Welfare Reform Bill

As the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, said, the wording of this amendment to Clause 1—with its definition of "good cause" for a failure to comply with mandatory activities and provision for a sanction—is taken directly from the Jobseeker’s Allowance Regulations 1996. All the different circumstances in the original definition must have been enumerated for a reason and are not simply an arbitrary list of excuses. However, as the phrase good cause is not defined in the Bill, I, too, would like to know whether it will follow the earlier regulations. On Monday we received a draft of the good cause regulations for ESA. These regulations appear to be pretty comprehensive though I see that we have lost the manning of lifeboats and the fire fighters. However, we have not received any regulations for Clause 1. On page 87 of the Peers’ information pack it states: ""The Government intends that the good cause for not participating in a Work for Your Benefit pilot scheme will be consistent with the good cause provisions currently contained in regulations relating to other employment programmes"." Good cause considerations are set out on page 90 of the same document. At the beginning of the paragraph it states: ""It is envisaged that regulations will provide"," but the factors that are then listed are given as examples. We do not want to be unduly suspicious but I do not think that it is asking too much for us to know exactly what "good cause" will mean in the context of this clause. This is such an important amendment because it would cover, among others, those who have a fluctuating mental health condition but who are nevertheless on JSA rather than in the employment group of ESA and therefore subject to the conditionality regime of Clause 1. It is still Clause 1 that we are talking about. I note that one of the examples of good cause considerations given in the pack is if the physical or mental condition of the claimant makes it impossible for him or her to undertake the activity. That should cover fluctuating mental health conditions. However, I would like the Minister to reassure the Committee that that will be explicit in the regulations.