Lone Parents and change in age of youngest child

My understanding was that from October 2011, the youngest child needed to be under the age of 5 for a lone parent to be able to claim Income Support. I was looking for confirmation for this and saw the following amendment to the CPAG Handbook that suggests this change has not been enacted.

Updated: Wednesday, 26 October 2011
Publication: Welfare Benefits and Tax Credits
Chapter 1, Section 5, Lone parents. This amendment is to re?ect the fact that in the event rules have not appeared so as to alter the relevant income support rules in October 2011.

Can anyone confirm if I’m going mad or if the Govt. has either forgotten to change the regs or changed their mind about this?

I think this change is dependant on royal assent for the welfare reform bill, which is running late at the moment.

does anyone know what latest estimate is for when welfare reform bill will get royal assent?

cheers ros

Committe stages are scheduled to continue until 10.11.11, after which it has to have it’s Report Stage and Third Reading in the Lords, so my guess would be not until the New Year now.

Gingerbread do a good factsheet on single parents and JSA

Thanks to you all. It does in fact seem to be entirely down to the Government’s optimism in how quickly the WR Bill would progress through all it’s stages. An attitude, which, doesn’t bode well for many other changes they are trying to implement at break-neck speed…