Cutting Benefits Of Single Parents Will Increase Number Of Kids In Poverty

Slashing benefits of single parents who don't look for work will increase child poverty and family hardship, a report has warned.

Gingerbread, the charity that represents lone parents, wants ministers to abandon the "big stick" of benefit sanctions proposed in the Welfare Reform Bill.















Interviewing 200 single parents it found most were keen to work but felt hampered by lack of support from Government and employers.

Gingerbread chief executive Fiona Weir said: "Single parents are branded bad mothers if they are not there for their children and derided as benefits scroungers if they stay home - they feel caught in a trap."

The Government says getting single parents to work is the best route out of poverty.

But Gingerbread claims welfare reforms will make it tougher for single parents to juggle work with raising a family.

There are 1.9 million single parents in the UK who care for about three million children. Until last year, those with children aged 16 or younger could claim Income Support and weren't forced to seek work.

They had to attend "Work Focused Interviews" at the Jobcentre twice a year to discuss returning to work.

Since then, the Government has introduced a major change, gradually moving single parents with children aged seven and over from Income Support on to Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA).

To claim JSA they must attend Jobcentre Plus every two weeks and show they are actively looking for work. Claimants who fail to meet these conditions or who turn down a job without "good cause" can have their benefits cut by up to 40%.

The Bill aims to make parents of children as young as three take part in "work-related activity".

Many single parents are already being squeezed by the recession.

Calls to Gingerbread's helpline suggest more lone parents are seeing maintenance payments slashed as ex-partners lose their jobs.

Gingerbread's research also found many parents were keen to work but said it often didn't pay. "Childcare, travel and school meal costs can wipe out the benefits of many lowpaid, part-time jobs and leave parents out of pocket," says Weir.

Gingerbread wants employers to be more flexible to help single parents juggle work and family responsibilities and says the state could lead by example by offering more flexitime, parttime work and job sharing.

It believes single parents should have childcare costs covered through working tax credits and get their youngsters school meals free.

The DWP stressed the Government was commited to ensuring work pays for lone parents. Work & Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced a trial that from next year will mean they can earn £50 a week without losing benefits. And the bill has been amended so victims of domestic violence will not have to look for work for three months.

"We need to help families out of poverty by helping parents work, and we will always do so in a way that also supports family life," said Cooper. Here we speak to three single mums facing the challenges...

For expert advice call Gingerbread's free helpline on 0800 018 5026.

The full-time mum

Mother-of-two Jaqueline Carroll says she feels "stuck in a rut" on benefits.

"I want to work," the 33-year-old from Liverpool says. "I think it's terrible that the Government is threatening to take money off single parents instead of help them.

"Some single parents advisers are good - but some ask why you don't apply for jobs starting from 8.30am. When you say you can't because you have to drop your child off at school, they go 'oh you're just being negative'."

Jacqueline was shocked when she went for a supermarket job. "The first thing they said was 'if any of you want cushy hours, forget it. The good hours are for people already here'."

The part-time worker

Wendi New, 40, had to give up her job teaching young offenders in prison when her marriage broke up 12 months ago.

She says staff at her local Jobcentre tried to push her to work at a supermarket, despite her qualifications. Now she has a job teaching children with behavioural problems closer to her home in Lowestoft, Suffolk. She works 18 hours a week and brings home about £900 a month.

"I'd have to work 50 hours a week in a supermarket to earn that. I couldn't do it and look after Hollie. Even now if Hollie's ill I have to take unpaid leave and then I'm worse off than I'd be on benefits."

The full-time worker

Charity worker Sarah Davidge from Bristol wants to work to provide a "positive role model" for her daughters Meg and Beth.

"You have two jobs - work and parenting. But you don't feel as if you do either to the best of your ability. I can't stay late at work and I don't feel able to devote as much time as I'd like going through homework with them."

Sarah admits she is luckier than many lone parents - earning about £25,000 for a 35-hour week, and her employer is flexible about hours.

"But a lot of companies aren't so flexible. The Government should encourage choice, not try to force people to take the first job going."

David Cameron 'Sorry' Child Benefit Cut Was Not In Tory Manifesto

David Cameron was forced today to apologise to voters for breaking an election promise with his decision to withdraw child benefit from 1.2 million higher-rate taxpayers.














On a day of policy wobbles in the Conservative high command, the prime minister acknowledged the decision – announced on Monday by the chancellor, George Osborne – had led to a storm of criticism from those claiming that axing child benefit had damaged the party's commitment to family values and undermined the universalist base of the welfare state, which he had promised to preserve in the election.

"We did not outline all those cuts, we did not know exactly the situation we were going to inherit," he told ITV news. "But I acknowledge this was not in our manifesto. Of course I am sorry about that."

In what was rapidly becoming a test of the Conservative leadership mettle at the party's conference in Birmingham, Osborne also rushed out a letter to all MPs explaining that a decision that seemed to punish its core aspirational support should not be seen in isolation.

Osborne wrote: "I know some have pointed out that this approach will leave households that do not contain a higher rate taxpayer, but whose joint income is above the higher-rate threshold, still in receipt of child benefit. The only way to assess these joint income families would be to create a new complex, costly and intrusive means test that would spread right up the income distribution."

Cameron made his comments in the face of growing unease on his own backbenches at the anomalies thrown up by the blanket withdrawal of child benefit from anyone earning more £43,875.

The cut will mean a loss of £1,055 a year for one-child families and almost £2,500 for those with three children.

In an effort to assuage the anger of some middle-class parents, he used television interviews throughout the day to highlight the party's longstanding plans to introduce a transferable tax allowance for married couples.

"I have always supported the idea of supporting marriage through the tax system, specifically supporting the idea of a transferable tax allowance," he said.

When it was pointed out that the Tory pre-election plan to help married couples had been aimed only at basic-rate taxpayers, and would therefore not compensate higher-rate taxpayers for the loss of child benefit, government sources rapidly shifted ground.

The sources suggested the wording in the Lib Dem-Conservative coalition agreement left open the possibility of higher-rate taxpayers also being helped by the marriage tax allowance, which will be introduced by 2015.

The initial proposal had been calculated by the Institute for Fiscal Studies as costing £550m and was worth £120 a year – a figure far lower than the loss due to the removal of child benefit.

Extending the scheme to higher-rate taxpayers might push the cost as high £1bn, wiping out nearly all savings from withdrawing child benefit and rendering the exercise highly costly in political terms for zero financial reward.

However, Cameron was given a boost when a YouGov poll for the Sun showed 83% of voters backed Osborne's announcement on child benefit.

In his closing speech to the party conference tomorrow, his first as prime minister, Cameron will try to draw a line under the benefits controversy by offering a robust defence of the need to share the pain of cutting the deficit.

"As we work to balance the budget, fairness includes asking those on higher incomes to shoulder more of the burden than those on lower incomes. It is fair that those with broader shoulders bear greater load," Cameron will argue.

At the same time he will try to reflect the growing demands in his party at this conference not to ape Labour's definition of fairness, based on monetary transfers, but instead to develop a new, broader interpretation.

In what is likely to be one of the big arguments in his one-hour speech, he will say: "It is time for a new conversation about what fairness really means … you cannot measure fairness just by how much money we spend on welfare."

He will also say: "For too long we have measured success in tackling poverty by the size of the cheque we give people. We say let us measure success by the chance we give. Fairness is not just about who gets help from the state. The other part of the equation is who gives that help through their taxes.

"Fairness means giving people what they deserve – and what people deserve depends on how they behave."

Referring to the plan to cap welfare payments at £26,000 a year for workless households, seen by Tories as one of the great successes of this conference, he will say it is not fair to "take more money from the man who goes out to work long hours each day so the family next door can go on living a life on benefits".