Welfare Reform Bill

The issue of education and benefits and the question of who can and cannot access benefits is complex, as I have learnt over the past few days in going over the position of students at school, college or university. The broad principle that we are adopting here is to roll forward the current arrangements into the new system, but we also recognise that engagement in education would be expected to feature as part of the work-related activity. The construct allows us the flexibility to deal with those varying issues, which is why it is in that form. If we simply changed the wording to, say, ““full-time education””, that would not necessarily fit all the circumstances that we are seeking to address.