MPs rebel over making single parents work

MINISTERS scrambled to avoid defeat on the Government's flagship welfare bill today after the Tories and Labour rebels opposed moves to force single parents to look for work.

Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell was confronted with the prospect of an alliance of the Conservatives and his own party's Left-wingers over the plan to get lone parents of children as young as three to prepare for jobs.

Labour MP John McDonnell said he and other rebels were prepared to vote for a Tory amendment to require parents of children aged five or over to seek work.

Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Theresa May said her party backed wider moves for welfare reform but the move to crack down on lone parents of toddlers would endanger family life for the most vulnerable.

Ms May told the Standard: "Expecting lone parents of very young children to undertake work-related activity is a step too far.

"We need to recognise that during the earliest years of their children's lives, lone parents may find it difficult to comply with stringent benefit conditionality. Radical welfare reform is what we urgently need, not Draconian measures that penalise some of the most vulnerable."

Earlier, in what appeared to be a "sweetener" to buy off rebels, Mr Purnell pledged to pay an extra £1,500 a year to blind people in benefits.

He also argued that tougher measures to help people get back into employment meant the jobless total was increasing at a slower rate than during the recession in the early Nineties.