Single Parents Are Being Failed. It’s Time The Equality Act Protected Us

The last few weeks as a single parent campaigner have been a whirlwind, from the celebrations of Single Parents Day to the reality-check of the latest child poverty data.

The days leading up to Single Parents Day (21 March) were filled with celebrations in Parliament, local events, and online campaigns.

By the time the day arrived, I was both exhausted and energised. More importantly though, I felt seen and – for a moment – the weight of solo parenting felt lighter.

But fast forward less than a week later and data released by the government was a stark reminder that single parents are fighting a system stacked against them. A system that no amount of community can overcome.

Almost 1.5 million children in single parent families – 41% – are living in poverty, compared with 23% of children in coupled families.

One driver of this stark difference in poverty rates is that policies aren’t designed for single parent families.

Take the benefit cap, for example. The cap limits the amount of support a family can receive unless they earn at least £886 a month. The result? More than two-thirds (68%) of all capped households are single parents.

When one group is so disproportionately impacted by a policy, it starts to look less like a coincidence, and more like design.

Dig deeper and the reason becomes clear: a single parent on maternity leave must earn the same as two adults to avoid being capped. When it comes to single parents, the benefit cap is less ‘stick’ and more ‘sledgehammer’.

While Universal Credit regulations do not ‘technically’ require a primary carer with a child under the age of three to work, 21,000 single parents with a child aged 0-2 years were capped in one month, including thousands with newborn babies.

On the surface, these statistics look to be about single parents, but in reality they are nothing to do with single parents. They are about a system built on discrimination.

Take the case of a parent unable to work due to disability – they can access childcare support if they have a working partner, but disabled single parents cannot.

Policies don’t have to penalise single parents – that’s a political choice. The lifting of the two-child limit shows that different choices are possible.

This change alone will pull over 230,000 children in single parent families out of poverty by the end of this Parliament. It’s a very welcome change, but it can only be the start of creating a fairer system.

Too often, family policies are built on the assumption of two parents, leaving single parents consistently facing harsher rules. Whether that’s having to earn twice as much as an individual in a couple to avoid being benefit capped, or losing child benefit at half the household income level.

There’s an urgent need to address the unfairness in these policies, but ultimately single parents must be added as a protected characteristic to the Equality Act, so single parents are considered from the start.

The Equality Act legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society. It doesn’t currently protect single parents.

Until this changes, the system will continue to produce the same outcomes: tens of thousands of single parents’ benefit capped every month and close to 1.5 million children in single parent families living in poverty.

The decisive action this government has taken to lift the two-child limit must now be matched by a commitment to build a system that allows all families to thrive.

Ruth Talbot is the founder of Single Parent Rights, a group campaigning for equality for all single parent families.