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Is this the biggest news story of the day?

What about the loans-for-peerages? What about the Smith Institute? What about the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Office/Prisons/etc. etc. etc.

Are you Gordon Brown's sock-puppet?

May I sit in Pedants' corner by pointing out that Lilley was Social Security Secretary under Major, not Thatcher?

"Over time the number ministers "

Gosh, we have ministers for numbers now? That doesn't sound rational to me, but maybe the whole thing is too complex and they're really an integral part of the matrix of government.

Come off it Ed, be fair. The problem is that there are so many things going wrong in the UK that to be able to focus on any one of them is a task-and-a-half. The issue of single parents is one that is fraught with political problems. The trouble is that on this issue, like so very many others, the government is now having to talk out of the other side of its mouth: when in opposition it berated the Tories for exhibiting a stance on single parents that called for greater self dependency. On this, alonmg with sleaze etc etc etc. they have been hoist by their own petard.

Ed, have you actually looked at any of Nick's previous post?

Ed,

Mmmm. Well it might be. If you an increase the numbers of single parents working you are likely to have a significant impact on child poverty and crime rates. The Clinton 95 changes are now seen in that light as one of the great successes of his time in office.

However if the changes don't have that effect or have unintended consequences you could see the numbers of jail places increasing further, no progress on other factors and a general mess.

The Ö÷²¥´óÐã Office story has been done to death. The Smith Institute story will only really be up and running when the Charity Commission rule or someone goes on record - then it could be extremely serious.

And loans for peerages will be huge but apart from usual downing street semantics it is waiting for a new angle - CPS, arrests etc.

RJ

Firstly, I think you mean neurotic rather than neuralgic, but possibly not.

Anyway, isn't it interesting that whatever Labour says or does, the Ö÷²¥´óÐã always feel the need to have a simultaneous swipe at the Conservatives. For goodness sake, Peter Lilley, the poll tax, and the defeat of the unions have all been consigned to history. It is what this government is doing that you need to report with a critical eye.

From where I am sitting, we are being taxed to the hilt while at the same time the government is seeking to reduce benefits and services (charging patients, whatever next). At the same time as changing the rules on benefits for single parents and others, the government is bringing in call centres staffed by inadequately trained operators, and encouraging experienced staff to leave - meaning that it is all bound to end in tears anyway.

All of these are indicators of mismanagement on an enormous scale. Meantime, who is scrutinising what is being raised and where it is all going (support for immigration, prison costs ballooning, the war in Iraq & Afghanistan) since not a lot is happening in my neck of the woods by way of investment. Please don't just accept what Blair or Brown or Hutton tell you on these subjects.

Lone mothers on benefits is only the tip of the iceberg - what about heroin users & alcoholics on incapacity benefit or young single men getting JSA (Job Seekers Allowance) for year upon year with no likelyhood of them getting employment because all they do all day is stay in bed or hang out with their mates?

Why not make people who are on benefits earn the benefit? Drug Users/alcoholics have to attend rehab/group sessions to come off their crutch, lone parents doing community work while their children are at school, young single men getting up at 07.30 in the mornings and having to travel to do a days voluntary or community work (cleaning walls, cleaning communal/community areas, meals on wheels etc) getting them ready for the shock of a working routine.

This would stop tax payers feeling like they are funding people who only want sit around on their backsides watching Trisha or hanging round on street corners instead of finding a job.

Those who simply refuse to work - unlike those who genuinely can't - have to accept that the rest of society isn't willing or able to give them a free ride forever.

And before the shouting starts I'm not suggesting everyone on benefits is 'scrounging' some who are and with the expectation that they'll never be caught.

It would also help if DWP staff had to take responsibility for the staggering losses caused by their errors which in 2003/4 saw ONE BILLION pounds lost:

I think Mr. Robinson has been quite correct in highlighting this issue, as unlike issues like the loan for peerages scandal, this is actually going to have an effect on the lives of ordinary British People (though of course if Tony Blair has been selling peerages then that is shocking and should be delt with accordingly).

I think that Mr. Freud's report has highlighted what many people have suspected for a long time and I am pleased to see that Mr. Hutton is working on the problem, though perhaps 10 years after Labour were given the keys to Government is a little late.

The Government needs to take a leaf from Mr. Cameron's Book, and start practicising the ideas of Social Responsibility. In this case, Lone Parents realising that the Government cannot just keep giving them money and that they have to take responsibility for their own actions.

Oh and Mr. Clarke, that comment is hardly becoming of a Ö÷²¥´óÐã Blog. Honestly.

Nearly a decade ago, I lent some time to the churches action on poverty and gave a speech to a packed room at City Hall. I called for the unemployed, disabled, and other socially excluded people to be recognised for their potential, for employers to uphold their side of the deal, and for government to create a framework which increased this positive consensus.

If you cast around three headlines on the Ö÷²¥´óÐã, today, you’ll notice single parents on benefit, employers complaining about lack of soft skills, and employee’s gagging to embrace challenge. They may all look separate but they’re all connected. By positively investing in people and developing relationships these problems evaporate.

Both rich and poor have issues to deal with. In my own city, I see no evidence the current incumbents get this. They don’t get that politically correct do-gooding is patronising and rewards failure, or that sucking up to the rich just rewards asset stripping and laziness. The problem is leadership in City Hall, business, and communities is poor quality.

I would do different. Any takers?

Are you kidding us on?

Thinly veiled defence of New Labour by quoting ancient Tory history, and then even though it is a virtual non-story, you ignore the most pressing issues of the day and the most pressing political issues of perhaps the last century...all by trying to bring us back to how nasty and bad the Tories were...........

You're New labour supporting credentials are showing clearly from under your skirts; roll on the privatisation of the Ö÷²¥´óÐã when the likes of you must work as a journalist and not as a party mouth.

Unfortunately, many single mothers won't work and I think lowering the age from 16 to 12 when all children should be in school full time is a good start.

A lot of single mothers abuse the income support provision by claiming legal aid and using this to frustrate contact for Fathers (who inevitably have to pay for legal representation) and they also seek to maximise maintenance and tax credits awards.

These proposals could wipe a huge chunk of the legal aid bill away.

It is a fact that young girls deliberately become single mothers to get their own council flat and benefits. They could never afford their own accomodation on the wages of an unskilled young person. Whilst nobody wants innocent babes to suffer, it seems cruel that young couples struggle to find rent money or take out huge mortgages, with no help from the State. It seems that the more irresponsible you are, the better Nanny State likes it and rewards you accordingly. Elderly people who have sacrificed their lives saving for their old age are punished by having to pay for their own care when they are infirm. Savings over a certain amount stop them receiving nursing care and they have to sell their homes to provide for basic services. These poor little single mums will never have that problem, the State will continue to provide for them.

But Peter Lilley didn't put 'single mothers' on his list. He put 'young women who get pregnant in order to jump the housing queue'.

Are you saying (that he was saying?) that's how all single mothers come into being? Were that the case, the solution would surely be simple. Don't let single mothers jump the housing queue.

It's a good article but I think you're a little unfair on him (even if the rendition was dire and should never have been countenanced).

HI Nick, i am surprised you havent yet made a comment about the tories and the dig at multiculturalism. SURELY, you must have hear that the tories did an independent research and David Cameron likened some muslim groups to the BNP. To top it up he firmly asserts that Cohesion is not possible in a multicultural society. i would like to read your take on this, bearing in mind that before tories never dare talk about multicultualism for the risk of losing voters. But now cameron seems to b beating the drum home slowly but gradually. Also why has this issue not been taken on by political commentators?

Sad really, but I have knowledge of several unmarried young girls who deliberately became pregnant and received social housing and benefits. This is far more than they ever received on unskilled work wages, and with limited ambitions they are not badly off. So why even think about work? Without wishing to punish innocent babes, why should the State support people who wish to produce children without marriage or in dependent means? Why should hard-working couples be stuck with finding rent money or undertaking huge mortgages? Why should elderly people who sacrificed a carefree lifestyle in their youth for saving for their old age be penalised? They have accumulated a nest egg and therefore are not entitled to nursing home care at the expense of the state, and must eat into their savings and sell their homes. The single parents will never face this heartbreak, the state will just continue supporting them. Is it because Nanny State sees it worthwhile to encourage this so-called life style, or is there a more sinister agenda at work?

CSA anyone? You know, 2billion written off due to ineptness, tens of thousands of parents left repaying tax credits issued by yet more incompetence, you know.... If you want to improve the lives of single parents, how about making sure they are receiveing what they are due before you force them all down the pit at gunpoint.

Who says that a working life is better? Better for whom? 40 hours a week on minimum wage, a child that no longer sees their parents, most of your earnings stripped way in taxes for services that you never received and never will. Working hard so that someone else can receive all the profit -- then the greedy gits will tell you you have to work harder, longer, that you need a better life ->. tranlsates to a whip crack and a "schnell schnell-I'm not rich enough yet you lazy dole scroungers!"

The only plan this government has that actually works is the "I'm alright Jack" plan, but then again being a greedy self centered git has never been that hard has it!

Nick,

My comment has been heavily criticised so let me explain my thoughts more lucidly.

The govt promised wholesale welfare reform before its election in 97 and several times subsequently but have totally failed to reform anything substantially. Welfare spending has increased dramatically under Labour during a period of growth and stability.

So excuse my cynicism when welfare reform (which is long overdue and probably generally popular amongst tax-payers and swing voters) is suddenly "re-announced" just as the govt appears to be mired in scandal.

Ed

Nick

I think the lone parent benefit system and wider benefit system in general needs to be over hauled. I am fully in support of having a ‘safety net’, which is what social security is meant to be about. Why don’t we, instead of cutting benefits to make people work, make it more worthwhile to work. If we have a ‘can work, won’t work’ culture, lets increase the difference between someone living at the minimum wage and someone living on benefits. Those who have or choose to live on benefits, should be give a sustainable level of life, but could those who choose to work not be given more.

I am talking of course about an increase in the minimum wage. Make it clearly more beneficial to work, through higher wages and working families incentives, and the vast majority would want to work. Not only would this take people off benefit, thus saving the exchequer money, more people would be earning and thus more would come in, in taxes. It would also boost the economy, as more people would have disposable income to use.

Critics may say small companies would suffer, it may also be beneficial to lower business rates for small companies to offset the higher costs in labour.

Though this, more people could live with dignity, with a higher standard of living and there would be more money for the government to increase its record levels of investment in education, health and all the other vital public services.

You know Allan's tirade against the unemployed and the sick was one of those good old fashioned rightwing rants that might be acceptable to Daily Mail readers but to anyone with half a brain it's total rubbish.

Firstly "Drug Users/alcoholics have to attend rehab/group sessions" is utter nonense because first you have to have the places available, you havr to fund them, train people then you have to get people into them. No one is going to give up booze or drugs because you're threatening their benefits. People have to want to come off drugs. If you try this approach all you'll end doing is encourage more people to turn to crime to fund their addiction or come up with new and better ways to fiddle benefits. I don't like my tax being used to fund drug addicts and drunks either, but as a solution, it's totally unworkable.

Next, as or "lone parents doing community work" needs another whole bureaucracy to run and manage it, to find meaningful work, to supervise and pay for it. In the long run it would probably be cheaper not to bother at all. Ask any business person and they'll tell you that managing people is the most expensive and time consuming part of their jobs. We don't need any "make work" schemes which is all this is.

I'm not sure why you pick on "young single men" (unless this is a euphemism of course) - I assume we treat them differently if they're married/partnership/cohabiting/civil partnership (etc). Again your forced labour scheme has been tried before, Youth Opportunity Scheme, YTS, Training For Work (etc) and the whole sorry history of it has been an utter disaster. It costs more to organise and implement than any of the benefits it supposedly brings. There is nothing useful going to come out of having a load of reluctant workers cleaning graffitti (or whatever), they'll be hopelessly inefficient, the quality of the work will be poor and the gains absolutely marginal if measurable at all.

There really is no "shock" of a "working routine" - you say it like it was some kind of noble gesture. I think for most people the "working routine" is the same old pointless slog, day in and day out. It doesn't make us better. If anything it just seams to make us meaner and more miserable than we were.

As for Alex Gilmore's idea that more people in work and off benefits, although well meant, is pure fantasy. Unless you very significantly raised the minimum wage all that really happens is that once people lose their direct and indirect benefits their standard of living plummets. The poverty trap is well documented because the minimum income would have to be so high to get people off benefits no employer would be willing to pay it (and there is no point in the taxpayer subsidising it because we just end up back at square one with firms taking on free workers at government expense).

At this end of the scale "disposable income" simply doesn't exist and being so far down the income scale their contribution in taxes is probably less than what they're actually taking out the tax system in the form of top-up benefits for those in work.

Clearly there is no easy answer to this but one thing is for sure, repeating the same mistakes of the last 30 years won't cure anything. Draconian benefit laws and penalising the weakest in society might be a good populist idea but it won't solve a single problem. Unless we start working in partnership with people on benefits and stop attacking them like some underclass we'll never make any progress.

Bang on Alex.

As things stand, the system sees the poor ‘motivated’ by more poverty, and the rich motivated by wealth beyond avarice. It doesn’t work. By setting benefit levels at a level that underpins a sound minimum with wiggle room, claimants are happier and healthier. Better wages and job enrichment at the bottom dangle an incentive for people to gain a respectable level of interest, comfort, and value.

Looking at education, often, work related education is priced at a premium. This raises the barrier to entering the job market, drives up costs for business, and makes the wheel of staff turnover spin even faster. The price of penny pinching and excluding people ends up costing more in the long-term. The culture of winners and losers diminishes liquidity and creates a more fragile system.

Housing is another difficult area. Weak legislation on property and tenancy standards has a similar effect. Insecure tenancies and nuisance neighbours happen because they’re allowed to, mostly, because it costs money, but this is another false economy. Then there’s the issue of people on long-term housing benefit falling behind on the housing market. Introducing mortgage benefit would solve this.

Let's make everyone a winner!