§ 12. Laura Moffatt (Crawley)What steps he is taking to help lone parents gain access to information about the labour market.[124957]
§ 13. Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire)If he will make a statement on the new deal for lone parents. [124958]
§ 16. Mr. Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Canning Town)What progress has been made with the new deal for lone parents. [124962]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Angela Eagle)The new deal for lone parents offers a comprehensive package of back-to-work help for lone parents on income support, through an individual personal adviser service—and it is working.
More than 148,000 lone parents have participated in the new deal since the programme started; 50,000 have found jobs and nearly 16,000 have entered education or training.
§ Laura MoffattThere is little doubt—especially in my constituency of Crawley—that the whole programme has been warmly welcomed by lone parents, who are thrilled by the response they receive when they go to the Employment Service. May I raise the issue of child care? Will my hon. Friend enlighten the House as to how all lone parents—women and men—get information about the availability of child care places? There has been an enormous increase in the number of places available. Is there good departmental working so that lone parent advisers can give the information about the location of those places to our new dealers, so that they can take advantage of them?
§ Angela EagleYes; by the end of this year, the expansion of child care is due to create 180,000 new child care places, not counting the extra places created in nurseries for four-year-olds and for those three-year-olds whose parents want them. In practical ways, we are allowing lone parents—who were left on the scrap heap by the Conservatives and given no practical way to get back into work so that they could be better off—to take those steps into work. So far, 50,000 of them have done so; 16,000 are undertaking training and education to improve their job prospects.
§ Mr. GrayThe Minister makes use of the figure of 50,000 lone parents—the number, she says, who have found jobs since 1 May 1997. Will she admit that the reality is that the figure of 50,000 includes all lone parents who have found jobs during that time—most of whom have nothing whatever to do with the new deal? The truth is that only 1 per cent. of lone parents who found jobs say that the new deal was the reason they did so. If that figure is put against the cost of the programme, the cost is 20 £22,000 per job. Will she admit that that is an expensive gimmick, and that it is not only a gimmick but a flop? Will she abandon it?
§ Angela EagleNo, it is not a flop, nor is it a gimmick; it is giving many thousands of lone parents good chances to get back into work. They were offered nothing by the Conservatives. The programme is key to our policies in the battle to end child poverty. It is clear from their pronouncements that the Tories—who created the large increase in child poverty of the past 20 years—are not interested in ending it. They have already announced that they will abolish the scheme—they will abolish the new deal, the working families tax credit and help with child care. That is some Tory guarantee for lone parents—"You're on your own".
§ Mr. FitzpatrickWill the Minister commend with me the efforts of Miss Carole Lowry and her Employment Service lone parents team covering Newham and Tower Hamlets? Miss Lowry is confident that the first of nine pilots for London to train child minders will be as successful as the existing classroom assistants training scheme that has been running in Tower Hamlets and Newham. Does the Minister agree that those are the types of employment opportunity that many lone parents trying to break back into the job market would find attractive? Would not such opportunities be jeopardised if the Conservatives had their way and abolished the new deal for new parents?
§ Angela EagleYes, the Tory party says that it would save the £190 million that we are spending on the new deal for lone parents, but 90 per cent. of that spending pays for itself. It would therefore save very little money and it would consign the 1 million lone parents whom we inherited and who were given no help by the previous Government to the dole.
Let me provide some figures. In the final years of the Tory Government—between 1991 and 1997—there was a 14 per cent. increase in the number of lone parents on income support. The record speaks for itself. Between 1997 and 2000, there has been a 10 per cent. fall in that figure-100,000 fewer lone parents are on income support than we inherited. That, by anyone's measure, is success.