Welfare Reform Bill — Financial penalties should not apply to single parents of under-fives — rejected — 10 Nov 2009 at 17:15

The majority of MPs voted for financial penalties incurred under the Welfare Reform Bill to apply to single parents of children younger than five years old.

They did this by voting to remove an amendment to Clause 2 that was added in the House of Lords during their debate,^[6] which said:

• Nothing in this section shall cause any financial sanction to be imposed in the case of a single parent with a child under five years of age.^[3]

Clause 2 of the Welfare Reform Bill is intended to amend the Social Security Administration Act 1992 adding a section on "Work-related activity: income support claimants and partners of claimants".

Government Minister Jim Knight explained that "work-related activity" means participation in government run schemes aimed at helping address the barriers to work such as "training, CV writing, help with literacy and numeracy and financial advice".^[1]

Labour MP John Grogan succinctly described Lords amendment 2 which was rejected by the commons as effectively raising "from three to five the age that children must attain before their parents are subject to benefits sanction if they are not enthusiastic enough about work-related activity".^[2] Mr Grogan rebelled against his Labour Party colleagues and voted to raise the age to five.

The above sentence was to be inserted at the beginning of a new sections "2D" of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 which the Welfare Reform Bill^[4] is intended to introduce. At the time of writing the Social Security Administration Act 1992 is not available on the UK Statute Law website. Section 5(2A), (2B) and (2C) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 were inserted by section 35 of the Welfare Reform Act 2007.

The new section 2D [5] commenced:

• Regulations may make provision for or in connection with imposing on a person who is entitled to income support a requirement to undertake work-related activity in accordance with regulations as a condition of continuing to be entitled to the full amount of income support payable apart from the regulations. ...

Footnotes:

• [1] Jim Knight MP, Minister of State (the South West), Regional Affairs, House of Commons, 10 November 2009
• [2] John Grogan, House of Commons, 10 November 2009
• [3] Amendment sheet containing Lords amendment 2
• [4] Welfare Reform Bill as brought from the Commons 19.03.09 (references in the amendment refer to this version of the bill
• [5] Welfare Reform Bill - Clause 2 - Work-related activity: income support claimants and partners of claimants
• [6] Lord Freud, Tabled Amendment 6, 22 October 2009.

Debate in Parliament | Source |