§ 5. Mr. Jim Cunningham (Coventry, South)What plans his Department has to assist the transition from welfare to work for mothers with young children. [11683]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Malcolm Wicks)The key is to make work possible for mothers. The new deals have had a major impact. It is also essential to make work pay, hence the importance of the national minimum wage and the working families tax credit. Also, from 5 November, we have extended the new deal for lone parents to all lone parents who are not working or those who are working fewer than 16 hours per week. That further increases the wide range of help for mothers with young children, making possible the move from welfare to work.
§ Mr. CunninghamI thank my hon. Friend for that answer, but will he bear in mind the fact that lone parents often feel isolated and sometimes find it difficult to get child care?
§ Malcolm WicksThere has been a great extension of child care places under this Government. Also, the role of the personal adviser is important—the face-to-face discussion that goes on to reassure lone mothers in particular, who may not have been in the workplace for 556 many years, that getting back into work is possible. I have seen good examples of that in our Jobcentre Plus offices, which is why we must maintain and develop that policy in the coming years.
§ Alistair Burt (North-East Bedfordshire)If assisting people from welfare to work should assist in the alleviation of poverty, why is the gap between rich and poor still widening under the Government? Does the hon. Gentleman think that it still matters?
§ Malcolm WicksThe hon. Gentleman and I used to debate many of these matters, although in those days, his position was often not the egalitarian one that it now seems to be. The fact of the matter is that we are being successful in combating child poverty. We are the first Government to say that we will eradicate it. When he was a social security Minister, the number of lone parents on income support in the dependency state was at record levels. However, since 1997, 100,000 lone parents have come off income support and into work. That is the difference between what we are doing and what he and his colleagues did.
§ Mr. Michael Clapham (Barnsley, West and Penistone)May I welcome my hon. Friend's statement? It is good to see people over the age of 50 being brought back into employment, especially when they have had hard disablement assessments. However, many of the permanent jobs that are being created are on the periphery of the new economy, where there is a great deal of flexible working and work intensity—
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. I think that the hon. Gentleman is speaking to Question 6, at which we have not yet arrived. We will do so now.