Welfare Reform Bill

The two amendments in this group constitute what I hope will be a fairly quick probe. First, I seek information on sanctions. Subsection (6) seems to be a repetition of the order that I mentioned in the debate on the previous amendment. Six months for a renegade participant to be without any means of support to live is a very long time. I accept two things. The first is that hardship payments are available, although they will, I believe, be the bare minimum payment and certainly less than the £64.30 JSA, which is the current weekly amount, as otherwise there would be no sanction at all. I do not know whether the Minister can tell us what the current weekly hardship payments are. I also accept that the 26-week period is the ultimate sanction and that the participant would have to have ignored the personal adviser’s requests on several occasions for it to operate, but how many occasions constitute "several"? Does the Minister envisage that anyone will get to this point of having very little to live on for 26 weeks? Indeed, as this penalty is already on the statute book, can he tell me whether, and when, the full 26-week sanction has ever been invoked? Does he have any case studies, or was the original objective to make the sanction so severe that it was expected never to be needed? I hope that the latter is the case. Amendment 14 seeks to leave out lines 34 to 40 of subsection (8). The notes on Clauses say that the purpose of subsections (8) and (9) is to allow participants who are subject to a sanction to receive hardship payments. However, subsection (8) is unclear on this. It says that JSA may be payable. That is not exactly clear. The Grand Committee will note, however, that subsection (9) is much less specific. It says in paragraph (b) that the payment will be, ""payable at a prescribed rate"." However, it may not be paid at all, so I am getting more and more confused about this. I cannot see that these two subsections of new Section 17A gel in the least. I would be grateful, therefore, if the Minister would be more explicit than the somewhat inexplicit Explanatory Notes. I beg to move.