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We have also simplified tax rules to support flexible retirement so that, where pension schemes allow it, people can draw down all or part of an occupational pension while working for the sponsoring employer. It may not be the complete answer, but it is a move in the right direction. A number of noble Lords raised the default retirement age, and I think I have covered that in relation to the European Court of Justice and the High Court.

The Government provided for the default retirement age on the basis of the evidence available at the time but, recognising that circumstances can change, we made a public commitment to review it. As I have said, we are now bringing it forward. We announced that in Building a Society for All Ages. On 15 October, my right honourable friend in the other place, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, announced that we are calling for stakeholders to submit evidence that will inform the review by 1 February.

Further to this, I am pleased to announce that a statement setting out the sort of evidence that we are seeking will be posted on the websites of both the

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Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Work and Pensions next week. I will of course ensure that the points made here today are fed into the evidence-gathering process. Obviously, I also encourage noble Lords to submit any further evidence that they may have. We have also commissioned a major research project, the Survey of Employers’ Policies, Practices and Preferences Relating to Age, which I have referred to, and which will provide a key insight into employers’ age-based practices, particularly the use of the default retirement age.

There was a comment about putting our own house in order. Increasingly, employers have been removing fixed retirement ages. By April 2010 the Civil Service will have removed retirement ages for all staff, not just the Senior Civil Service. I do not have any more information on the public sector, but that is a good thing. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, talked about the importance to everyone of flexible working. I share her view. There was some scepticism from the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, about some of the things that we have done being a burden on employers. However, such things as the national minimum wage, extending flexible working to parents and so on have been of benefit to society.

I apologise that I could not cover every point raised. I thank my noble friend Lady Turner of Camden for instigating the debate and I commend it to the House. I will try to answer in writing any questions that I have not covered.

Welfare Reform Bill

Report (1st Day) (Continued)

2.52 pm

Amendment 7

Moved by Lord McKenzie of Luton

7: Clause 2, page 4, line 23, after “who” insert “—

(a) ”

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Department for Work and Pensions (Lord McKenzie of Luton): My Lords, in moving Amendment 7, I will speak also to the other government amendments in this group. As noble Lords will be aware, in Committee I announced that we would table a number of government amendments to take into account the informative and thought-provoking debates that we had had. This set of amendments delivers those commitments and builds on them. The amendments provide the assurances and safeguards that noble Lords seek. I will start by briefly running through what these amendments do, but I want to spend the bulk of my time explaining what effect they will have on lone parents.

Amendments 10 and 19 seek to introduce flexibility to allow lone parents undertaking work-related activity on employment and support allowance, and those affected by progression-to-work, to restrict the hours when they undertake work-related activity. It is intended that this flexibility will be used to allow such lone

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parents to restrict their hours of availability so that they fit around their children’s schooling or formal childcare. This has been introduced with the intention of mirroring the ability in jobseeker’s allowance to restrict the number of hours that they are available for work.

I note in passing that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, has tabled amendments that seek to extend the provisions above for lone parents to all parents. However, we have chosen to amend primary legislation for lone parents because we want to highlight the added problems that they will have in combining work-related activity and their caring responsibilities and to protect them accordingly. We feel that parents, as a more general group, do not face the same barriers, because they can share caring.

Amendments 19 and 21 place in primary legislation an assurance that lone parents with a youngest child aged below seven will not be required to meet the full jobseeking conditions of jobseeker’s allowance—for example, being available for work or actively seeking work. This will give strength to our position of allowing lone parents to be entitled to claim income support or modified jobseeker’s allowance until their youngest child is seven. Amendment 19 also removes the requirement for lone parents with a youngest child aged under one, and who are in receipt of income support and employment and support allowance, to attend work-focused interviews. To continue this across the benefits, Amendment 22 ensures that this position is carried forward into modified jobseeker’s allowance. Lone parents on income support or employment and support allowance, with a youngest child aged between one and two, will still be required to attend mandatory work-focused interviews and draw up an action plan; they can voluntarily access the support available via the New Deal for Lone Parents or Pathways to Work.

Amendment 19 also seeks to put in primary legislation our intention that those lone parents with a youngest child aged between one and two, who are claiming employment and support allowance, will not be required to undertake any work-related activity. This means that only lone parents with a youngest child aged three or over can be required to undertake work-related activity.

Noble Lords will be aware that, when amendments are tabled, minor amendments are needed to make the legislation work. Amendments 93, 94 and 96 are three such amendments. They are included so that when income support is eventually abolished all the statutory references go with it.

Amendments 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 25 and 26 reaffirm our policy intention and make it clear in the Bill that only those lone parents who are on income support—and, in future, on modified JSA—and who have a youngest child aged between three and six, will be required to undertake work-related activity. To put these amendments in context, I will now cover the journey that a lone parent will make as a result of these amendments and the existing Bill provisions.

As I have mentioned, lone parents with a youngest child under one will be in the “no conditionality” group. A “no conditionality” approach allows us to mirror other policies, such as changes to maternity

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entitlement and maternity and paternity leave, which already protect the position of lone parents in the important first year of a child’s life. This ensures that, during that first year, lone parents will have the right and the ability to look after and bond with their child, without any requirements to engage with Jobcentre Plus. However, this does not necessarily mean that they have no access to support and advice about preparation for work. They will still be able voluntarily to attend work-focused interviews and access the support and various benefits that are available to lone parents with a youngest child aged between one and two.

Lone parents with a youngest child between one and two will be expected to attend mandatory work-focused interviews. When their youngest child is aged three to six, they will be expected to attend three-monthly work-focused interviews and agree an action plan with their adviser to undertake work-related activity. This action plan will set out their individual route to prepare them for work when it is appropriate for them. We expect that the action plan will be subject to the well-being provisions that we are about to debate.

As we have discussed, this preparation for work may start with limited activity for the parent, gradually increasing as they move closer to the labour market and want to enter work or as their child becomes older and they feel more able to work. To support this gradual increase, tailored to the individual’s needs, we do not intend to have a specific definition of what will qualify as work-related activity. Rather, we want to establish the principle that these customers are on an active journey towards eventual employment, keeping the specific steps open for claimants and advisers to agree on an individual basis. For example, after their discussion, a parent and an adviser may agree that, because confidence is low and the lone parent is at the beginning of their journey and some way from the labour market, quarterly attendance at a children’s centre is an acceptable work-related activity as a starting point. At the other end of the scale, a parent who is much more prepared for work may agree with an adviser a more intensive activity, such as daily attendance at a short, part-time course, to develop or update work-related skills while their child is at school.

2 pm

We expect many lone parents with a youngest child aged between three and six to be among the hardest to help, likely to be some distance from the labour market and typically to have multiple barriers to employment. Work-related activity should therefore be interpreted broadly to meet their needs if it is to be most helpful. It should not be restricted to formal training or confidence building, although these could be qualifying activities. Unlike “work for your benefit”, which is only for those on the full jobseeker’s allowance regime, and which we have already discussed, there will be no daily requirement to undertake activity, but there will be a minimal one to undertake one activity between work-focused interviews. This will allow advisers and lone parents flexibility in drawing up the action plans and tailoring activities to their individual needs and situation. Throughout this, they will be able to protect the time in which their children are normally not at school or in formal childcare. We will not require them to undertake any activity that cuts into that time.

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I stress that work-related activity will not require any lone parent to be available for or actively seeking work. Instead, it will help lone parents in their journey towards the workplace, improving their skills and their knowledge of what is available, in order to support them and prepare them for when their youngest child reaches seven, so that the move to jobseeking will not be a sudden step up but the next step in their journey towards work, as we have discussed. Then, when the child is seven or over, they will be subject to the jobseeker’s allowance regime and, where appropriate, be able to use the flexibilities that we introduced when we changed the entitlement conditions for income support for lone parents based on the age of their youngest child from November 2008. These flexibilities allow lone parents to be available for work for a minimum of 16 hours a week and allow them to refuse a job or to leave employment if childcare is not available.

Additionally, a lone parent can restrict their availability so that this does not clash with school hours or formal childcare. We have also added the need for a personal adviser to ensure that the well-being of the child is taken into account when drawing up a jobseeker’s agreement. I believe that these amendments fulfil the obligations that we introduced in Committee. I beg to move.

Lord Northbourne: My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 9 and 11, which seek to amend Amendments 8 and 10 respectively. These are probing amendments. I have tabled them to raise a very real question, as I see it. I welcome and support all the amendments that the noble Lord has tabled in relation to lone parents. I by no means ignore the very real problems that lone parents have and I support what the Government are doing. However, significant problems and injustices may arise as a result of prioritising lone parents in the way proposed.

The Minister referred to shared parenting. I am not convinced that it is reasonable to assume that, because two people are living together as a couple, the second partner will be available to stand in for the other parent when they are called to the jobcentre. Is it reasonable to assume that a partner will be available, able to and qualified to take up childcare to suit the jobcentre, especially when substantial travel time may be involved? Is it not possible that sometimes the partner will be a totally inappropriate person? He might be an alcoholic, violent or aggressive. Being one of a couple does not necessarily guarantee that attending interviews or work-related activities will be any easier. Couple parents may also have problems; conversely, single parents who have good childcare facilities would be just as well off with their child being looked after in childcare as they would be by having them looked after by a partner.

I raise this issue not only because I believe that the concerns of couple parents should be drawn to the attention of the House, but because there are problems. Penalising couple parents, which is what this will be seen as, creates a perverse incentive. It will discourage unmarried couples from making a home together for their child. Children need the security of family life, with two committed parents wherever possible. We already have a tax and benefit system that, for some

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parents, costs them 20 per cent more to live together than to live apart. The disadvantage that is implicit in the noble Lord’s amendments will tend to encourage one of the worst and most dangerous family structures for children—a home where the mother lives with short-term, often-changing male partners.

The amendments that the Government and others have introduced to protect children of lone parents are excellent, but they should be extended to cover couple parents as well. If the Government say that this is a step too far and will cost too much, I would say that the availability of childcare should be the criterion. If childcare is available to the partner couple from the partner, or if childcare is available from any other source, that is fine. Those people should not be excluded from the obligations to attend the jobcentre. Where childcare from the partner or outside is not available, the exclusions in my amendments should be appropriate. I beg to move.

Baroness Afshar: My Lords, I speak in reluctant support of this proposition, not because I think that couples who live together should be married, but in particular because for many low-income couples the facility of taking time off is not a real option. If you have an insecure job in which you are paid for the day you work, taking a day off may not be appropriate. My hope is that the preference given in the Bill to the welfare of children will mean that, if a parent feels that the welfare of the children is threatened, they will not go to work. If that is not the case, I would very much like “lone” to be removed.

Lord Freud: My Lords, I should like to take advantage of this group of amendments to reiterate our fundamental support for the Bill—I am grateful that the Minister has acknowledged that support. The protective measures introduced in these government amendments go a long way towards satisfying our concerns. Indeed, should our Amendment 6 be incorporated in the Act, the structure of these government amendments would offer a coherent approach, on a sensible timeline, to drawing lone parents into the workforce and, I hope, out of poverty. We are pleased that the Government have responded positively to our concerns in this area.

The only specific point that I should like to make is on the protection that we sought to introduce in our previous amendment on work-related activity. I refer to our debate before lunch, when the Minister told us that action plans would be light. However, when introducing these amendments, he said that the plans may require daily attendance at a part-time course. Which of the two alternatives is to be applied?

I should like to express admiration for the deletions proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, in Amendments 9 and 11 of the word “lone” in “lone parents”. This would widen the protections from lone parents to all parents. His logic is impeccable. Differentiating in this way between lone parents and couples serves to encourage the state of single parenthood.

The noble Lord has put his finger on a huge problem. That excellent publication launched last month by the Centre for Social Justice, Dynamic Benefits, found that nearly 2 million low-earning couples lose an average of £1,336 per year because they live together. Only three

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of the 26 OECD countries surveyed have larger couple penalties than the UK. People in this situation know it. The document states:

“This is a strong disincentive to marriage or cohabitation and is recognised as such by those who face it. Our polling showed that 77% of those who are out of work or in part-time work think low-earning/unemployed people are materially better off if they live apart than if they live as a couple”.

The thought seems to have bred action. The study found that low earners are 30 to 50 per cent less likely than high earners to live as couples.

These are two powerful, probing amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. In practice, the conditionality for lone parents is being ratcheted up in the Bill, so in relative terms the differentiation is being reduced. I would be interested to learn from the Minister whether the Government have any plans to address the underlying problem in the context of a much broader review of the welfare system.

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope: My Lords, I, too, acknowledge that the Minister’s amendments in this group contain welcome concessions. I am also grateful that he took the opportunity to sketch out what he thinks the journey for lone parents will look like. Am I right in thinking that until the child is seven, when lone parents will join the normal jobseeker’s allowance regulations under the provisions of the 1995 Act, with all that that entails, these parents will be in the hands of Jobcentre Plus and not of providers who might be looking after parents of three to five year-olds—or whatever client groups we have—in a different way? I would be more comfortable if the journey to the age of seven was contained within the public service, because of the necessary evaluation of how the change in policy and its delivery are being implemented, particularly in relation to the protections that are essential to making sure that the policy works.

I listened as carefully as I could. The impression given was that until the child is seven, Jobcentre Plus and professionals in the public service will look after their client group, and afterwards there is the possibility of going to private service providers. I said earlier that evaluation is very important. We are looking at a back-to-work White Paper—goodness help us—in the next fortnight or three weeks, and there is a danger that this will be so confusing to lone parent groups, never mind the policy makers who are trying to understand the legislation, that people will get lost in the complexity. If the White Paper has another go at this and makes more changes in the few weeks before it is published, that is something that the House would want to look at.

Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate. Everyone has supported the government amendments. I will return in a moment to the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. I accept that they are probing amendments, which the Government are not able to accept.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Freud, that I accept and appreciate the broad support that has been given by his Benches to the Bill. In relation to the debate

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that we had on the action plan, and the extent of the detail in the plans and the activity levels required, I have tried to explain that we see this as a journey. When the youngest child is three or four, the level of activity is likely to be less than when the youngest child approaches the age of seven, which is the point at which the parent will enter the jobseeker’s allowance regime, with the full conditionality that goes with it. We see it as a journey, which is why, in the early days, the requirements on lone parents would be quite gentle. It might be just one activity in the course of a quarter between two work-focused interviews. It might be going along to a children’s centre or going to get support to sort out the parent’s finances. If the lone parent wishes to do more, there will be the opportunity for that. That is the journey that we see—a progression towards the time when individuals will be subject to the full conditionality of jobseeker’s allowance.

3.15 pm

The noble Lord posed a broader point about family structures and what the Government have done to support those structures. We could spend a lot of time debating what the Government have done in the way of tax credits and supporting families, and particularly children, making what I believe to be significant improvements in our society. Hundreds of thousands of children have been taken out of poverty but there are still some challenges to go. The forward direction of the welfare system is partly addressed in the Bill before us. We have promised in due course a White Paper, which will map out the steps going forward. I think I would characterise this group of government amendments as focusing on family-friendly issues, particularly support for and recognition of the role that parents have in bringing up, supporting and caring for their children. That is the direction from which we have come and on which we are embarked.

The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, asked about the position before the progression-to-work changes and what conditionality would apply to lone parents with children under the age of seven. Such parents would typically be on income support. I do not think that they would be precluded from employment and support allowance, but that would obviously depend on their circumstances. The conditionality applied would generally be turning up for work-focused interviews. If the parent was on employment and support allowance, they could be in a pathways system, rather than on income support, where by and large there would be engagement with Jobcentre Plus. I shall check but I think I am right in saying that parents in that position are still able to volunteer for the New Deal support that is on offer. I see reassuring nods from the Box, where I think the heads are going up and down rather than sideways, so I have some confidence in that remark.

I turn to address more specifically the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. I accept that they are probing and therefore hope that he will not press them. With regard to child maintenance, there are technical rules on shared care, based on the payment of child benefit and the number of nights spent with each parent. I think that the noble Lord was involved in our debates on the Child Maintenance and Other

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Payments Bill the year before last, although it seems like only yesterday. The benefits system assumes that the child is cared for by the parent receiving the child benefit. We have looked at other systems but they all have considerable practical problems. I should also make the point that the childcare flexibility, good cause and well-being safeguards apply to all parents, not just lone parents. That is very important.

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