BENEFIT payments could be used to finance after-school clubs that enable single mothers to go back to work under Labour proposals to reduce the numbers of lone parents on benefit.
Harriet Harman, the party's social security spokesman, is examining ways in which money could be diverted into schemes to get them off welfare.
She has the backing of Gordon Brown, the shadow chancellor, to develop a blueprint for a benefit system that responds to the circumstances of claimants.
The role of after-school clubs will be highlighted in a consultation paper next week which seeks to curb the escalating cost of benefits, currently running at £10 billion a year.
Labour believes that the differences between the school day and conventional working hours keep increasing numbers of single parents out of the employment market and trap them on benefit.
The paper will also suggest changing the calculation of unemployment statistics to reflect the numbers of lone parents who want jobs but cannot make themselves available for work because of their childcare responsibilities. Labour's move into this policy area comes ahead of next month's Budget when the Government is expected to freeze top-ups paid to lone parents for the second year running.
The Treasury is keen to make further savings after pegging one-parent benefit at £6.30 a week for all single parents, and lone parent premium at £5.20 a week for those on income support, last year.
Today Ms Harman will attack Peter Lilley, the Social Security Secretary, over his "parent plus" plan, unveiled at the Tory Party conference, for pilot schemes to help 100,000 lone parents escape the benefit trap.
Speaking in the Commons debate on the Government's legislative programme, she will release figures showing that Britain's lone parents are now more dependent on benefit than their European counterparts.
More than 70 per cent of the UK's 1.5 million lone parents claim income support, compared to 38 per cent in Belgium and Denmark, 37 per cent in France, 33 per cent in Sweden and 10 per cent in Germany.
In these countries, single parents remain far more likely to be breadwinners for their families, largely because there is good after-school provision.
In Britain the proportion of lone parents on benefit has risen dramatically from 44 per cent in 1979, while the proportion of lone mothers in full-time work has fallen from 22 to 16 per cent.
The proportion of married mothers in work has risen from 15 to 22 per cent.
More than half the lone parent families in Britain are divorced, widowed or separated, while under 10 per cent are fathers bringing up children on their own.
But the fastest-growing group, which now accounts for more than one-third of the total, are the unmarried mothers who tend to lack the qualifications for regular employment.
The plight of such women was highlighted in a recent speech by Mr Brown setting out Labour's stance on reform of the welfare state.
"She wants to work but she is doubly, perhaps trebly penalised. She has neither the skills to get a decent job nor the childcare that will enable her to go out to work, and she doesn't know where training is available," he told the Community Care Association earlier this week.
