In1973, after much hard lobbying work, Cherish celebrated the introduction of the unmarried mother’s allowance – the first social welfare payment to acknowledge the existence of women bringing up children on their own. It was £8.15 per week.

The amount increased slowly over the years but requests from Cherish for a more realistic means test were not met until the 1990s.

In 1990 the term Lone Parents Allowance was introduced to cover the various categories of women and men living on social welfare and parenting alone. In 1997 this term was changed to One Parent Family Payment.