While Iain Duncan Smith tours the studios defending the government’s punitive benefit cap, other Conservative MPs have been busy dreaming up new welfare cuts. In a measure seemingly inspired by former social security secretary Peter Lilley, who denounced “young ladies who get pregnant just to jump the housing queue”, the 40 Group of Tory MPs (so called because they represent the 40 most marginal seats won by the party in 2010) has proposed removing benefits from teenage mothers unless they live “with their parents or in supervised hostel accommodation”. This measure, it says, will leave teenagers “in no doubt that teenage motherhood will not lead to an automatic right to subsidised housing and other benefits”.
As in the case of Duncan Smith and his “belief” that people are moving into work as a result of the benefit cap, they’ve no evidence for their claim that teenagers have children in order to claim benefits (as they concede), but they’re prepared to allow their prejudices to shape policy all the same.
Before addressing the proposal itself, it’s worth noting that the teenage pregnancy rate is currently at its lowest level since records began in 1969 (not a statistic you’ll find in the group’s literature) and that many young mothers already live with their families or in sheltered housing. But while the number affected would be too small to make any significant dent in the £201bn social security bill, the measure would cause much unnecessary harm. It would further stigmatise an already marginalised group that deserves to be supported, not punished. In addition, as Sue Cohen of the Single Parent Action Network, points out, the coalition has already made large cuts to sheltered housing. Is there to be new investment? If not, she says, the government “is consigning their children to even deeper poverty”.
Finally, forcing young mothers to remain with their parents contradicts measures such as the benefit cap , the “bedroom tax” and non-dependent deductions (which reduces housing benefit for those families with a child aged over 18), which are ostensibly designed to encourage families to downsize.
At a time when Britain has no shortage of social and economic problems, it’s genuinely dismaying to see the new generation of Tory MPs resort to attacking the same old targets.
Follow The Staggers on Twitter: @TheStaggers