Welfare Reform Bill

I do not altogether follow the noble Lord’s argument; nor do I agree with him that Pathways to Work has not been valuable. I do not have the data readily to hand, although they are in the file here somewhere, but comparisons have been made of people in Pathways areas and non-Pathways areas who have reached employment and moved off incapacity benefit, and the process has helped them. Even if you did not have the data to support that, conceptually, looking at what is entailed in all this, it is certain that these processes help people. We are engaging with them in a positive way and helping to deliver on their aspirations rather than paying them for not engaging and forgetting about them.