Welfare Reform Bill

Why do we not extend the principle of flexibility that the Minister rightly frowns on and give discretion to personal advisers to work with individuals who might be able to move from a very small number of hours of permitted work towards an active labour market situation only over a period of time? Some of the evidence from the pilot schemes suggests that it is difficult to capture progress if you are below the thresholds. If a client or customer—whatever we call them now—is acting in good faith, the adviser could recognise that good faith by giving them more flexibility than is currently in the plan. It might be difficult to tie down in terms of the regulations that would permit it. However, my experience is that if you can engage the interest of someone who is willing to try work, even at a very restricted level, such as a few hours a day or even a week, with the intention of building that up, and if the personal adviser thinks that that goes with the grain of what we are trying do in the Bill and the principle behind it, we should give the personal adviser the discretion to say, ““Let’s give it a try for six months””. That power is not explicitly in the Bill and we should think about including it.