The Emergency Budget and Lone Parents
While we welcome measures taken to help low income households including lone parents, this week's emergency budget was disappointing and worrying for many families.
Cutting Sure Start maternity grants of £500 for second children from April 2010 and abolishing the health in pregnancy grant of £190 from January 2011 will both make it harder for parents with new babies, a stressful time anyway. We are also concerned that the requirement for lone parents to move onto JSA when their youngest child is 5 from 2011-12 will give parents even less time to improve their qualifications, yet the recession makes it even more urgent that they do so as there is so much competition for jobs.
We are also concerned about the impact of sharply reduced public spending on vital services needed to strengthen families ready for any recovery.
A more detailed analysis of the budget by SPAN is attached.
