Supporting Single Parents into Work

Kirsten Oswald Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Dr Huq]

Yes, the hon. Lady makes a very good point. There are a lot of anomalies with universal credit; I think our last manifesto said to do away with it because it is not fit for purpose. The differential rates are not fair on the children. We called our group the all-party parliamentary group on single parent families because it is about the families and is not just a parent support club.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

The hon. Lady makes an important point about differentials. Does she agree that the differentials according to age on national minimum wage rates could also have a profoundly difficult impact on younger single parents and their ability to afford to work?

[Dr Huq]

Yes, the hon. Lady makes a good point. Again, it is the children who will suffer if these rates are cruelly different for people of different ages. The national minimum wage does not apply to the very youngest workers. We keep being told about the minimum wage, which the Government call a living wage, although it is not quite the same as the real London living wage that our party espouses. If it does not apply universally, that needs urgent fixing, because it is the children who will go without.

We have 1.3 million single parents on universal credit, and this change means that more single parents will be expected to work. When talking of differentials, there is the age of the child before a parent works a given number of hours. For example, if the child is three, that is 16 hours. When that child reaches five, the parent is expected to work 25 hours, and when the child is over 13, it becomes full time. That is a blunt and clumsy instrument for people who are doing all the caring and earning in one household. Research by the consultancy Timewise shows a dire shortage of part-time vacancies.

Single parents are more likely to have been furloughed than coupled parents, and for longer. That reflects the sectors they often work in. They are more likely to have needed to go on furlough for childcare reasons, because they are parenting on their own. They are less likely to be able to work from home. We had the luxury of being able to work on laptops last year but, in caring or shopwork, where there is a preponderance of single parents, that is not going to happen.

The Timewise research into flexible working also showed that there is little evidence of a long-term shift in the prevalence of job flexibility. We hear about such jobs, but they are very difficult to come by.

[Kirsten Oswald]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for being so generous with her time. She makes a really important point about work flexibility and how vital that is for single parents. Does she, like me, welcome the trial of a four-day working week, without loss of pay, in Scotland? Does she agree that that kind of initiative will enable a different way of looking at work? Not only will single parents be able to work but their employers can benefit from their skills.

[Dr Huq]

The hon. Lady raises an interesting point. In the previous Parliament I signed an early-day motion for more research on the four-day working week. There is evidence that it creates better mental wellbeing. I would be interested to see more research. I do not think I would steamroll right into it, but it will be interesting to compare what happens in Scotland and see whether it could be expanded. Was Scotland not a guinea pig for the poll tax?

[Kirsten Oswald]

It was.

[Dr Huq]

Let’s not go there. If what the hon. Lady has mentioned is tested first in Scotland and we bring it here, I am not averse to that.

The way the welfare rules operate and the “first work” agenda mean that there is pressure to move into any job as quickly as possible. That means that many single parents are moving into flexible jobs below their skill levels, so they are over-qualified: there is a mismatch between their qualifications and what they end up doing. I do not want this to be a load of moaning, so I will propose some solutions.

The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), gave a bubbly, well-received presentation to our APPG on single parent families. She outlined a range of different measures to support claimants into work. There is job entry targeted support for people who have been unemployed for three months. There is Restart for those who have been unemployed for a year. Again, there are anomalous situations where, for instance, someone who has been furloughed for 18 months would not qualify for Restart despite technically not having worked. Those sort of loopholes need to be fixed.

There are schemes to get disabled people back into work. Why not have more programmes for helping single parent families? There could be more tailored support, and more single-parent awareness among job coaches. There is also an issue with the variability of job coaches; perhaps there should be more standardisation there.

We all know that good quality, affordable childcare is vital in getting parents back into work. Childcare costs are paid in arrears under universal credit.