Rt Hon Liz Truss MP Minister for Women and Equalities House of Commons London SW1A 0AA

Cc: Kemi Badenoch MP, Vicky Ford MP and Baroness Berridge

21st March 2021

Dear Minister,

Re: Covid and Single Parents, and adding single parents as a protected characteristic in the Equality Act

We write to you on Single Parent Day to request an urgent meeting with you as the Equalities Minister to discuss the experiences of single parents during the last year of Covid public health measures, and the pressing need for single parents to be added to the Equality Act as a group to address the ongoing discrimination we face. I enclose a new report based on a survey of more than a thousand single parents which evidences our need for this protection.

Single parent families and the Covid restrictions The restrictions imposed on all of us over the last 12 months have been absolutely necessary, and have no doubt saved many lives. They have been experienced very differently of course by people living in different circumstances. Single parents and their children all over the country have endured very considerable impacts on our ability to work and our income levels and have been neglected in the design and implementation of lockdown rules, especially the plus one rule, with a real toll on our levels of social contact and isolation.

In our new report (enclosed) 51% of single parents surveyed reported being discriminated against through Covid restrictions, from a lack of support to manage work without access to childcare, to those with young children being excluded from the plus one rule. It is not surprising to us that research from the University of Essex has shown that single parents have faced severe losses in their earnings due to furlough and job redundancies over the last year, and 58% of single parents are now on Universal Credit according to data from the Department for Work and Pensions.

As we begin reopening society again, many single parents worry that the strides made in our employment rates in recent years may be reversed by the pandemic, and that the single parent discrimination we have always faced may worsen unless it is addressed by greater protection in law.

Single parent discrimination – our new research The inequality in the lives of single parents before the pandemic is well documented. Data from the Child Poverty Action Group shows that 44% of children in single parent families live in poverty. While on retirement single mothers have a pension pot of only around one quarter of that of the average individual. However, the barriers which cause these inequalities are consistently overlooked despite single parent discrimination not being new.

Single parents have faced stigma, institutional bias, and a lack of legal protections for generations. In the context of the extreme strain placed on single parent families by the necessary Covid lockdowns and public health measures from March 2020, we set out to investigate what specific hardships single parents were facing both during lockdown and beyond, and how these might be alleviated. We set out a wide-ranging survey of single parents in autumn 2020 and were delighted with a very high response rate and many personal stories disclosed to us. Our resulting report, ‘Single Parent Discrimination: Realities and the Way Forward’ finds that up to 80% of single parents face discrimination across multiple areas of life including fees and charges, employment, housing, and access to finance as outlined below:

 Fees and charges: single parents are paying a single parent supplement for days out, holidays and services such as health insurance and antenatal classes.  Employment: negative single parent stereotypes create stigma and a lack of trust towards single parents which affects how single parent applicants and employees are treated in the recruitment process and the workplace. Single parent employees find employers unsupportive of their caring responsibilities meaning many are denied opportunities for progression, professional development and promotions, and are selected for redundancy due to their single parent status.  Housing: single parent families are denied rental properties due to their single parent status and face comments such as, “we don’t rent to your kind”.  Access to finance: mortgages are highly inaccessible for single parents due to the exclusion of key income streams and ‘single parent’ status being considered an added risk even when the applicant has an excellent credit rating.

Certain government benefits were also identified as discriminatory, including:  Single parent registered carers cannot qualify for 30 hours of free childcare for 3–4- year-olds due to not being able to meet the criteria of having a partner in work.  The child benefit entitlement limit for single parents being effectively half that of coupled parents.  Non-Resident Parents in social housing are charged bedroom tax for their child(ren)’s bedroom.

The combination of widespread discrimination, and the impact of Covid-related restrictions, threatens to further exacerbate the higher rates of mental ill-health amongst single parents which was already almost double that of coupled parents’ pre-pandemic. Over 99% of the single parents who experienced discrimination reported a negative impact, with 96% reporting a negative impact on their own mental health and 54% reporting a negative impact on their child(ren)’s mental health. It is essential that the Government address these issues facing single parents as a matter of urgency and with the aim of preventing further harm and mental health impacts.

The solution Single parents have traditionally been marginalised and discriminated against. As the Government ‘builds back’ after Covid it is essential that single parents are considered explicitly in policymaking and are not left behind.

Our report maps a pathway to equality for single parents through addressing the stigma, rectifying discriminatory policies, and providing legal protection for single parents. We recommend that the Government consider as a matter of urgency the amendment of the law to include single parents as a protected group within the Equality Act. This will give us solid protection against discrimination in the economy and the community and will help signal that we and our children are a group deserving of equality and fair treatment. We have established a range of political support for this change already including lawyers, charities, and single parents.

We would like to discuss this with you and your officials at the earliest opportunity. Please do not hesitate to ask if we can provide any more information about our experiences of discrimination and our views on wider policy change. This letter is an open letter and will be shared on our website, alongside any reply we receive from you. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours sincerely,

Ruth Talbot Founder, Single Parent Rights [email protected]