Lone Parent Employment

I genuinely welcome this opportunity to discuss these serious issues in a relatively calm, objective and non-partisan format. I think that on the whole so far—I cannot speak about myself—we have done the House credit in having done so. I pay tribute to the Minister for the way in which she introduced the debate, for some of the Government policies that she is bringing forward and for the insight into future policies that she gave. Like some other Ministers, she has a tendency to regard 1997 as year zero and not always to give credit for social advances that may have taken place before then or, as the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) pointed out, for trends towards the greater participation of lone parents in the labour force that were grounded in actions that were taken earlier. On this occasion, however, we will excuse her and treat the debate and these serious issues on their merits. The hon. Member for Yeovil did exactly that, very commendably in view of the fact that he might well have been distracted by other events. I hope that he will not regard it as in any way sinister if I borrow a phrase from our last election campaign: he might well have been thinking some of the things that we were thinking about some of the defects in the present position and about how we should proceed. There is a good deal of understanding, not least of how complex these issues are. My good friend the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Kali Mountford) spoke eloquently about the huge opportunities for women and the way in which they can be empowered by going out to work and doing things that they might never have thought of being able to do in the past, but equally about the big cultural and sometimes practical constraints that need to be overcome for that to happen. I thought she put a healthy human face on the debate—not that other participants have not done so. I look forward to the Minister's response to her hon. Friend's remarks. I want to state as clearly as I can that my party and I recognise the difficulties faced by most, if not almost all, lone parents and indeed, by parents generally. The difficulties are magnified considerably for any lone parent. Their situation is complex and there is a variety of lone parents. We tend to forget, possibly because it is now 60 years since the end of world war two, that lone parents include a significant number of widows and widowers with young children—one was in correspondence with me the other day—people who were once married or in a firm relationship and are now separated or divorced, and many parents who have never married. As the hon. Member for Colne Valley said, their motives and circumstances might be very different. All those things together add up to there being 1.8 million lone parents in Great Britain. We should not forget that slightly less than 10 per cent. of them are lone fathers, who also have to cope with the situation and perhaps with the expectation that they should be at work as well. Despite the advances that the Minister has recorded—the Government are entitled to some credit for some of their programmes—we can always argue about the contribution made by the general buoyancy in the labour market and about how much has been done by specific active labour market policies and whether they are the right ones or not. Whatever the mix, things have got better. However, we must remind ourselves that nearly half of the 1.8 million lone parents are still on income support—the figure is a little less than that, at about 800,000, but that is still a large number. All lone parents face a tough time, but they have strong aspirations, which we should recognise. Almost all of them want to do the very best for their children and for their family unit, as well as for themselves. There is not and never should be a war on lone parents. We must pay them the tribute of understanding their position and the barriers that they face, whether psychological or practical or some other form of obstacle. When we understand some of the issues that have been developed in this debate, we can give them practical help. The debate is entitled ““Lone Parent Employment”” so I do not want to confine myself narrowly to what I refer to in shorthand as ““new deal issues””—the specific programmes of the Department for Work and Pensions—at the expense of the wider context. First, I shall say something about an issue that has already featured in the debate. We should acknowledge that the employment rate for lone mothers has now reached 56.6 per cent. I am glad that it has gone up, but the reasons for that are complex: they include economic buoyancy as well as specific interventions. I am not sure that anyone has done an entirely convincing regression analysis that reveals exactly how the numbers pan out. Incidentally, picking up on a point made by the hon. Member for Yeovil—the Minister may have noticed this too—the Secretary of State claimed on, I believe, 22 November that there was a 50:50 split between active labour market interventions and the state of the labour market, so the right hon. Lady got it spot on today. At least she is on message. Whatever the cause, the employment rate among lone mothers has gone up. It is significantly below the employment rate among mothers with partners—that is 72 per cent. The Government's target of 70 per cent. for participation of lone parents is below the current figure for mothers with partners. The Minister explicitly acknowledged today that it will be extremely difficult to hit the target. There are only four years to go, and a progression of some 3 to 4 per cent. a year would be required, which would be unprecedented in terms of the trend that has developed since about 1992. We must remember that many mothers go out to work, or return to work, without any involvement with income support, the benefit system, Jobcentre Plus or any other labour market intervention. Indeed, my daughter is one of them—for the avoidance of doubt, I should say that she is married. They make their own way; of course, they may have difficulties because of their family circumstances, but they carve out their own destiny. Equally, others will avail themselves of the strong right, which, as the hon. Member for Yeovil said, is somewhat unprecedented in other countries, to stay at home with their children. We must consider the exact balance between pressure and incentive. We must remember that some parents, even parents of secondary age school children, may have good reasons for staying at home. They may not be organised as or defined as carers, but they may be responsible for caring for another member of the family. There may be particular circumstances, and we should not rush to judgment. As the hon. Gentleman said, we have a benefit system and we must think about the balance that must be drawn between sanctions that disapply benefits and the individual's circumstances—certainly if ruinous cost is to be avoided.