HC Deb 06 March 2000 vol 345 cc510-1W
27. Ms Blears

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on the impact of Government measures since May 1997 on the level of benefit dependency among lone parents. [111858]

Angela Eagle

Lone parents are benefiting from the raft of measures introduced by this Government to help them move into work and to ensure that work pays. These include the New Deal for Lone Parents; the Lone Parent's Benefit Run-On; the Working Families Tax Credit (including the child care tax credit) the National Childcare Strategy and the National Minimum Wage.

NDLP has helped over 41,000 lone parents obtain jobs, one in three of those participating in the programme. The evaluation of the NDLP prototype phase showed that it had a small positive effect on the number of lone parents moving off Income Support.