and the regulations will become a policy paved with good intentions but, sadly, remembered for its failure to meet the expectations that it has aroused. It will be consigned to history as little more than an expensive experiment in soundbite politics.

§ Mr. David Rendel (Newbury)
I am delighted to have the chance to speak to the House briefly on this subject. I must confess that I was slightly surprised that the Conservative party had found this matter important enough to table a prayer. We had no intention of praying against the regulations, because we believe that they are an improvement on what has gone before. If the Conservative party chooses to call a vote on this issue, we shall vote with the Government. Although we believe that what the Government have done to lone parents generally is appalling—we have made that point on several occasions—at least the regulations amend the previous ones in the right direction.
It surprises me that the Conservative party chose to call for the debate and to force the issue on to the Floor of the House. Many other regulations that, to my mind, were much more important and controversial have been taken in Committee. Having heard the speech of the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns), I am now even less sure about why this item has been brought to the Floor of the House.
The hon. Gentleman did not seem to be clear in his own mind about whether there would be a greater incentive to work as a result of the regulations, and they should therefore be further improved. He did not explain whether there should be a linking mechanism of 12 months or the shorter period being allowed. If he thinks that the regulations would not give any greater incentive, because the bureaucracy will be too great, does he believe that they should be scrapped? That is what the Conservative ex-Secretary of State suggested in his response to the report of the Social Security Advisory Committee, which discussed the proposed lone-parent regulations. At that time, the ex-Secretary of State made it clear that he did not think that there should be a linking mechanism. That question is still open, so perhaps when the Opposition spokesman winds up, he will say whether they agree with their ex-Secretary of State that a linking mechanism should not be introduced, or whether they think that it should be introduced and increased to 12 months. I think that there is much to be said for increasing the linking mechanism to 12 months. I agree that, as has been said, the cost must be comparatively small, and that an even greater incentive must be given to lone parents to take up work when it is available to them.
The arguments advanced by the hon. Member for West Chelmsford struck me as remarkably muddled. As he has accused the Labour Government of performing something of a U-turn, it will be interesting to see whether he now accepts the points made by the ex-Secretary of State in his response to the SSAC, or whether he himself, and his party, have performed a U-turn. If he and his party do not in the end choose to call for a positive vote against the regulations, in that sense they will have performed a U-turn. If they act in that way, it seems to me that they will have lost the opportunity to increase work incentives. I should have thought that the Conservative party would favour that.
As they stand, the regulations take up one of the two main recommendations made by the SSAC. That recommendation is divided into three parts, but I understand that all three are covered by the regulations, and I welcome that. However, the Labour party has not chosen to implement the second recommendation, which I consider a major fault in the regulations.
970 The other SSAC recommendation was there should be a systematic study of relative costs, incomes and expenditures of lone parent and two parent families on benefit and in work. This should be carried out before the regulations"— the changes in lone-parent benefit— are proceeded with. That is the recommendation of the SSAC, which neither the Labour party nor the Conservative party accepted when the regulations were first laid before the House. They should have accepted that recommendation.
I know that many Labour Members would have wanted the Government to do so, and it is a great pity that they did not take that on board. They would have saved themselves a lot of time and trouble if they had, and they would have won a lot of support in the community. It is a failure on the part of the Labour Government that they did not take up the recommendation then, and that they failed to take it up again this year when they made the change. I wish that they had, but at least the regulations go part of the way in the direction that the committee would have liked, and we shall support them tonight.

§ Audrey Wise (Preston)
I think that I can offer an explanation of why the Conservative Opposition tabled the motion. I think that they are playing an elaborate and rather silly game—dancing some sort of minuet. I must tell the Opposition that, if they think that that will have any effect on Labour Members, they are entirely mistaken. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) wishes to intervene, by all means let him do so—but it appears that he has changed his mind.
If the Conservatives press the matter to a vote, they will again be voting on the wrong side. They voted on the wrong side in December, unfortunately, and they will have the honour and distinction of repeating their error if they call a Division tonight. It is clear that the regulations are an improvement on the status quo ante. It is a pity that they are necessary; it is a pity that the lone parent benefit was tampered with in the first place; but the fact that the Government are now introducing a 12-week linking period constitutes a considerable improvement.
I note that one of the hon. Member for West Chelmsford's main arguments against the 12-week linking period is that unscrupulous lone parents will abuse it.

§ Mr. Burns
And employers.

§ Audrey Wise
And employers. There are rather more unscrupulous employers, but the hon. Gentleman is attacking lone parents. Throwing in a sop—acknowledging that there are unscrupulous employers—will not do. If we follow him down his road, those who will suffer will be not employers, but lone parents, who will not have the opportunity to take work, to give it a try and to see if it works out, without suffering a penalty if it does not.
All sorts of things can happen when a lone parent seeks and takes a job. The child may find that it is not happy with the mother going to work. The mother may find that the child-care arrangements break down. The child may become ill. There may be more stress on the family than 971 the parent had anticipated, so having an opportunity of a 12-week period in which the premium is not risked is a wholly good thing, compared with the previous arrangement, where there was to be no linking period.
Having complained about 12 weeks, the hon. Member for West Chelmsford expects us to believe that he is seriously proposing a year's linking period. I am interested that he did not say anything about that last December. He has never said anything about that until this evening. I am sure that, if the Government had brought forward that proposal, which I would have accepted and supported, he would have said, "Oh dear me. It is going to cost the taxpayer a great deal of money." All he and Conservative Opposition are doing tonight is proving their complete hypocrisy and lack of understanding of what the controversy about lone-parent benefits on the Labour Benches was all about.
Therefore, if the Conservatives call a vote, we win and they expose themselves as wanting to depress the standards of lone parents and take away this opportunity. If they do not call a vote, they expose themselves as being silly and hypocritical.

§ Mr. Rendel
Does the hon. Lady accept that one thing that the Conservatives have managed to do is unite the Labour rebels with their party?

§ Audrey Wise
I think that perhaps the Government Front-Bench team might owe the Conservatives some little debt of gratitude for that, but that is not the mainspring; that is not what motivates us. Their silly games have nothing to do with what we on the Labour Benches do. We consider the issues and the Government have given—well, I was going to say, "A crumb." Perhaps I will say, "Half a loaf."

§ Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley)
A crust.

§ Audrey Wise
Yes, a crust. A compromise. I am not one to throw away a crust. Being of a very thrifty turn of mind, I accept all the crusts and crumbs that are going.
Any lone parents who get some glimmering of what the Conservative Opposition are playing at tonight will be thoroughly disgusted because those parents will want a linking period and the opportunity to take a job without being penalised, and they are certainly not scroungers and unscrupulous people, in the main.

§ Mr. Burns
Who said that they were?

§ Audrey Wise
I thought that one of the hon. Member's major objections to the regulations was that unscrupulous people would take advantage of them, take a job for 11 weeks, go back on full benefit for a little while and take another job for 11 weeks. That is the picture that the hon. Gentleman was painting. [Interruption.] Oh yes it was. "Unscrupulous," he called them. I say that lone parents are burdened with the difficult job of child rearing on their own. They have far too much and far too many serious things on their mind to go in for the sort of shenanigans and twisting that is more commonly found in the realm of tax evasion. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is judging lone parents and people on low incomes by the standards of those whose main characteristic is greed and who milk the tax system at every available opportunity.
972 I am happy to be able to assure my right hon. and hon. Friends that we will all be in the Lobby with the Government if the Opposition are silly enough to call a vote.

§ Mr. John Swinney (North Tayside)
There are often occasions when it strikes me that the House spends too long debating certain items of business. I do not want to detain the House any longer than is necessary to discuss this business.
The hon. Member for Preston (Audrey Wise) made an effective speech in the debate about lone parent benefit cuts in December and has made another effective and important contribution to today's debate. She used an analogy about the Conservative party playing games and I shall continue with that for a little longer.
I do not believe that the lone parents I see in my constituency surgeries are playing games with their lives. They are not trying to find some devious dodge here and there to find something in the system that will advance their position and allow them to dodge here, there and everywhere. Most of the lone parents who come to see me are in very difficult circumstances and have come to their Member of Parliament for assistance as a place of last resort. They are usually looking for a way through a labyrinth of difficulties through which they cannot find a way themselves. The idea that lone parents will be rushing off to the public information sources in my constituency to look through the regulations to find a dodge that will enable them to prosper is an insult to people who live in difficult circumstances.

§ Mr. John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings)
Surely the hon. Gentleman realises that we are not talking about dodges. In many constituencies, including mine, seasonal and part-time work are a way of life for many people. How will the regulations deal with that? What explanation have we had for that? My hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) talked about having a longer period which would, effectively, stop that being an issue. The regulations do not take account of those factors.

§ Mr. Swinney
With great respect, I do not think that we heard anything from the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman that provided a better solution than the proposal before us. I was in the Lobby with the hon. Member for Preston and others in December. We have to recognise that this is a step forward from the material that we were faced with then, and we should consider the regulations in good faith.
A great deal was said by the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman about work incentives. We can look at these issues as work incentives or some form of work compulsion, but we heard nothing from the Conservative spokesman that would make it easier, more advantageous or appealing for lone parents to find their way into employment.
Much of what we have heard tonight has been about the systematic fraud of the benefit system that we are told is always going on. We heard much of that rhetoric in the origins of the benefit integrity project. Not surprisingly, in that analysis fraud has been found to have been much 973 less of a factor than was thought. Obviously, if fraud exists in the system, it must be tackled and rooted out. It deprives those who are genuinely entitled to benefit.
However, I cannot accept the idea that somewhere out there are people in desperate circumstances, calculating their way through the system and that those individuals are in a majority. The regulations mitigate some of the harsher effects of the legislation that we were faced with at the tail end of last year and it is important that we do not take any steps tonight that would undermine the step forward that the regulations deliver.

§ Mr. Steve Webb (Northavon)
I want to make a few brief remarks about the linking period of 12 weeks. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) that it is a step in the right direction. Perhaps the one serious question raised by the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) is why it is 12 weeks. The hon. Member for Preston (Audrey Wise) made the important point that a lone parent might try a job only to find that the child care falls through. Perhaps 12 weeks is a reasonable time for such things to be determined one way or another.
The longer-term issue is the job market in short-term contracts. I hope that, in responding to the debate, the Minister will say what analysis his Department has made of the job market for entrants from unemployment or income support. What sort of jobs are available to them, and what sort of jobs do they take? Are they fixed-term contract jobs? Are they three months or six months contracts?
There are people in my constituency who are afraid to move off income support in case they lose help with their mortgage because the linking period is too short. They are offered a three-month contract job, but they cannot take it or they will lose help with their mortgage. It is exactly the same principle with the lone parent premium. I hope that the Minister will tell us what assessment he has made of the job market for lone parents who move into low-paid work and how long the contracts are for.
I put a paradox to the Minister. He may say that we have to draw the line somewhere, and that 12 months might cost too much money. I have to tell him that if there are no lone parents going into short-term contracts, it will not cost the Government anything; if there are lots of lone parents going into short-term contracts, 12 weeks is too short a period. I ask him to tell us what evidence he has used to decide on a period of 12 weeks and to consider making the period longer.

§ Dr. Lynne Jones (Birmingham, Selly Oak)
The fact that no Conservative Back-Bench Members have risen to speak in the debate, together with the fact that so few of them are here, shows that the analysis by my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Audrey Wise) of the Opposition's motivation in bringing the debate to the Floor of the House is, in the words of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, absolutely right.
I will not detain the House for many moments more on what is a wholly unnecessary debate. However, in welcoming the Government's proposals and the reversal of the cuts in benefits for vulnerable families, I want to ask one question of my hon. Friend the Minister.
974 Last July, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security published her response to the Social Security Advisory Committee's report. Although that report was in response to the proposals by the former Secretary of State, it was published in July under the name of this Government. At the time, the Government refused to accept both of the committee's recommendations. I regret their failure to act on that advice. Today, the Government are accepting one part of that advice. What made them change their mind?

§ Mr. Shaun Woodward (Witney)
It was interesting to listen to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Dr. Jones). As she rightly said, this is a reversal by the Government. The hon. Member for Preston (Audrey Wise) must feel rather pleased that she has managed to move the Government quite so far along the rails. We want to know why it has happened and why they did not have the courage of their convictions to say so last December. Why have they decided on a period of 12 weeks? Hon. Members have already asked what evidence was used to decide that 12 weeks is the right period. The fundamental question is: where is the coherence that pulls together Government policy?
There is no doubt that the problems of lone parenthood are a serious and proper matter for the House to consider. It ill behoves the hon. Member for Selly Oak to try to undermine the Opposition for wanting to discuss it this evening. I was the deputy chairman of Childline, an agency involved in child protection. I tell the hon. Lady that this is a subject that I care a great deal about and in which I have been involved for a great deal of my professional career. It is inappropriate for her to criticise Opposition Members for allowing her to speak before they have had a chance to do so.
We should consider why the Government are today offering a proposal that was completely unavailable last December—when the Secretary of State repeatedly turned her face against Labour Back Benchers by refusing to hear their criticisms. I have no quarrel with the idea that all children should be treated equally—which is why I think that the previous Government's policy was right, and why I think that the new Government were right completely to change their policy in government from their policy in opposition. The Government completed their U-turn in December, by supporting the Conservative party's policy on the issue.
I say with no qualms that I fully admire the Secretary of State for very bravely standing at the Dispatch Box, with the hon. Member for Preston and other Labour Members behind her, and arguing the case that Conservative Members intelligently and coherently made when in government and which we continue to support today.
There is no question but that it is necessary to back lone parents. However, how do we most effectively back them? There is no question but that lone parenthood co-exists with all kinds of poverty in the United Kingdom. Almost 2.5 million children are raised in the United Kingdom in very difficult financial circumstances. How will we deal with that situation and change it? The question is not how we accept or alleviate the situation but how we make the situation better.
Conservative Members support the idea of getting people out of welfare and into work. However, I think that the Government's regulations will turn that policy on 975 its head. Far from encouraging people from welfare into work, the regulations may—because of their ludicrous, arbitrary time limit—encourage people from work back into welfare. The Minister must today explain to the House why 12 weeks is the right time period.
Lone parenthood is a serious problem which very badly affects children. Security in a home is crucial. Although I am not saying that lone parents cannot provide security, I think that all hon. Members will accept that single parents very often have a tougher job—simply because he or she must face all sorts of problems that are more easily faced by families fortunate enough to have two parents.
I do not take a moral view on the subject. A modern, civilised society should not apply moral judgments to such families, for the very simple reason that such judgments have a very nasty habit of hurting the children. As I have argued, as a director of Childline, I am fundamentally concerned with protecting children.
I must ask whether the regulations are the right way of protecting children and of making their lives better. I again ask the Minister what has happened in the seven months since December to change Ministers' minds—so that they have gone from brazenly saying no to the 50 or 100 Back Benchers who wanted the policy changed in December, to holding a completely different policy today.
As the Secretary of State said in a previous debate on the issue, We are trying to ensure equality of opportunity for lone parents". Equality in December; now, in July, it is inequality.
The Secretary of State boasted in that debate: Clause 70 of the Bill provides power to equalise rates of child benefit for lone parents and couple families. Today, we are debating inequality for lone parents and couple families.
The Secretary of State also said: The lone mothers in my constituency say to me, 'We want to work—we do not want to be dependent on benefit'"—[Official Report, 10 December 1997; Vol. 302, c. 1086–89.] Yet, in July, we are debating in the House measures that are applauded by the hon. Member for Preston—who has a very serious position on the issue, with which I do not agree but fully respect. As I said, I find myself at a loss to understand what has happened to change the Government's position.
It is a shame that the Secretary of State is not in the Chamber today to explain her position. It is interesting that she was prepared to be here last December, but that she is absent for this debate—in which we are considering a partial U-turn in the Government's policy. Where is the encourage of her convictions today? The answer is "somewhere else".

§ Mr. Rendel
I am getting just as confused about the hon. Gentleman's policy and what he wants as I was about what the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) said. A moment ago, the hon. Gentleman seemed to be arguing that a presumably infinite period should be allowed; now he is arguing that there should be no linking at all and that the time limit for lone parents should be cut at a stroke. The two arguments seem completely contradictory.

§ Mr. Woodward
I am grateful for that intervention because it gives me the opportunity to make very clear 976 what I believe. The Government should be thinking creatively about more opportunities to get people off welfare and into work, but we are debating proposals which will take people out of work and put them back onto welfare. The time limit will be very bad. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) said, it will encourage some, not all, people to think about short-term contracts. It will not encourage them to think about ending their dependency. The danger is that, having sent one signal last December, the regulations will send a confused signal because they will encourage some people to fall back into dependency.

§ Dr. Lynne Jones
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst)
Order. The hon. Gentleman has finished his speech.

§ Mr. John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings)
I do not want to continue the eulogy of my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward) about the Secretary of State's performance last December. I thought then, and have no reason to change my opinion now, that the frailty of her arguments on that occasion was matched only by the inadequacy of their delivery.
The fundamental point in this debate is the acceptance by Conservative Members that the fortunate have a responsibility for the unfortunate. Let us be open and frank about saying that. We are debating not that principle, but how it is enacted in terms of public policy. The problem for the Government in this debate which seems to have been misunderstood by hon. Members around the Chamber, is the hypocrisy implicit in the proposals.
When the Government introduced this contentious policy last December, they did so on the ground of cost savings. If the proposals before us are put into practice, the cost savings will be substantially reduced, so the force of the argument that was used, which divided the House and the country and which brought so much criticism on the Government in this place and elsewhere, has now dissipated because the money will no longer be saved.
A second question that needs to be amplified is that if one is going to choose a time limit, on what basis does one choose it? Surely, it must be on the basis of a proper analysis of the sorts of jobs that lone parents are likely to get if they take work. The issue of short-term contracts and occasional, seasonal, part-time, informal and flexible work needs to be addressed, and I shall be expecting some concise, pithy and powerful arguments from the Minister.

§ Dr. Lynne Jones
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

§ Mr. Hayes
I will, so long as the hon. Lady is not going to quote the Prime Minister again.

§ Dr. Jones
I shall make the point that I was going to make to the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward). Does the hon. Gentleman think—perhaps this is the point that he is making—that, in these times of flexible labour markets, lone parents, and many other workers, do not have a choice about what kind of work they take? 977 They are often forced to take short-term contracts. Is the hon. Gentleman proposing that we should change that and remove those opportunities?

§ Mr. Hayes
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention. The nub of this debate is the Government's hypocrisy, but if she wants a straight answer to that question, I shall give it. Because of the nature of the opportunities—or choices, as she calls them—given to them, the sorts of jobs that lone parents take are precisely those that I defined. In my area, for example, where there is relatively full but low-paid employment, lone parents seeking work will be disproportionately attracted to precisely those short-term, seasonal, occasional jobs with which the proposals do not cope. I accept the hon. Lady's point that the choices for lone parents are likely to be more limited, and that lone parents are consequently disproportionately likely to be driven to the sort of jobs that I described.
To give the hon. Lady a straight answer, I would like a longer period, as 12 weeks is inadequate. It is a figure plucked out of the air. It does not deal with the issues. At best, it is a palliative; a crust. It is an insult. It has even been described in this debate as crumbs. Are we being told to pat the Government on the back for throwing crumbs to lone parents? If we are, we ought to examine our consciences.

§ Mr. Rendel
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene for the third time. I am interested in his argument. We are considering the possibility either of going back to the original regulations, which had no linking time, or passing these, which have a linking time of 12 weeks. The hon. Gentleman seems to want longer than that. Will he vote against 12 weeks because it is worse than none at all?

§ Mr. Hayes
I take no advice about sitting on the fence and having it both ways from a party that has made a profession of doing just that. The question is whether it is better to support a measure that is impractical, unworkable and will not do what it claims to do and to put in place something that will not deliver the goods, or to remain with the status quo. That is an open question. It is a moot point. I suspect that the proposed 12-week period has been plucked from thin air because it costs the minimum that the Government thought they could get away with to pacify their critics in the House and elsewhere. I do not think that it is workable. We have not had answers to some of the key questions that even the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) was perceptive enough to pick up. Unless we have those answers tonight, I would be very surprised if hon. Members on either side of the House will support the Government if there is a Division at the conclusion of the debate.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Keith Bradley)
I should like to respond to the prayer against the regulations by putting the measure in context. I start by thanking all hon. Members who have spoken in tonight's short debate, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Audrey Wise) for her important contribution.
978 The Government believe that the social security system should support families and tackle child poverty. The electorate have given the Government a mandate to reform social security. Supporting families is a key principle guiding that reform.
We are committed to supporting all families with children because we recognise that all families have extra costs as a result of bringing up children. That is why we are committed to retaining child benefit as a universal benefit. It is why we are increasing the standard rate of child benefit for the first child by £2.50 a week—the biggest ever one-off increase in child benefit.
The Government also believe that the tax and benefits system should take account of the specific difficulties and extra costs that some families face on account of their children.
Families who are unable to work, or who have lower disposable incomes because of their parenting responsibilities, need extra help, so we are introducing measures that increase the incomes of those families. We are increasing the standard family premium in the income-related benefits by £2.50 a week, and are increasing the child personal allowance for the under-11s by a further £2.50 a week. The increases together will mean that a family bringing up two young children on income support can be better off by £7.50 a week.
Our working families tax credit will increase support for working families on lower incomes. It will provide around £5 billion of help to around 1.4 million families—that is £1.5 billion more than is spent on family credit, and 400,000 more families will receive help. The working families tax credit will guarantee every working family an income for full-time work of at least £180 a week, and around 2 million children will be better off as a result.
Those measures demonstrate the Government's commitment to ensure that vulnerable families receive an adequate income when out of work and to address the barriers that they face in moving into work. Even when taken together with measures that align family premium and child benefit rates, they will mean that around 1.5 million lone parents will be better off overall. That is why, within that context, we are changing the benefits structure.
Under the previous Government, there were no substantive measures to help more lone parents to work, despite the comments of the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward). Without the last election, that would continue to be the case.
Our approach is different from that of the previous Government. Work is at the heart of our proposals and the opportunity to work is at the heart of the Government's approach. We want to offer lone parents the opportunity to improve their lives, but lone parents often need practical help with finding a job and sorting out the changes to life that need to fit round a job. They need help with finding accessible, affordable, quality child care. Help with child care makes a job feasible and gives lone parents a genuine chance to work. That is exactly what the Government are delivering through the new deal for lone parents and the national child care strategy.
The new deal offers lone parents a tailor-made, one-to-one service from personal advisers who will offer advice on job search and will help them to sort out their benefits and child maintenance. Child care and training 979 requirements will also be considered, to ensure that lone parents overcome the barriers to work, wherever they may be.
The interim findings of the independent evaluation of the new deal for lone parents show that it is helping more lone parents leave income support. Those who have been helped into work are, on average, £39 a week better off in work with family credit than they were on income support, and their benefit dependency reduces by an average of £42 a week.
The new deal for lone parents is real welfare reform in action. The figures cited by the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) are meaningless, as independent research has made clear.

§ Mr. Burns
The figures were based on figures provided by the Department and examined and verified by the House. If the Minister says that they are so inaccurate, that implies that he has examined them, rather than taking some independent person's view. Will he publish the figures that prove that our figures are wrong, so that we can get to the bottom of the matter and see who is right?

§ Mr. Bradley
I am happy to do that. It is clear from the figures given by the hon. Gentleman that he cannot add up or divide by two. Independent researchers say that his figures are meaningless.
Child care is essential to many lone parents. For too long, Britain has lagged behind other countries in developing good quality, accessible and affordable child care. It is needed to offer equal opportunities to parents to support them in their choices, whether their choice is to enter work or to improve their employability through training, and to promote the well-being and development of children. That is why we pledged to implement a national child care strategy
We need to ensure that child care is affordable. Affordable child care is crucial if lone parents are to have the same opportunities to work as other families. We recognise that many lone parents face substantial child care costs, so we are providing help specifically to address those costs
We have already increased help with the costs of child care through the child care disregard in the in-work benefits. The improved help means that a lone parent with two or more children can receive up to £95.50 a week towards the cost of child care—nearly £40 a week more than was previously available.
That is just the first step. There will be more help with the cost of child care through the child care tax credit, which will provide extra help for all working families who need help with child care costs. It will provide help of up to 70 per cent. of eligible child care costs up to a limit of £100 for families with one child and £150 for families with two or more children. Lone parents will be the main beneficiaries of the child care tax credit, and they will receive more help with child care costs than ever before. Moreover, the structure of the credit will ensure that the poorest families benefit in full.
We are addressing the real barriers to work through our new deal for lone parents, our national child care strategy, the working families tax credit, and by introducing a minimum wage. We are also providing more help with paying for child care so that all lone parents can enjoy the opportunity to work.
980 I remind the House that existing recipients will continue to receive the higher rate of family premium so long as they continue to satisfy the entitlement conditions. So, there will be no cash losers—[Interruption.] That is made clear in the regulations, as the hon. Member for Witney would know if he had bothered to read them.
However, that protection was causing some difficulties for some lone parents. Lone parents participating in our new deal pilots told us—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) would listen, he might hear some of the answers to the questions that have been raised. Those people told us that the absence of a linking rule in income support was affecting their confidence in taking work. They were worried that if a job did not work out they would have to return to out-of-work benefits on a lower rate than before.
That is why we introduced a 12-week linking rule, so that lone parents receiving either of the benefits with the higher premium will now be able to take work knowing that if it turns out to be short term they will not be worse off if they have to return to benefit.
I shall consider carefully the point made by the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb), but, at this stage, I can say that most jobs being taken are permanent. We already have statistics showing that 80 per cent. of lone parents in work in 1991 were still in work four years later.
A 12-week linking period is in line with the recommendation of the Social Security Advisory Committee, which recommended a linking period of "at least eight weeks". We believe that that provides lone parents with enough time, once they have started work, to decide whether any problems that arise—with child care, for example—can be resolved. Our new deal for lone parents will also provide in-work support to help them address those problems.
However, if lone parents decide that a problem is insurmountable they will be able to return to benefit at the same rate as before. There is absolutely no evidence to support the contention by the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for West Chelmsford, that lone parents are deliberately trying to manipulate the system by moving backwards and forwards between income support and work.
The linking rules will be further supported by the Government's overall commitment to an active modern service that will ensure that lone parents not only get help through their personal advisers when seeking work, training or child care, but continue to be supported in work by those advisers, so that any new barriers or crises that arise can be dealt with, and they do not have to leave work but can remain in the job.
We have been accused of implementing the previous Government's policy, and of completing some kind of U-turn in order to do so. Neither accusation is true. The previous Government intended to cut lone benefits, in isolation.
The present Government have provided new and innovative support to help lone parents who want to work to do so—a working families tax credit to ensure that work pays, the biggest ever investment in child care provision, substantially improved help with meeting the cost of child care through the child care tax credit, and an investment in excess of £1 billion in improving benefit support for families, including extra help for the most 981 vulnerable and the introduction of the linking rule. That is the context against which the regulations should be judged.
The electorate have made clear that they expect more from social policy than the previous Government ever offered. They have told us that they want an active approach to welfare so that everyone can take part in society and can work for their living, if they can. We promised that we would provide help to lone parents in moving into work, and that is what we have delivered. We promised that we would protect vulnerable families who are unable to work, and we have delivered that, too. That is why the House will overwhelmingly dismiss this prayer tonight.