Welfare Reform Bill

I am most grateful to those who joined the debate for the support that they gave me and to the Minister for his very full reply. Unfortunately—perhaps inevitably—his brief anticipated what I was going to say, and I would like to make two points clear. Under no circumstances did I or would I say that it is bad for a parent to go out to work and under no circumstances would I say that it is necessarily bad for a child to go into childcare. In both cases, it depends on the balance with family life. That is what I tried to say in my introduction. My amendments are not an attempt to make any specific recommendation, they simply throw open the idea that one of the criteria in judging any issue should be the well-being of the child. My other point is a matter of correction. In Amendment 22C, I did not state that a parent had to take one weekend, I stated that regulations pursuant to Sections 17A and 17B, ""shall be so drafted as to ensure that no jobseeker’s agreement, direction or planned for work or work related activities proposed ""to a jobseeker who is a parent of a child under the age of 16 are so worded as to deny the jobseeker one whole day per week"." In other words, he can choose whether to have that day. Time is running out. I should like to have the opportunity to read carefully what the Minister said but, at this moment, I am much encouraged by what he has said. It seems to me to make perfectly clear that the Government could not possibly have any objection to including my first amendment in the Bill, which is where I want to get it. If I may take the opportunity to visit the Minister between now and the next stage, I shall be happy to withdraw my amendment. Amendment 22A withdrawn. Amendments 22B to 23 not moved.