Welfare Reform Bill

I suggest to the noble Lord that in a way we are trying to square an impossible circle, because some people—the noble Baroness gave some examples—are a long, long way away from employment. Imagine a ladder, if you like. The person who is anxious to get back into work is on, say, step nine of a 10-rung ladder. Some people are only on step one or two, and in no cost-benefit analysis can it ever be worth us investing in them to get back to work. However, the alternative is to write them off, as my noble friend said. That is also unacceptable. I suggest, and I hope, that this would come home clearly if we could see what some of the progress-to-work patterns would look like, because at the end of progress-to-work I am quite sure that there will be a minority—I hope a tiny minority—who will never engage, as we would understand it, in the wage labour market. The process of engagement, possibly by doing some voluntary work, by being encouraged to settle and sort out their housing situation, and by getting some of their debt under control, means that none the less they will be better parents and that they and the child will enjoy a better quality of life, and a richer one, even if the final outcome is not what we would want. We may have to accept that for all sorts of reasons, including poor mental health, some people may remain a long way from the labour market. Investment in them and their personal skills will surely have repercussions over and beyond a narrower version of a cost-benefit analysis of a return to work.