Welfare Reform Bill

I thank the noble Lord for this amendment, and indeed for the series of amendments. If it can help to clarify things for the record, it is time well spent. However, the amendment would remove our ability to suspend a jobseeker’s agreement while a jobseeker takes part in "work for your benefit", which could have a number of peculiar consequences. As noble Lords may know, complying with a jobseeker’s agreement is part of the entitlement conditions for jobseeker’s allowance: that is, if you fail to comply with it, you will no longer be able to claim jobseeker’s allowance. The jobseeker’s agreement contains not only information on the kind of work that a jobseeker should look for and the hours for which they must be available for work but information on the steps that they must take to get back into work. These can be small steps such as searching the internet every week, or larger ones such as attending the jobcentre daily to look through vacancies. However, given that the "work for your benefit" programme is full-time, it may be unreasonable or actually impossible for jobseekers to undertake these steps in addition to the "work for your benefit" programme. Indeed, it would be perverse of us to penalise customers for not complying with their jobseeker’s agreement when they cannot comply simply because they are participating in a mandatory employment programme. Therefore, we may in some circumstances wish to suspend the jobseeker’s agreement to avoid this. It does not mean that we will not expect jobseekers to continue to search for work. That is a fundamental part of the "work for your benefit" programme. Nor does it mean that we will not take account of any restrictions in the jobseeker’s agreement on the types of work or availability that have been agreed with Jobcentre Plus. We will honour those agreements, which will be carried into the "work for your benefit" programme. I hope that that explains to the noble Lord why we need that provision. To be absolutely clear, its suspension would not affect the claimant or ILO unemployment data. It is nothing to do with seeking to manage the statistics, which never enters our head.