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Welfare Reform Bill

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, on an ingenious amendment that opens up the whole topic of the status of home educators who are lone parents on benefits. In view of the announcement last week, it is extremely topical, as the noble Lord said. We know that the Government will not accept that home educators who are lone parents on benefits should be exempt from the provisions of the Bill to attend Jobcentre Plus for work-focused interviews or work-related activity. This is presumably because they think that there is a lot of flexibility built into being a home educator and, therefore, that lone parents who are home educators can attend Jobcentre Plus for work-focused interviews, and possibly work-related activity, around their home-educating responsibilities. But why can that not be regarded as work-related activities, as the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, said? As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, many lone parents who home educate their children do so for practical reasons, such as the presence of a disabled child for whom it may be very difficult to get the appropriate childcare. It seems to me that if new rules are to be brought in, including registration, right of access of local authority officials and more support for home educators—those points were in the Badman report—there is no reason at all why the Government should not also agree that home education is, at the very least, work-related activity. They cannot have it both ways. The Minister’s erstwhile colleague in the department, the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Drefelin, said that they have always been clear that parents should retain the right to educate their children at home, that most home educators do a fantastic job and that she wants to ensure that they get more support from local authorities. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.