Lone Parent Employment

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate, especially with the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell), because he and I have debated these issues many times. I want to start if not where the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) left off, then at least on a point that he mulled over: that of Beveridge and people's social attitudes, particularly to women in the labour market. I should like to take the hon. Gentleman back even further to the Marxist analysis of women as the reserve labour force, or the reserve army, as I think Marx called us at one time. That really shows the social attitude that the hon. Gentleman quite rightly identified, whereby women were not necessarily key drivers of the economy, but instead could be picked up and put down at any time, and were not necessarily accepted as the family's main breadwinner. The hon. Gentleman pointed to a useful graph from the Library and also made a remark about women's employment—or lone-parent employment—having generally grown with the overall growth in the economy, and with more people being in work. He asked whether there was really any difference. I should like to take him back to the social attitudes that he rightly identified. One of the problems was always that even if an economy was growing, women did not necessarily get any share of that growth, except when there was real dire need. For example, during times of great crisis when the men were sent away to war, it was suddenly all right for women to go to work. That social attitude had to be tackled—and still does, to some extent. The hon. Gentleman is right to point to the fact that women still are not generally accepted as the key earners for their family, even when they are the only adult in the family able to earn that money. That brings me to the issue of pressures; they are distinctly different for women in the work force and for women who are the only carer for their family. The first issue is that of social attitudes. If a woman declares that she wants to earn for her family, she will still not get unanimous support from everyone around her. It is difficult sometimes, even when we make as many provisions as we reasonably can when the economy is growing and when we can make the investments in infrastructure that are necessary to change those social attitudes. Even when the support systems that can be supplied by a Government, a local authority or any other network are in place, family and friends may tell a mother that her real place is caring for her child. They ask, ““What if the child falls down? What if they get ill? What if they need you? What if you are too tired? What if you have not sat them on your knee? What if they leave school and feel deprived?”” There is a ““what if?”” all the time. Women, I tell the House, are born to guilt, and we bear that guilt daily, particularly when we are mothers. It is very difficult to get around that social attitude, but it can be done. As recently as Monday, I was in the local Sure Start in my constituency. The changes that it has made to local women just amazed me. The hon. Member for Yeovil rightly pointed out how women sometimes feel after only a short time out of the work force. Sometimes, they have never been to work at all; they may have had a child very young—I will pick up on that point later—and may have no confidence in their own ability. It was tragic to hear one woman say that she felt completely isolated in her home. She did not go out and there was nobody she would trust with her child. She would not leave the child with anybody, not even her sister, for fear that something would happen—whether it was the child's first steps or first word, or the first time that she read something—when she was not there. The mother worried that someone might give the child food that she would not have approved of, or might chastise her in a way that she did not agree with. She had become completely overprotective of the child and withdrew more and more into herself. That is not something that has happened to just one woman; I have met many people who have experienced that sort of thing. That woman, encouraged by her neighbour, decided to go along to Sure Start and give it a go. She has changed remarkably, and she is not the only one, although her story stood out in my mind because the change was so dramatic. The change in the child was dramatic, too, and that is key to why we need women to go to work when they are the only parent. The child changed not just because her mother was starting to change, but because she was mixing with other children. She had been a frightened child because she was isolated at home with her mother, but once she had social contact, she stopped all the screaming and clinginess and started to develop and do the very things that the mother was afraid she would miss out on—make friends, enjoy herself and play. Encouraged by that experience, the woman thought, ““Perhaps I'll take on a little training.”” The training was provided through Sure Start, and the woman took the first step of her own 10-step road to recovery, as the Americans might call it, if they were here. There is a 10-step programme for everything. The woman took that next step and took on a little training, but not too much. She was a little overwhelmed at first, but she carried on. She thought, ““I can do this. Perhaps I'll do some training that will lead to something more concrete; I'll do a national vocational qualification,”” and she did. With the help of Sure Start, she had that opportunity. And so it went on, although I shall not go through all 10 steps. Eventually, she started a part-time job, and she describes not only herself, but her child, as transformed. Other women gathered around, saying, ““That's exactly what happened to me.”” It was an absolutely fabulous day. I would tell anyone who can spend a day in a Sure Start to go and do it. It was great to see such happy children and adults. Key to the whole process is the fact that there is a credit union based inside the Sure Start premises, and health support is available there. All the things needed to give a person the confidence to make a radical change to their life for themselves were put in one place. To me, that is the key building block of the whole process. We cannot assume that we can make the changes that the hon. Member for Yeovil described as desirable unless those building blocks are in place. The House might say to me, ““You've been here a while now. Why haven't you done something about the issue already?”” Quite right too—we should always aspire to what is even better—but let us be realistic about where we started from. We started from an absolute assumption that when a parent was on their own for whatever reason—and there are a variety of reasons—that parent would stay at home. The hon. Gentleman points to the fact that across Europe there are different attitudes. I do not know the precise list that he had in front of him, but if he looks down it and considers what the rest of society is doing in those countries with a different attitude, and what infrastructure there allowed social attitudes to change, we might see a clearer or more complete picture. I do not think it reasonable to send people off into the world unless there is something concrete for them to rely on. It is the reliability that parents are looking for. They have to be certain that if they take steps into employment when they are not used to it, the package in place for them is completely reliable.