Jobless parents of pre-school children must prepare for work or face penalties

The plans, which would see parents penalised if they fail to prepare for work when their children start school, are part of the Government’s proposals to overhaul the welfare system and were revealed in a White Paper published today.

Launching the White Paper, entitled Universal Credit: Welfare that Works, the work and pensions secretary Mr Duncan Smith said, ‘With five million people trapped on out of work benefits and almost two million children growing up in homes where nobody works, we cannot afford to simply continue tinkering around the edges of the welfare system.'

'Only root and branch reform will do. At its heart, the Universal Credit has a simple ambition – to make work pay, even for the poorest. This will finally make it easier for people to see they will be consistently and transparently better off for each hour they work and every pound they earn.’

The Government plans to introduce a new system of conditionality for benefit recipients backed up by sanctions for those who do not comply.

It also plans to simplify the current benefit system by introducing a single credit that would replace Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, Housing Benefit, Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance and income-related Employment and Support Allowance.

The Universal Credit would provide a basic amount plus additions for children, disabilities and housing needs.

Further plans include the introduction of a Mandatory Work Activity for some jobseekers, where advisers will have the power to refer the unemployed to full-time work placement of up to four weeks duration.

The Government says that the reforms will lift 350,000 children and 500,000 adults out of poverty over the long term.

Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, said, ‘It would be a grave error for the Government to race ahead with reform to the modern welfare state on such a massive scale without waiting for a full consultation on the approach it has decided on, so publication of a welfare reform bill should wait until a genuine consultation has taken place. We can learn important lessons from other countries. Workfare was abandoned in places like Wisconsin where it was an expensive failure at getting people into paid employment.

'We know from many European neighbours that much better childcare investment is crucial to help parents access paid work, reduce child poverty and improve children’s lives. We know that jobs need to be created when the number of people who want jobs is millions more than the vacancies in the country.’