Welfare Reform Bill

I see the thrust of the noble Lord’s point. I should like to reflect on that to see what would routinely be available through the contracting process. A certain amount would be available, although there is an extent to which some of the detail would not. In normal circumstances, contracts may be terminated given the agreed notice as stated in the contract. There may be occasions where we need to terminate a contract immediately due to breach or serious breach. Examples of this would include unlawful discrimination, financial irregularity, non-compliance with health and safety legislation, or disclosure of confidential information. On that basis and with these reassurances, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able not to move that amendment. Amendment 64 probes the nature of the relationship between the decision of a contractor and that of the Secretary of State. I have already mentioned the extent of the functions which a contractor may perform on behalf of the Secretary of State. New Section 2G(9) of the 1992 Act deals with decisions made on behalf of the Secretary of State by an "authorised person". The amendment would mean that a contractor’s decision would be his own, but would have the same effect as that of the Secretary of State. In practice, this amounts to the same thing and the amendment would have no legal effect; although I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, about the strange legal fiction whereby the decision of one person is, like transubstantiation, literally the same as the decision of another rather than taken as such. But I am advised that our wording achieves the same result. Amendment 65 seeks clarification of a particularly obscure piece of text. I have every sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, in seeking clarification, which I am happy to give. The wording in question is, ""the authorised person is entitled to treat the contract as repudiated by the Secretary of State (and not as frustrated by reason of the revocation)"." This means that where the Secretary of State ends a contract before it is due to end, a contractor could sue her for damages for breach of the contract. The Secretary of State would not be able to escape liability through provisions in the Bill which allow her to end the contract in this way. So the construct would not be frustrated, it would be treated as repudiated. Amendments 151 and 152 are related to Clause 25. They simply remove the words "if any", which, as the noble Lord observed in speaking to his amendments, is to probe our intentions. I make it clear that it is not the Government’s intention to provide in the Bill that certain functions of the Secretary of State must be contracted out. The main purpose of new Section 20E, as inserted by Clause 25, is to allow the Secretary of State to authorise public, private and voluntary sector contractors to undertake various functions relating to the progression-to-work provisions. Conditionality in this respect for lone parents and partners in particular will initially apply when they claim income support and subsequently apply once they are transferred to jobseeker’s allowance in the modified version provided for by the Bill. The contracting-out provisions in the Bill simply extend existing arrangements in what I might call "mainstream" JSA to those modified versions of income support and JSA. Perhaps I may make a technical argument for a moment. If Amendments 151 and 152 were accepted, there may be an implication in the legislation that Parliament expected the Secretary of State to exercise the powers to contract out the functions and was therefore subject to a duty to do so.