Joint media release from Schoolhouse and Action for Home Education
For immediate release, Friday 9 May 2008
UK GOVERNMENT ACCUSED OF IMPOVERISHING CHILDREN THROUGH FORCED LABOUR REGIME FOR LONE PARENTS
Scotland’s national home education support organisation, Schoolhouse [1], and its counterpart south of the border, Action for Home Education (AHEd) [2], have jointly expressed deep dismay and disappointment at the UK Government’s decision to remove the safety net of Income Support (IS) from lone parents whose youngest child is aged 12 years from November 2008. The age threshhold will subsequently be reduced so that, by 2010, lone parents will be required to actively seek work when their youngest child reaches seven.
While the Government claims it will help “lift children out of poverty”, the move promises to cause extreme stress and hardship for many families, including those who home educate, those whose children have special needs or disabilities and those who have been abandoned by partners, as well as widowed parents and mothers fleeing domestic violence.
Despite warnings from individuals and organisations representing vulnerable families that children will be further impoverished as a result [3], the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has indicated that it will press on with draconian measures to force lone parents into work as soon as their children reach the designated age threshhold, regardless of individual circumstances.
Danny Alexander MP has tabled a Parliamentary Question [4] seeking Government reassurances in relation to specific vulnerable groups who will be thrown into financial crisis by the new rules and for whom it was strongly felt that there should be no extension of conditionality during the ‘In Work Better Off’ consultation.
Meanwhile, Tom Clarke MP has indicated that he is to table a further Parliamentary Question seeking clarification from the Minister as to which specific regulations will apply, following the withdrawal of Income Support, to “home educating lone parents who are already engaged in full time employment providing a full time education for their children”.
Schoolhouse convener Alison Preuss said: “These UK Government proposals were first flagged up in January 2007 by one of our members who was concerned that lone parents home educating their children, often through necessity as a result of special needs or disabilities, would have their Income Support withdrawn if they did not make themselves available for paid employment. Tom Clarke MP subsequently obtained assurances from the then Minister John Hutton [5] that home educating lone parents’ responsibilities would be fully recognised, but the Government has now indicated that no exceptions will be made to its forced labour regime for single parents.”
AHEd and Schoolhouse have challenged the Government to explain how it is possible to lift children out of poverty by removing IS payments from lone parents when they will effectively be precluded from claiming JSA due to already having full time caring and/or educational responsibilities. In particular they have questioned the justification for withdrawing IS from home educating parents when the costs to keep a child in school are considerably greater than the costs of providing benefits.
AHEd chair Barbara Stark said: “One of our members received via her MP a wholly unsatisfactory and insulting response from the Minister, Stephen Timms, who suggests that home educating parents can be much more flexible in their working arrangements than schooling parents. Who exactly will be available to look after and educate children while their parents are at work outside the home? These parents are already working hard with parenting and education responsibilities and doing an excellent job. Does the Minister only deem child care and education to be ‘work’ if it is undertaken by someone other than the parent?”
Despite the revenue savings to the Treasury, the Minister suggests that home educating families are receiving a subsidy by accepting subsistence benefits, stating in his letter: “The Government position is that parents who choose to home educate their children will not receive any financial assistance from the State for doing so. It is therefore consistent with the Government principles. Under the new welfare reform changes, we require home educators to look for work when their child reaches the new relevant age threshold.”
Schoolhouse and AHEd have jointly condemned the Minister’s failure to recognise that schools are unable to accommodate the needs of a significant number of young people, leaving some parents no choice but to take full responsibility for their children’s education, since schools are unable or unwilling to provide for the needs of individual children.
Former Schoolhouse member, Karen Best, who was a lone home educating parent reliant entirely on IS until her daughter reached school leaving age, has also spoken out against the government’s proposals which she believes will remove an essential lifeline from desperate parents. Describing her own circumstances, she said: “I removed my daughter, who has profound learning difficulties and special needs, from school when she was 10 years old after a prolonged period of bullying which had resulted in her self harming and threatening suicide. I was a single parent on Income Support and struggling to cope financially as well as with an extremely unhappy child.
Since the school and local authority failed to deal with the problems, home education became the only option for us and we never looked back, although I lost entitlement to free school meals and clothing vouchers as soon as I removed my daughter from school and got no support or resources from the local authority. Now, it seems, the Governnment wants to completely pull the financial rug out from under the most vulnerable parents and children. How on earth can they justify impoverishing children and penalising single parents in this way?”
Karen went on to obtain higher qualifications and now works full time in the travel industry, while her daughter Charlene, now 20, is currently on a work experience placement in Greenock, having previously undertaken supported learning at her local further education college. Commenting on her own experience, Charlene said: “I hated school so much because it was full of bullies and the teachers didn’t want to know about it. I have a great life now because home education saved me from the bullies.”
ENDS
For further information, please contact Alison Preuss on 0772 962 3532 or media@schoolhouse.org.uk
NOTES TO EDITORS
[1] See www.schoolhouse.org.uk
[2] See www.ahed.org.uk
[3] One Parent Families Scotland’s comments on the proposals when first mooted:
“Lone parent organisations are strongly challenging this simplistic view, and we need to….counter the underlying assumption that work should come before parenting responsibilities.
“We agree that those who choose to should be helped to work, but suggest that benefit penalties will damage the very families who need support. Many lone parents of teenagers have strong reasons why they want to stay at home – let them decide.”
[4] Lib Dem spokesperson for Work and Pensions, Danny Alexander, MP, has tabled the following PQ:
“To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether he thinks that lone parents receiving income support should be subject to increased conditionality in cases where they are a) parents of disabled children b) carers of both disabled children and adults c) mothers fleeing domestic violence d) parents who choose to home educate.”
[5] Excerpts from a reply by John Hutton, former DWP Minister, to Tom Clarke MP in February 2007:
“We have been very clear that we are not proposing to force lone parents into work, nor cut lone parent benefits – this would be wrong in principle and damaging to the health and well-being of children. It is a matter of individual choice for each lone parent as to whether they look to move into work or continue to claim benefits.
“I hope this reassures your constituent that our aim is to help those parents for whom work is a realistic option to take the necessary steps so that they can get back to work and lift their families out of poverty”
