Single Mothers’
Self-Defence
for the benefits of mothers and children
NEWSLETTER March 1998
"We won’t clean Harriet’s toilet!"
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Over four million people live in single parent families (1.7m single parents - 91% single mothers - and over 2.5m children). Many more have been single parents or were raised by single parents. Single Mothers’ Self-Defence (SMSD) is a network of single mothers who got together to defend our benefits, families and communities. We are from different races, backgrounds and situations, and we all know that every mother is a working mother. We meet regularly in London and Manchester to share information and to support each other, write letters, win appeals, picket and campaign in other ways to: |
- reverse the cuts to Lone Parent Premium and One Parent Benefit;
- abolish the 40% benefit penalty imposed by the Child Support Agency;
- get recognition for the work of raising children which more than entitles us to Income Support and other benefits.
There is such a thing as society and women who do most of its caring work unwaged and for low wages - are its core. But only when this work is financially valued, starting with the work of mothers and other carers in the home, wiII it be prioritised by those who make policies.
In 1945 Independent MP Eleanor Rathbone led the movement which won Family Allowances (now Child Benefit) paid to mothers as financial recognition for the work of raising children. Now the government and its 101 women MPs call us "workless" to hide that we're doing a 24hour job, and starve us into "the New Deal" whether or not we want a second job. In Norway mothers of children under three get money either to look after their children at home or to pay for childcare. The choice is theirs. All mothers must have that choice. The income of mothers and children will be under threat until Income Support and Child Benefit are recognised as our wages.
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DIARY of the movement which has spearheaded opposition to the cuts.
July 1997 - Single mothers in the Campaign Against the Child Support Act (CACSA) write to all 108 Labour and Liberal Democrat women MPs urging them to help abolish the CSA £20 benefit penalty. 10 single mothers meet three women MPs. Lib Dem MP Jackie Ballard (a single mother who lived on Income Support for four years) offers support.
30 July - Early Day Motion opposing Lone Parent Benefit cut is signed by 97 MPs.
1 October - SMSD is formed. We hold a Fringe Meeting at Labour Party Conference in Brighton - single mothers speak about their situations.
20 October - We picket London High Court in support of famous single mother Sara Keays, a friend of the Wages For Housework Campaign. She's appealing against a gagging order which prevents her from speaking about her daughter Flora, imposed by absent father, Tory Party Chairman Lord Parkinson.
11 November - Save Lone Parent Benefit meeting. We point out that the government was only able to bring in cuts to one parent benefits because when Labour was in opposition, the NCOPF and other anti-poverty organisations didn't oppose the CSA and its £20 benefit penalty.
12 November - Lib Dems force a government debate on Lone-Parent Premium. Six new Labour women MPs, drafted in to cut single mothers' Income Support, vote the cuts through without a word. Social Security Minister Keith Bradley refers to single mothers on benefits as "non-working mothers". Ten single mothers and children attending the meeting call the women MPs "Stepford wives". The name sticks. The protest is reported in The Guardian and The Observer. A single grandmother is arrested, but later released.
18 November – A government committee discusses the Social Security Bill. Anti-poverty MPs like Chris Pond, ex-Low Pay Unit, vote to cut One Parent Benefit. Single mothers in the room chant "Poverty lobby votes for poverty" and get thrown out.
22 November – 15 women, children and supporters picket the surgery of Manchester MP Paul Goggins, former Director of Church Action on Poverty, who voted for the cut.
2 7 November - We write to sympathetic MPs encouraging them to oppose cuts to Lone Parent Benefit at the Social Security Bill 3rd reading on 10 December.
| 1 December – Commons debate on welfare reform. Two women
are thrown out of the public gallery and locked in cells for five
hours for shouting at Harriet Harman. The national press report
it. |
| 10 December - Over 100 single mothers, children and supporters - Black both Afro & Asian, white, young and not so young, lesbian - picket Parliament, lobby their MPs and speak out at the SMSD press conference. Women with disabilities and pensioners express worries that their benefits will be cut next. During the Commons debate, Harriet Harman looks up nervously at women packed in the public gallery wearing handmade SMSD T-shirts. Labour rebels make impassioned speeches in support of single parents. 120 MPs - 47 of them Labour - vote against or abstain. Scab MPs are congratulated by Tory ex-Minister Peter Lilley. |
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16 December - SMSD and WinVisible (Women with visible and invisible disabilities) write thanking rebel MPs and ask them to oppose cuts to people with disabilities. Many single mothers and/or our children have disabilities or health problems.
14 January 1998 - we write to sympathetic Lords before they debate the Social Security Bill.
15 January - The Lords debate One Parent Benefit cut. Ladies mention how hard it is to find childcare, but no-one opposes the cut outright.
3 February - Six women wearing SMSD T-shirts, and a wheelchair user go to the London Labour Roadshow to question the Chancellor, Gordon Brown. They protest at not being called to ask a question. The next day the mums' revolt is in all the papers.
The Times reports "Gordon Brown suffered his most bruising public encounter since the election." Labour calls us "infiltrators from the extreme left groups" Is Labour so far from grassroots people that single mothers defending their money are seen as extremists?
9 February - The government is forced to review the Child Support Act, as 70% of single mothers are refusing to co-operate. SMSD and CACSA demonstrate outside Parliament while Lib Dems call for the Act to be abolished.
13 February - We join the demonstration of people with disabilities, the Direct Action Network (DAN), against benefit cuts. It blocks Whitehall. DAN asks pensioners and SMSD to join them to deliver a letter to 10 Downing Street.
7 March - We are invited to speak at International Women's Day march in Liverpool called by Wirral Trades Council.
17 March - Budget Day.
What single parents will lose.
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Single parents getting Income Support or One Parent Benefit before 6 April 1998 will keep the one-parent rate Family Premium or the One Parent Benefit, but these will stay frozen at their present £15.75 and £6.30 a week. Both benefits will disappear when the new claimants' benefits catch up with these amounts. Single parents on Income Support who get waged work after 6 April 1998 will still be able to claim One Parent Benefit. Claims must be made within one month of moving off Income Support. But single parents taking a job after 6 April who then lose it and go back on IS will be treated as new claimants. |
70% of single mothers are refusing to co-operate with the CSA so the Benefits Agency and the CSA have joined forces to intimidate women.
The new Income Support (IS) form has a section asking whether you would be at risk of "harm or undue distress" if you claimed maintenance through the CSA. You do not have to return this section of the form with your IS claim . More and more single mothers are being called in for interviews or visited at home by benefits officers soon after claiming IS and before they get their first payment. The DSS is also "offering to help" mothers to fill in the Maintenance Application Form. You don't have to fill it in then - you are entitled to take it home with you, think about it and fill it in yourself. These are your legal rights:
- You don't have to sign the MAF. You are still entitled to IS if you don't sign it.
- You don't have to let benefits officers into your home.
- You don't have to report violence or other abuse to the police for the CSA to accept that you are at risk of violence. The CSA has no right to tell, or threaten to tell, the police about any violence you suffer from or fear.
- You have a right to be believed. Don't be put off if they say your story is "improbable" or "inconsistent". They say this to intimidate you.
- If you’re accused of fraud, or the CSA refuses to accept that you’re at risk of "harm or undue distress" and threatens to reduce your benefit, get advice immediately.
The welfare budget is considered a problem, not the war budget!
The Office of National Statistics values household work, to which single mothers greatly contribute, at £739 billion a year.
Most child maintenance fathers pay is deducted from single mothers' benefit. Fathers on benefit also have £5 per week deducted. In 1994/5 these deductions "saved" the Treasury £479 million but only £187 million reached the children.
The New Deal for Lone Parents budget is £300 million for childcare over four years on top of present spending.
A similar programme in Wisconsin, USA, cost the State more than the welfare it took away once childcare, guaranteed minimum wage and training schemes were included. The government could have used this information to protect One Parent Benefit. Instead they want to take away mothers right to choose whether and for how long we look after our own children.
SMSD
is co-ordinated by the Wages for Housework CampaignCrossroads Women's Centre, 230a Kentish Town Road, London NW5 2AB
PO Box 287, London NW6 5QU Te10171-4822496minicom/voice Fax0171-2094761