Welfare Reform Bill

moved Amendment No. 81A: 81A: Clause 16, page 14, line 24, leave out paragraph (a) The noble Lord said: I am afraid that I tabled this amendment only a couple of days ago. It is a probing amendment to explore the Government’s intentions behind Clause 16. I understand that the calculations of income and capital, on which rests the eligibility of the income-related strand of ESA, are critical, and also that the Secretary of State needs some flexibility in this matter. I hope that the Minister can enlighten me as to whether the Government have any plans to amend the current arrangements for incapacity benefit as ESA is rolled out. I have also chosen to hang this issue on subsection (3)(a) because the circumstance immediately jumps out as rather unusual, although all of them seem to be rather counter-intuitive. After all, if capital income can be defined as the Government wish, why do they need paragraphs (c) and (d) at all? Can the Minister give me some indication of when regulations creating these circumstances would be considered necessary? I beg to move.