5 November 2008
(Click
here to see the full debate)
I
gave the following speech to the House of Commons during the debate on work and
welfare. An intervention I made earlier, during the speech of the Parliamentary
Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Work and Pensions, is appended at the end:
Lynne Jones (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab): On the evidence of this
afternoon’s contributions, I am sure that it is right to say that all Members share
the Government’s aim that no one should be written off. I entirely agree with my hon.
Friend the Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean) that that aim should not be dismissed even if we
are entering an economic downturn. However, the economic situation must be taken into
account as we seek to achieve that aim, and there is some scepticism in all parts of the
House about whether the programmes in place will be sufficient to achieve it in the
current economic climate.
I agree with the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Scott) that there is little evidence
that there are significant numbers of people who are unwilling to work if they can do so.
Hard cases make bad law. As my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) said, we
should have a system that supports and encourages people, and that helps people—many
of whom will have been in a very depressed state, often spending excessive periods at
home—to regain their confidence and to be included once more in society.
I entirely support the concept of the flexible new deal, but I am concerned about how
flexible the support offered will be in reality. I earlier gave the example of a
constituent who is working 14 hours a week. Although he would like full-time work he has
been unable to get that, but his current employer says he will give him full-time work as
soon as he can. In the meantime, my constituent is being forced to attend the jobcentre to
sign on at a time when he should be in work; the appointment is at 4 o’clock, which
is when his work finishes. He has found it very difficult to be able to leave work early
and get to the jobcentre on time to sign on. He has asked his advisers whether he can sign
on at a different time, but they have refused point blank to be more flexible. I wrote to
the Secretary of State expressing my concerns about the implications of this lack of
flexibility for other people—for people who may be more vulnerable than this
individual. There is considerable concern among those in the welfare-to-work business that
the cash available and the targets being set are so unrealistic that those who find it
hardest to get jobs will face long periods of inactivity while under pressure to find
work, and that they could spiral into depression.
I am particularly concerned about people with mental health problems or other fluctuating
conditions. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry) emphasised that although
the new deal for people with disabilities and pathways to work have been successful in
helping many people into work, they have been less successful in helping people with
mental health problems. The Secretary of State acknowledged that to me and said he is
concerned about it, but it is unclear what measures are being put in place to ensure that
people with such conditions will not be placed under even greater pressure than they are
at present.
Debbie Scott is the chief executive of Tomorrow’s People, and she has said that
“with the budget on the table, it is a struggle to see how we would be able to get
the hardest to help into work”.
At present, Tomorrow’s People receives between £2,500 and £6,000 per case,
depending on the complexity of the needs of the person it is seeking to help. However, she
says that significantly less money is being proposed under the new system—down to
some £1,500. Dave Simmonds, chief executive of the Centre for Economic & Social
Inclusion, a welfare think-tank, says that a further £1 billion is needed to allow for
the likely increase in the long-term unemployed, now that we are entering a recession.
I am particularly concerned about the policies relating to lone parents, who are already
subject to conditionality and have to attend work-focused interviews. David Freud
acknowledged in his report that lone parents “want to work”. Although he
advocated conditions on their receipt of benefits, he said that that should be dependent
on adequate child care arrangements being available. Conditionality is justified by
pointing to countries such as Sweden and Denmark, where more lone parents are in work, yet
there are several different factors at play in relation to lone parents in this country.
They are younger and likely to have children, and they are more likely to live in poverty
than their European counterparts. Crucially, UK parents contribute some 75 per cent. of
the costs of child care, compared with 11 per cent. in Sweden. Parental contributions
across the EU are between 25 and 30 per cent.
I, too, thought that my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) made an excellent
speech. She referred to people feeling crushed by the system, and I am concerned that that
could be exacerbated by the move from income support to a system in which lone parents
have to sign on compulsorily. I have seen the benefits of the new deal programmes and of
supporting people into work. I have spoken to people who have been helped, and to staff at
Jobcentre Plus and in the private sector, such as those at WorkDirections. They get
tremendous satisfaction from the work they do in supporting people to achieve their
ambition—most people have such an ambition—to contribute through the world of
work.
However, if these programmes are worth while, conditionality should be a last resort. The
threat of losing up to 40 per cent. of benefits, which are not generous in the first
place, is going to make life very difficult. It will make vulnerable people’s lives
more difficult. My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli explained very effectively the
pressures that lone parents face in trying to take their responsibilities seriously. Some
lone parents have a disabled child or a disability themselves. In fact, the statistics
show that very few lone parents whose children are over 11 are not in work, and those who
are not usually have a disabled child or a disability themselves.
The DWP is well aware of the problems faced by lone parents. In its 2005 five-year
strategy, it discusses the failed work test in New Zealand, introduced without a good
child care infrastructure. It said that
“we think it would be wrong simply to move lone parents from Income Support onto the
Jobseeker’s Allowance regime: an unrestricted requirement to search for work is
inappropriate, given the complex and difficult circumstances many lone parents face...such
an approach would be expensive, unfair and ineffectual.”
That is why I ask the Government to look again at the recommendations of the Social
Security Advisory Commission, which says that, although it has supported the programmes
for lone parents in the past, it feels that the proposed changes will make life more
difficult for lone parents. It says that, at the very minimum, those changes should not be
introduced until a comprehensive system of wrap-around child care is available. This is
not just about the availability of child care; it is about the quality and reliability of
that care. Although the Government have said that they will be flexible and that no lone
parent will be sanctioned if it is clear that child care is not available, no detail has
been provided about exactly what will be regarded as suitable and reliable child care. I
would like the Government to address that point.
On the flexible implementation of these regulations, I also wish to highlight the
situation faced by lone parents who educate their children at home. The Government policy
is that such people have made a lifestyle choice. That may be the case in some instances,
but I have had drawn to my attention an example where it has not been a lifestyle choice
but a necessity. One of my constituents has written to me about his sister, who has a
child with diabetes and Asperger’s. She decided to take her child out of school when
his blood-sugar level was discovered to be dangerously low because he needs four
injections every day and he had not been receiving them in a timely manner while he was at
school. He also had to deal with the added disability of Asperger’s. She is very
worried that she will have difficulty in continuing to support her child when the new
regulations come into force.
Will the Government make it clear that they will make a distinction in respect of those
parents who are educating children at home out of necessity and thus exempt them from the
need to sign on for work? The Government’s argument is that when someone is being
educated at home, the school week and the school year can be disregarded. That is true to
some extent, but one would hope that those children might have at least some relationship
with other children in the locality and might not be treated completely differently. In
addition, it will be more difficult for those lone parents to get wrap-around child care,
because that is often associated with the school that the child attends. I hope that the
Government will pay more attention to the needs of such parents.
Finally, I wish to flag up the fact that income-based employment and support allowance is
more generous than contributions-based ESA in relation to permitted work. Permitted work
is very important in helping people to move into the world of work. The permitted work
regulations and the therapeutic work regulations need to be more flexible. I understand
that people can continue on such programmes for only a limited time—12
months—whereas many people who have disabilities, particularly those with fluctuating
conditions, may find that only small amounts of work can be coped with on a regular basis.
Such programmes should be encouraged on a long-term basis if longer hours are
inappropriate, and there should be no automatic cut-off. Again, the flexible new deal will
perhaps address the issue—I hope so. I must apologise for the fact that I will have
to leave the Chamber shortly to attend a Select Committee meeting, so I will not be able
to hear the Minister’s response. I will, of course, read it with great interest
tomorrow when I collect my copy of Hansard.
Here
is the reply to the debate given by Work and Pensions Minister, Jonathan Shaw (decide for
yourself whether the points I made were adequately considered):
Jonathan
Shaw: My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones)
mentioned fluctuating conditions and her conversation with the Secretary of State in
acknowledging that the issue is difficult and we need to improve it vastly. I am certainly
committed to ensuring that the issue gets the attention it deserves. I shall be closely
watching the contracts in the roll-out and how they ensure that they do not cherry-pick
and provide employment opportunities only for what my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood
referred to as the low-hanging fruit; the issue is also about those who are more difficult
to place. That will be the test of our reforms.
My earlier intervention in the preceding debate
Intervention
on the Under-Secretary of State
5 Nov 2008 : Column 262
Lynne Jones (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab): I very much support the
flexible approach to the new deal. Given the current economic climate, however, and
today’s news that the Engineering Employers Federation in Birmingham is receiving 40
calls a day from employers seeking advice on making workers redundant or reducing their
hours, would it not be a good idea to accept the advice of the Social Security Advisory
Committee that we should not implement the regulations that will make it compulsory for
more lone parents to sign on for work, at least until the recommendations on
comprehensive, wrap-around child care have been implemented?
Kitty Ussher: I understand the difficulties that my hon. Friend’s
constituents are facing; she makes a valid point. However, I do not agree with her
conclusion. The lone parents regulations were approved by the House last week, and they
are currently being considered in another place. We would be making a terrible
mistake—a mistake that was made by the Conservative Government in the previous
downturn—if we did not keep as many people as possible as close as possible to the
jobs market at a time when there is a net effect of people leaving work, so that, when
things turn around, they are ready to take the opportunities that are available to them.
The longer that people are away from the jobs market, the harder it is for them to return
to sustainable employment, if that is appropriate to their needs.
We have changed the regulations on lone parents and child care. Once they have been fully
implemented, if a lone parent with a child of seven years of age or older cannot find
appropriate child care that would allow them to take up a job offer, that will be
considered all right and they will not face sanctions as a result. There is a kind of
feedback loop between the Jobcentre Plus and the local authority, in the form of a child
care partnership manager, to ensure that the legal obligation that local authorities now
have to provide appropriate child care for everyone seeking work is adhered to in
practice, and that there is an understanding of where more child care places could be made
available. We believe that we have met the concerns of the Social Security Advisory
Committee in that regard, which is why we are pressing on with those measures.
Lynne Jones: I thank my hon. Friend for that response, but will she
assure me that Jobcentre Plus will have the capacity to deal with these increased work
loads and that it will be flexible in how it operates? I encountered a case recently of a
man who was working 14 hours a week and who hoped that his employer would increase the
number of hours that he worked. However, it was demanded that he sign on during the very
hours that he was at work, which caused all sorts of difficulties with his employer. We
must ensure that there is flexibility in such situations.
Kitty Ussher: Our staff have been trained to deal with the new
regulations, which are being rolled out in a phased way precisely so that there will not
be a capacity constraint on our side. Obviously, I do not know the specific details of my
hon. Friend’s constituent’s case, but if she would like to write to me, I will
certainly look into it for her.
I also tabled the following Early Day Motion on this topic:
EDM 2434
06.11.2008
SOCIAL SECURITY (LONE PARENTS AND MISCELLANEOUS AMENDMENTS) REGULATIONS 2008
That this House notes the report by the Social Security Advisory Committee on Social
Security (Lone Parents and Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2008 that will force lone
parents with children as young as seven to seek work or suffer benefits cuts of up to 40
per cent.; endorses the Committee's view that in the absence of high quality and reliable
`wrap around childcare' this could increase hardship and be detrimental to family life;
further notes that the report states that `Lone parents who are sanctioned face financial
penalties that will increase child poverty - an outcome at odds with the primary rationale
that the Department for Work and Pensions has put forward'; and further notes that the
reforms could also damage lone parents' health by causing worry and stress and have
negative wider social impacts including on children and considers that the Government
should accept the Committee's recommendation not to implement the regulations. |
