Welfare Reform Bill
4:00 pm
Tim Nichols: We think that that is too young. We do not want to have the argument about the age at which the sanctions should kick in because we think that that will take us away from the drive to address the real barriers and to work with the positive ambitions that are already in place with lone parents and that need to be nurtured, but if that argument is already taking place, I would say that as you go down the age groups, you get different kinds of concerns. For younger children, we are concerned that there are particular developmental needs in pre-school years, but for older children, we are concerned that, as Gingerbread has said, there are particular problems in the transition at secondary age. Those older children will be meeting a load of new life challenges and might have new problems to deal with, including serious issues such as coming into contact with drugs and alcohol or sexual activity for the first time. There can therefore be very good reasons why the parent might want to have the time to be there.