Welfare Reform Bill

Perhaps my noble friend can assist me further. Is the department proposing to issue some guidance—for example, a little leaflet giving advice on what you can do? There are three issues here. First, how much money can you get, given that we are talking about an earnings replacement benefit? There is a clear read-across here to earnings disregard, income support and other benefits. That needs to be clarified. Secondly, the number of hours you are working may seem to indicate your capacity to enter the world of work rather than remain on a supporting benefit. The question there is about the reliability of the hours you can work, the fluctuating nature of your condition—which is one of the big worries behind all this—and whether the work itself will require consistency of hours. The third matter—it has not been touched on but may also read across—is the element of training involved, and therefore potential preparation. That comes up a great deal—for example, whether people are able to go to, say, their local FE college and do a training course of some sort, and how many hours of training they may have before that too is regarded as interfering with their right to a dependency benefit. Given that this is a very complicated area—it is not just about work, because volunteering it is also about access to FE and related things—will my noble friend assure us that there will be guidance or a leaflet? People will then know exactly where they stand and will not be afraid of jeopardising their benefit status by doing things that are of benefit to them, their families and society.