Single parents on benefits being ‘punished’ by Tory policy pushing them to work 30-hour week

Struggling single parents are being “punished” and set up to fail by an “unrealistic” government policy that forces them into near-full-time work when their children turn three, according to parents and new research.

A year after the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, forced parents on benefits to work for 30 hours a week or risk seeing their benefits docked, the vast majority of parents say they cannot make the new system work.

According to a…