Welfare Reform Bill

moved Amendment No. 22: 22: Clause 10 , page 8, line 25, leave out ““within a prescribed period, show that he had”” and insert ““have”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 22, 38 and 42 have the same basic principle. We know from the draft regulations that if a person fails to get to the interview, they have five days in which to lodge the reason why they had good cause to fail. Virtually everywhere else in the system, a person has a month to appeal and show good cause. I have here examples of why people might fail to attend and why this might not be appropriate, but one example sums this up: what happens if a person is knocked over on the way and is unconscious for six days? Why can we not have something to take care of that? A more frequent example might be mental health problems et cetera where a person has a mini-breakdown or a bad episode which takes them out of commission for that period of time, and they are unable to get in contact themselves and people cannot get in touch with them. They have lost track. According to my information, in the rest of the system a person has a month in which to react and register, and my amendment would bring this in line. The five-day period is far too short and arbitrary. It does not allow for variations in anyone’s life, let alone the lives of those who are slightly more chaotic than the rest of us. I hope that the Minister will be able to assure us that this five-day period in the draft regulations will not be rigidly applied. If it is, people are bound to be left very short of money, possibly affecting their family and dependents. I beg to move.