Welfare Reform Bill

moved Amendment No. 15: 15: Clause 2 , page 3, line 2, at end insert— ““( ) For the purposes of this Part, the assessment phase for a person who is terminally ill as prescribed through regulations will be waived.”” The noble Lord said: We have established over many years that once an amendment is on the Marshalled List it can be moved by any noble Lord, unlike a Starred Question, which has to be moved with the approval of the person who originally tabled it. On that basis, I will move the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, and speak also to my amendment. They are almost identical in effect, despite being targeted at different parts of the Bill. They are both designed to shorten the assessment phase in the case of terminal illnesses so that the full benefit might be enjoyed sooner. Sooner is the point, because listening to the discussion on the last group of amendments prompted me to think that it is one thing for terminally ill people to be put automatically on a support group, as the Minister says, but it is quite another thing for them to be fast tracked on to the support group. The question remains at what point they will get on to the support group. I hope that the Minister might have an answer for that. Anyone who is terminally ill is in a very vulnerable situation, and so is their family. The situation should not be made worse by money worries. They should not be made to wait for their benefits once it has been decided that they are in the position that these amendments describe. The Government have given us welcome assurances on this matter in another place, and they have accepted that 13 weeks will represent a significant proportion of the amount of time left to a person suffering from a terminal illness. There might also be significant costs, as I have said, such as hospice care, which would not be covered by the reduced benefit available during the assessment period. I am interested to know exactly how the Government intend to help these claimants, if not by means of something similar to one of these amendments, by some other means. I beg to move.