Welfare Reform Bill

I must express my disappointment that there are so many wrecking amendments from Labour and Liberal Democrat Members. The idea that we can bring about the major change required in this Bill through merely voluntary means, by offering and providing opportunities, strikes me as ludicrous. I am also still unclear about the scale of the change in the current welfare system that Labour Members believe is required. I could not believe my ears when I heard that there was no evidence available to support the Government and ourselves on this issue. As a member of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, I sat through an extremely valuable inquiry on the commissioning strategy, which was full of evidence. I fully admit that evidence can always be evaluated differently, but it is simply not the case that there is no evidence to support the Government. I hope that those of us who had the privilege of speaking to and questioning Professor Gregg will have been impressed by the academic research and evidence that went into what he had to say. May I cite an example of two single mothers whom I met when I went to my local Jobcentre Plus and, with their permission, sat through their interviews? One of them had rushed to the jobcentre within an hour of getting a job to make sure that she was signed off from every possible involvement with Jobcentre Plus, not because the experience of working with the people there had been bad, but because she wanted a job. She required neither conditionality nor incentives; she just wanted to be in employment. That single mother was shortly followed by a young mother from a similar background and of a similar age. Her attitude was that producing a child was her contribution to society—she thought it was all that was required—and no incentive would have convinced her otherwise. She is surely a good example of the need for personalised support and conditionality. How is a scheme of offerings and opportunities likely to work in practice in the example I have just given?