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Welfare Reform Bill

The difficulty between the words "designed" and "tailored" is that "designed" assumes that all mothers are exactly in the same boat and that one design works. We need to have a cost-benefit analysis of tailoring. How much does it cost to prepare a home-based woman from a minority, who is not familiar with the English language, and who has not had an English education to become available for work? What kind of work does she get that would pay for the care of two or three children? Unless and until we have sensitivity to different cultures and minorities we will be unable to cope with this problem in, for example, Bradford. Unfortunately, with the notable exception of this House, I have not seen Muslim women in positions of decision-making in sufficient numbers. I am interested in finding out how much it costs to train culturally sensitive people who are not on the scene now as far as we can see, and what the cost benefits would be in getting a woman who is providing good care of her children to become a lowly paid charlady and then paying for her children to be cared for. I am sure that it would be very good for her children, but what would it do for the family and for the woman?