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Welfare Reform Bill

I think I was a little kinder than the hon. Lady in what I said about the value of affirmative resolutions. As a parliamentarian, I always welcome the affirmative procedure and argue in favour of it when considering Bills, but one needs a tinge of realism when discussing the subject. I am always in favour of parliamentary debates, but following the hon. Lady's point I would say that even when the regulations come before the House, they will not deal with the issue in question. The affirmative resolution procedure will relate to the regulations, not to the sanctions that will back them up. We will have no say on the sanctions. Also, the affirmative resolution procedure will be in respect of requirements for children under seven. The question is what will happen to people with children under five, not under seven, so I respectfully argue that the amendment in lieu does not make a great deal of difference. The Minister put it a little too strongly when he said that it was the necessary safeguard in lieu of the Lords amendment, because it does not address the question at all. It is a bit of a misrepresentation to say that it is an amendment in lieu in the sense of forming a satisfactory replacement for the amendment from the House of Lords. It is off the point altogether. Similarly, the Government have introduced other amendments, which the Minister spoke about at great length earlier. I broadly welcome many of them, but again I question whether they address the point at issue between us. The amendments that the Government introduced in another place were put forward on the basis of addressing the concerns that have been expressed about the requirements made of lone parents with younger children. Many such concerns were widely expressed in another place. The Government brought forward amendments described as a package of concessions—I believe that the Minister himself has described them as such—so let us see how good the concessions are on the point about protecting lone parents of younger children from financial sanctions. Lords amendments 3 and 4 are Government amendments designed to ensure that lone parents with a child under three could not be required to undertake work-related activity. However, that is not a change in policy, because the Government have always stated that that was their intention. They said that right from the start and throughout Committee stage in this place. They stated that their intention was that lone parents with children under three would not be subject to the full regime of work progression. The amendments put that policy intention into law, but they do not in any way answer the question of what should happen to lone parents of children aged between three and five, which is what Lords amendment 2 is about. Similarly, Lords amendment 5 would give lone parents entitled to income support a right to restrict the hours for which they will be required to undertake work-related activity. We are told that it could be used to enable them to restrict such activities to their child's hours of schooling or formal child care. Even then, if they had made that restriction and were found not to be in compliance with the requirements, they would face financial sanctions. That amendment therefore does not address that question either. Lords amendments 10, 26 and 78 provide that regulations prescribing just cause for failing to undertake mandatory activities must expressly state that availability of child care and the claimant's physical or mental health or condition will always be considered. Again, however, we had already been told that the availability of child care was to be taken into account as a matter of policy. The Minister introduced that as a concession today, but we were told that in Committee by his then ministerial colleague, the right hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty). He told the Committee, before the Bill went to the other place that""the absence of such provision will be taken fully into account when discussing the details of an individual's work-related activity at three."––[Official Report, Welfare Reform Public Bill Committee, 24 February 2009; c. 120.]" That has been included in the Bill, but it would have been the Government's policy in any case. I will leave the House to judge the value of that concession as part of the package of concessions. Taking the concessions in the round, they are either on a different matter or they put into law what would be Government policy in any case. They still leave open the possibility of lone parents of children as young as three or four facing the threat of financial sanctions. Although we may welcome the amendments, we do not think that they tackle the matter at stake. The Minister went through them carefully, but as a package of concessions, it misses the point, which, for us, has been an issue all along. Let me deal with an amendment that we welcome. It represents a new development and is about a different subject. The Minister mentioned Lords amendment 25 and he was right about it. Under it, the Secretary of State would be required to exercise existing regulation-making powers to provide that victims of domestic violence can, for 13 weeks, start or continue a claim for jobseeker's allowance without being available for employment. That is a good idea, which we welcome. It is in line with what we proposed in a strategy paper in December 2008, when we suggested a three-month period of grace, during which women who were housed in refuges should be exempt from the requirement to seek work to qualify for jobseeker's allowance. It is right that we recognise the stresses, strains and problems that such women face at that unfortunate time in their lives. We accept that women who are the victims of domestic violence will have suffered considerable emotional distress and find themselves dealing with several practical issues, making it difficult for them to find work. We remain concerned about Lords amendment 2 and the Government's motion to disagree. I say to Labour Members that our position on lone parents with children aged under five has been consistent throughout. If one examines the history, the Government have some questions to answer about their consistency on the matter. Originally, in the Green Paper of July 2008, they chose five as the age at which the requirements should be imposed. Barely six months later, they unilaterally lowered the age to three, without giving any justification, in response to the Gregg report on conditionality. In March, because we supported the Government's original proposal—that five was the appropriate age—the then Secretary of State accused us of opposing the whole Bill and of using our view on age to block welfare reform. On Third Reading, he said:""This Bill has gone through despite the opposition of Her Majesty's Opposition and it has gone through as a Labour Bill. They said that it would go through only with their support; it has gone through despite their opposition. That shows that they are not serious about welfare reform."—[Official Report, 17 March 2009; Vol. 489, c. 865.]" I shall leave it to the House to judge, but there was no such talk from the Minister today. In March we were portrayed as the determined opponents of welfare reform in the Government's eyes, whereas today, if one judges from what was said on "Today" earlier, we are the dangerous proponents of welfare reform. The Government should make up their mind about their attitude to welfare reform. They are currently oscillating—saying one thing, then another. They are all over the place. There is an important matter at stake—the single issue that lies between us. Although we broadly support the Bill, we are concerned about the financial sanctions. Given that we are considering children as young as three and four, and lone parents, with the financial pressures that they face and all the stresses in their lives, the Government must make a better case against the amendment that was passed in the House of Lords if they propose imposing a regime of such sanctions on lone parents. We have not heard that case today, and we remain concerned about the matter. We believe that the House of Lords was right and nothing that we have heard so far from the Labour Benches has dissuaded us.