Welfare Reform Bill

I am afraid that we shall have to beg to differ, because I am on record many times over the years as saying that I hate shopping lists in Acts of Parliament. That is what we have in the Bill. I was saying that there is a use for regulations, after all, and if they are sparingly used, they have a place when we are crafting legislation. However, the place for regulations might very well be in a readable document that your Lordships have had the chance to read before debating the enabling provision in Grand Committee, where, of course, most regulations are now discussed in your Lordships’ House. If the Minister is unable to elucidate further on what exactly we are expecting to see in these masses of regulation, then at the very least the need for the clarity provided by the noble Baroness’s amendment begins to seem rather a good idea, despite the fact that I dislike shopping lists—because you are bound to miss something and to include something that you do not ultimately want. Then, of course, the regulations will have to include it. I hope that we will hear an explanation from the Minister in his reply. Amendment 75 would prevent the sanction of stopping JSA payments in cases where there was inadequate childcare. I refer to the debates we have had on childcare. It is clear to me, and I hope to the Minister, that this is one of the great sticking points. I am the first to admit that. The noble Baroness’s amendment does something slightly unusual: it places a duty on the Secretary of State to prove a negative. In this case, the lack of childcare was not responsible for the claimant behaving in a manner that would otherwise—