Welfare Reform Bill

The Minister is being very helpful. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, that it is evident that you cannot give a parent a veto without driving a coach and horses through the legislation. The language used by the Minister was much more positive today than previously but I wonder whether he would undertake to think about this. Clause 1 is an employment programme and this is a broader problem which goes across all benefits as regards childcare provision. Would the department be able to track the sanctions referrals which flowed directly from a challenge about childcare in the early stages of the introduction of this legislation, whenever it is introduced, so that over a period of time Parliament could be advised subsequently whether this was the extent of the problem which some of us think it might be? Some 800,000 sanctions were dished out in the year to August 2008, which is a huge number. That is likely to increase because of this legislation. Some reassurance would be afforded to colleagues if there were some departmental research on that subject which could be reported back to Parliament so that we can look at it again as I suspect that there may be another welfare reform Bill along quite soon and that would give us a chance to address the matter again.