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Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, it is with some surprise that I see this amendment in lieu has come back from another place because the arguments have been firmly on the side of the original Lords amendment. John Grogan MP—a Member on the government Benches in another place—said: ""This proposal is mean-spirited. It is cold, austere … and it is unworthy of the Secretary of State and the Minister".—[Official Report, Commons, 10/11/09; col. 181.]" I find it difficult to disagree. The purpose of my original amendment was simple: to make sure that as this new, very active labour market policy is applied to lone parents there are no unfortunate impacts on those who look after children under school age. The Government have argued that this will compress the time that lone parents will have to prepare for work from four years to two. This is barely concealed sophistry. The Minister has today described a new sanctions regime for lone parents with a youngest child of three. There will, apparently, be a process after two missed work-focused interview or a three-month failure to undertake work-related activity—this includes an opportunity to explain good cause—after which there will be a written warning. After three missed interviews or three failures to take up work-related activity, there will be an individual case review. After a fourth breach, a financial sanction will be considered, and then there is an appeal process on top. In the real world, this will take a considerable time; in some cases, indeed, not much less than two years. So what has happened to the argument based on compression now? It has disappeared. I was not so much surprised at the amendment in lieu but more puzzled. As my colleague in another place, James Clappison, said: ""The amendment in lieu deals with work-related activities to be imposed on the lone parents in question, not the sanctions that ""are to be imposed as a result of a breach of those requirements".—[Official Report, Commons, 10/11/09; col. 177.]" I agree. The amendment in lieu is irrelevant to the issue under debate. I am sure that the Minister would prefer to debate the principle of the amendment rather than shelter behind technical drafting issues—whether it should state "single" or "lone"—so I shall go straight to the nub of the issue. It is clear that this amendment has become something of a political game for the Government. They cannot accept this simple, unambiguous proposal because it came from our Benches, and for no other reason. I do not think that it is appropriate or seemly to join this political game. This is a Bill that we support and I do not want to endanger it. We have made our point. We believe that there should be protection for lone parents with pre-school-age children. Judging by the large number of e-mails that I have received in the past 36 hours, many lone parents are utterly dismayed that this amendment is being removed and disbelieving that it is a Labour Government who are doing it. I can console them with this thought: in this area, it may matter considerably more who are in government in six months or so than whether this protection is explicit in the legislation. As David Cameron concluded in his remarkable speech on Monday, the Conservatives, not Labour, are best placed to fight poverty in this country. I can assure noble Lords that if we are in a position to form a Government in six months, lone parents with children under five will not face financial sanctions as a result of the progression-to-work regime.