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Social Security (Lone Parents and Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2008

Like the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, I welcome the philosophy behind the regulations, not because I do not value parenting but because I do. I am reminded of the story that Frank Field used to tell about visiting a school in Birkenhead. He asked a 10 year-old what he was going to do when he grew up, and that 10 year-old said, ““I’m going to get my benefit””. That image of children living in a home in which two or three generations have not worked is the worst possible dowry we can hand our children. I suspect that none of us in this Room doubts the need to encourage lone parents, as the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, rightly said, to remain attached to the labour market and to help them to prepare for that by investment in training so that they do not permanently bump along at the bottom on the minimum wage, relying on tax credits to improve their income. Therefore, the move from IS to JSA is fine. I hope that ultimately this will be one of the most effective levers with which to address child poverty, which is what matters above all. I wish to raise a couple of points, the first of which concerns language. Throughout the document, lone parents are referred to as ““he””. I understand that in law ““he”” includes ““she””. It would be quite nice, given that 95 per cent of lone parents are female, for ““she”” to include ““he”” on occasion. There is no linguistic reason why that should not be the case. I do not know whether the blokes in the Room have noticed this, but it does rather hit one. The substantial point is to give assurances about the nature of the conditionality of JSA and the conditionality attached to resuming JSA, should one lose a job. Those are the areas that we are concerned about, some of which the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, has mentioned. [The Sitting was suspended for a Division in the House from 5.56 to 6.06 pm.]