Work and Families Bill

My hon. Friend is correct. It is difficult to consider the Bill properly without knowing what the regulations are. It is hard to understand why we have reached this stage without the regulations that the Secretary of State promised. The Under-Secretary said that he was doing all that he could to produce them. There is no urgency to introduce the Bill. We could have waited for Third Reading until next week, the week after, or the week after that. It is a good Bill, and we want it to come into force, but there is no reason why it should do so in six or seven weeks’ time rather than in 10 or 11 weeks’ time. We could have had a far better and more informed debate if we had had the regulations before us. As a matter of principle, it is careless of the Government to expect the House of Commons to do its job properly if we do not have all the information that they ought to give us to allow us to scrutinise the Bill properly.