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Jobseeker’s Allowance (Lone Parents) (Availability for Work) Regulations 2010

My Lords, the focus of these regulations will be familiar to noble Lords from our discussions during last year’s Welfare Reform Bill, which is now an Act. They provide a guarantee that lone parents with a youngest child aged 12 or under who are receiving jobseeker’s allowance will have the right to restrict their availability for work to their children’s school hours. The regulations augment other flexibilities, some pre-existing and others added by the Welfare Reform Act—in a large part due to discussions in your Lordships’ House—that help us strike a sensible balance between the requirement on parents to undertake work or work-related activities and the need for children to be raised in a secure environment with an involved parent or parents. Before outlining the provisions, it might be helpful to remind the House of their context. Our requirements on jobseekers are clear and well known. They are normally expected to be available for work for up to 40 hours a week. There are, however, a number of existing flexibilities that qualify this requirement for certain customers whose personal circumstances may inhibit their ability to work full-time or to look for work on a full-time basis. In particular, when we introduced the lone parent obligations in 2008 we strengthened the flexibilities specifically for lone parents claiming jobseeker’s allowance. These flexibilities allow lone parents to limit their availability for work, in discussion with an adviser, to a minimum of 16 hours a week in order to take account of their childcare responsibilities and to allow them to refuse a job or leave employment if this childcare is not available. Meanwhile, we introduced a further safeguard in the Welfare Reform Act 2009, which places a requirement on Jobcentre Plus advisers to take into account the well-being of any child affected when drawing up a jobseeker’s agreement. These agreements frame the jobseeking action that follows, so this is a significant addition to our safeguards. Such flexibilities and safeguards are essential given this Government’s aim of ensuring that lone parents who are able to work and are claiming benefits should be expected to look for paid work to support themselves and their family once their children become older. We understand that our efforts to help people back into work would be counterproductive if we failed to recognise the difficult social circumstances in which many customers found themselves. Noble Lords here today will be familiar with our still relatively new lone parent obligations, which is a staged regime designed to get lone parents back into work or work-related activities as soon as they are able. Since November 2008, we have required our income support customers who are lone parents with children aged 12 or over to move off this passive benefit regime and on to jobseeker’s allowance. From last October, those with children aged 10 or over have had to do the same, and from this October those with children aged seven or over will follow. Since the lone parent obligations were introduced, more than 15,000 lone parents claiming JSA have moved into work. We predict that 45,000 lone parents will move from income support to JSA between October 2009 and October 2010, with a further 60,000 moving on to JSA after this October. The findings of an early evaluation of the lone parent obligations will be published later this month. During the passage of the Welfare Reform Act, the main focus of our discussions on lone parents was on those with younger children, who will not be subject to the lone parent obligations and will not have to comply with the requirements of jobseeker’s allowance. There will be stepped requirements on these lone parents to engage with Jobcentre Plus and work-related activity, but their obligations will stop short of the full jobseeker regime. It is worth me stressing that the regulations do not apply to this group. They refer only to those lone parents who are on jobseeker’s allowance. A number of separate safeguards and flexibilities exist for this other group of lone parents, including the ability to limit work-related activity to school or nursery hours. But the focus of our discussion today is those lone parents subject to the full jobseeker’s allowance regime. These regulations are being created using existing powers in Section 6 of the Jobseekers Act 1995. They strengthen one of the existing flexibilities for lone parents on jobseeker’s allowance and provide lone parents in eligible circumstances with an automatic right to limit their hours of availability to their child’s school hours. This new right puts the power to determine their availability back into the hands of lone parents because they are the ones who are best placed to make judgments about their responsibilities and lifestyles. The Government are committed to helping lone parents back into work. We want to help them find sustainable employment. But this regulation represents an acknowledgement that lone parents have specific and difficult caring obligations. The new right will apply only to lone parents with children of 12 years of age and under. We feel that, by the age of 13, children are less dependent on their parents for intensive support and their move into secondary education will have been accompanied by resulting shifts in their lifestyles and those of their parents. These regulations do not attempt to define school hours. They are subject to a wide variation across the country. In any case, our intention is to fit the provision with regular attendance at school, whatever that might mean in individual cases. Neither do they attempt to define school holidays, nor provide the right for such lone parents to limit their hours of availability during them. Regulations 13 and 14 of the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations 1996 allow for customers to discuss with their adviser anything which may hinder their ability to work. School holidays would certainly fall under this should there be an absence of free or affordable childcare. To conclude, this is a simple change which is relatively straightforward to implement and explain. It could have a valuable impact on the lives of lone parent jobseekers up and down the country. It is crucial that we facilitate a work-life balance within our jobseeking regime which can cater adequately for this large group of families. This change will involve only modest IT changes and staff instruction. We aim to implement it on 26 April to ensure that lone parents can benefit from it as soon as possible. Jobcentre Plus preparations are well advanced. These regulations are an important part of our efforts to make our welfare services more flexible and bespoke. I hope noble Lords will agree that this is a right and necessary change, and appropriate to the nature of employment and lone parenthood in Britain today. I beg to move.