Single parent? Get ready for work

Dec 3 2008 by Rob Merrick, Liverpool Daily Post

PLANS to force lone parents to prepare for work when their child is still in nappies, and a crackdown on “all you can drink” pub promotions will form the centrepiece of today’s Queen’s Speech.

The list of Bills will also include measures to require local councils and NHS services to respond to petitions and to put directly-elected representatives on police authorities.

But the legislation for the new Parliamentary session has been hurriedly rewritten to make it “recession-proof”, by stripping out anything that could further damage struggling businesses.

As a result, plans to ban cigarette displays in shops are thought to have been dropped and a delay ordered before town halls can levy a “supplementary business rate” on local firms.

Last night, Tory protests over the “Greengate” affair – the heavy-handed arrest of the Conservative immigration spokesman Damian Green – threatened to overshadow the entire occasion.

Much of the attention on the Queen’s Speech itself will focus on another welfare crackdown, which will force virtually all benefit claimants to make themselves available for work.

The changes were signalled yesterday, when the Government welcomed a study recommending the jobless do a “9-5 day” looking for work – or face punishments, including unpaid community work such as digging gardens.

The ultimate sanction, for the hardcore unemployed who refuse to turn up to meetings and interviews, would be the loss of four weeks’ Jobseekers’ Allowance (JSA).

The shake-up, modelled on Denmark and Holland, would also require lone parents of children as young as one-year-old to make themselves “work ready”, by tackling problems such as debt, poor health and lack of skills.

That will trigger a confrontation with Labour MPs and child poverty groups, who have already attacked moves to force single mothers of seven-year-olds to return to work, particularly when jobs are scarce.