Welfare Reform Bill

If the noble Baroness will forgive me, perhaps I may stress a point that perhaps I did not emphasise sufficiently fully in my response. The opportunities she seeks to make available through her amendment are essentially already there in the system. Individuals have the opportunity to take up a range of support, whether it relates to pathways or to New Deal regimes. We have learnt from that that, notwithstanding those opportunities—our understanding is that people overwhelmingly want to get to work—they are not producing that progression for enough people. That is why we believe that an element of conditionality and sanctions to support that is important. What I think that the noble Baroness would call the carrot approach is already, in large measure, the system that we have.