Nearly 2 million single mothers are being hit by the benefit freeze

‘Mother’s Day should be a time of celebration for mums, but today many will instead be struggling to make ends meet,’ says Labour MP

Some 1.9 million single mothers are affected by the government’s benefit freeze, according to analysis by the House of Commons Library commissioned by the Labour Party (Rex)

Nearly 2 million single mothers are being hit by the controversial benefit freeze, new analysis has found.

Some 1.9 million single mothers are affected by the government's decision to continue the benefit freeze, according to analysis by the House of Commons Library commissioned by the Labour Party.

A lone parent who is not in employment is around £900 a year worse off due to the freeze.

Labour, which released the analysis to coincide with Mother’s Day, called on the government to end the freeze immediately.

Margaret Greenwood, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said: “The benefit freeze is the single biggest cause of rising poverty, yet the government is continuing to press on with this austerity policy for the fourth year.

“Mother’s Day should be a time of celebration for mums, but today many will instead be struggling to make ends meet. Labour will end the benefit freeze and make tackling child poverty the priority it should be once again.”

Benefits – including tax credits, universal credit, child benefit and jobseeker’s allowance – generally rise every year in line with inflation. However, as part of ongoing austerity measures, they have been frozen since 2016, leading to a decline in their real term value while inflation rises.

In April 2016, the Conservative Party froze most working age benefits for four years – including jobseeker’s allowance, employment and support allowance, income support, housing benefit, universal credit, child tax credits, working tax credits and child benefit.

According to the analysis, the benefit freeze means that a lone parent who is not in employment with one child is around £900 a year worse off and a parent with two children is just over £1,200 a year worse off, whether in the legacy system or the universal credit system.

It found a lone parent in employment with one child is £810 worse off in the legacy system and £895 worse off in the universal credit system. While a lone parent with two children who is in employment is nearly £1,000 worse off in the legacy system and £1,200 worse off in the universal credit system.

The rollout of universal credit has been plagued by controversy, with warnings people are being pushed into debt, rent arrears and reliance on food banks due to delays in payments.

New government data published on Thursday showed 14 million people in the UK are living in absolute poverty. This includes 3.7 million children – 200,000 more than last year.

Helen Barnard, deputy director of policy and partnerships at the independent Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said: “It goes against what we stand for as a country to see so many lone-parent families locked in poverty.

“Currently, there is a lone-parent penalty, which means nearly half of children in lone-parent families live in poverty compared with one in four of those in couple families. Lone parents are also twice as likely to be locked in persistent poverty, and living in poverty for long periods of time is particularly damaging.

“We have consistently failed to tackle the issues holding families back from a decent life. As the sole earners, lone parents are being hit particularly hard by the high cost of living and cuts to social security. This is unacceptable and the government must right this wrong by ending the benefits freeze before the final year kicks in on 8 April 2019.”

Alison Garnham, the chief executive of Child Poverty Action Group, argued the rhetoric against lone parents had gone but the policies that are currently playing out effectively single them out for a greater risk of impoverishment.

“To have almost half of lone parents’ children in poverty is unacceptable in a society that believes that every child deserves support,” she said.

Ms Garnham added: “Lone parents have been hit particularly hard by cuts to universal credit – with big losses of on average £2,380 per year, affecting their gains from work. Some 68 per cent of lone parents are working but as the annual poverty statistics published yesterday show, 47 per cent of their children are living under the poverty line.”

She said their research with Loughborough university shows a lone parent working full-time on the “national living wage” is now 20 per cent (£74 per week) short of what they need to achieve a socially acceptable minimum standard of living, as defined by the public.

A government spokesperson said: “Tackling poverty will always be a priority for the UK government. That’s why we spend £90 billion a year to help families who need more support, and it has been confirmed the benefits freeze will end next year.

“Since 2010 we’ve introduced the National Living Wage, doubled free childcare for three and four year olds, and cut taxes for 32 million people to help families meet the everyday cost of living and keep more of what they earn.”