Lone parents on the New Deal pilot scheme were less successful at finding work than their counterparts in other areas

And Tony Blair claimed the number of lone parents on income support would "fall by another 40,000" during 1999 as a result of the programme.

Despite a series of ministers hailing the scheme as a great success the government's own statistics and an independent evaluation report show that the scheme has been a total failure.

The evidence even suggests the scheme may have had a negative impact on lone parents' job prospects, and even the most generous assumptions produce a cost per job figure of over �22,500.

The number of lone parents claiming income support fell by 120,000 during the two years before the New Deal was launched. But in November 1998 - the month after the New Deal began - the number began to rise.

It has recently begun to fall again, but at a much slower rate than before.

Lone parents on the pilot scheme were less successful at finding work than their counterparts in other areas.

This did not stop Alastair Darling, the secretary of state for social security, claiming "the programme is already making a difference ... the number of lone parents on income support was 3.3% lower than it would have been without [the New Deal]."

Although more lone parents left income support in the prototype areas than the comparison areas, this was not due to them finding work.

The main effect of the New Deal for Lone Parents (NDLP) was shown to be the discovery of partners previously unknown to the Benefits Agency. This is no bad thing, but it is not the aim of the programme and there are much more effective ways to root out false income support claims.

Infinite cost

If these results are representative of the programme as a whole, the cost of each job obtained by a lone parent is infinite, not �1,388 as the government suggest.

Even a generous interpretation of the government's approach suggests a high cost per job figure. The independent researchers accepted that 80% of the jobs obtained would have been filled by a lone parent anyway.

Furthermore, the government's own statistics suggest that 15% of those who find work through the scheme are back on income support within a few weeks.

Once these facts have been included in the calculation, the cost per job is over �22,500.

Conservatives want to help lone parents and are committed to doing so. We accept the evidence outlined above and have pledged to abolish the New Deal for Lone Parents because this is in the interests of the lone parent families themselves.

Lone parents need assistance, advice and support. It is in their own interests to have a policy based on the evidence showing what is in the interests of the children and parents involved.

The evidence is that children of lone parents get better academic results and have a much lower chance of becoming a teenage parent if their lone parent works when they are older.

For these reasons, a future Conservative government would replace Labour's indiscriminate approach.

We would introduce a requirement that lone parents should be actively seeking the sort of work undertaken by married mothers once their youngest child is at secondary school.

All the Tories are doing now is offering cuts in benefit for lone parents and less help in finding work

Why is the government doing this? It is our firm conviction that, for most people, work is the best form of welfare.

Work brings independence and the opportunity to provide for yourself and for your family. Lone parents know this too, and that is why most tell us that they would like to work if the opportunity were there.

The NDLP is about giving lone parents this opportunity. Many of them have particular difficulties in returning to work. For example, they may have been out of the labour market for a number of years and need guidance about how to prepare for work and apply for jobs.

Many have low educational qualifications and need to have to have training opportunities explained. Or they need help with finding childcare.

Every lone parent who joins the NDLP has a personal adviser whose job is to help them with these needs.

All in all, the government expects to spend �190m on the NDLP over the course of this Parliament. Official research shows that it costs around �1,300 per job.

That is equivalent to the cost of just ten weeks on benefit for the average lone parent so the programme is very nearly self-financing.

No help from the Tories

The NDLP is part of a comprehensive strategy - helping people from welfare to work, making work pay through the Minimum Wage and Working Families Tax Credit and helping people to make the most of their potential by increasing opportunities for education and training.

It is because of the success of this strategy that the social security budget is now firmly under control, growing at its lowest rate for over 50 years. The NDLP is an essential part of that success.

So what do the Tories offer instead? Remember that when we came into office, one million lone parents were left abandoned on benefit.

Now we have a second generation of children growing up whose parents didn't work and, what's worse, many of the children themselves don't expect to work.

For 18 years, the Tories offered no help and the problem got worse and worse - proof that leaving it to the market won't work. And all they are doing now is offering more of the same; cuts in benefit for lone parents and less help in finding work.

The object of the NDLP is to help all lone parents who want to work into a job, irrespective of whether or not they were in our initial target group. And it is working.

Independent researchers have concluded that there is a 3.3% better chance of them getting a job through the NDLP than without it. Moreover, they said that this record compared well with experience in other countries.

We believe that the NDLP is money well spent. It is an investment in people - not only the lone parents themselves but also their children.

Few things harm a child's life chances more than to grow up in poverty. Our figures show that the families of lone parents who have taken up work are on average �50 a week better off.

That's hope for the future.