Welfare Reform Bill

The last thing that I would ever want to do would be to create more ambiguity than is already contained in the pages of the Bill—and by the nods around the Table, I gather that various other noble Lords agree with me on that. The Minister is quite right: this is a bad group, and I should probably never have agreed to it in the first place. However, in the interests of time, I hoped that it was an appropriate thing to do. My comments particularly apply to Clause 25 stand part. The fact that I was speaking to it did not necessarily mean that I disagree with it. I must disabuse the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, by saying that I certainly do not agree 100 per cent with the views sent to us by the TUC and other union organisations. It will not surprise her to hear that. She will not find that I put down a proposal in the next couple of weeks to leave out Clause 25 or, indeed, a numbered amendment on Report. That is not my intention. We are getting a little closer to what is going on with contracting out. I am grateful for the appearance of the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, in this Committee, as he knows much more about contract procedure than I do. The noble Countess, Lady Mar, is quite right: the important thing is to ascertain who is answerable. From the answer that the Minister gave to her question and from what he said earlier, I appreciate that in all cases, even if an activity is contracted out, the Secretary of State is in control and therefore has to defend the actions of the contractor or the sub-contractor. That is absolutely the right thing to do. The matter of frustration rather than repudiation is extremely technical and perhaps I should have consulted a lawyer before attempting to put down an amendment to that effect. However, the Minister has as usual explained the matter extremely well, and that is not the bit that I will have to read particularly carefully when I read Hansard tomorrow morning. The Minister said that Amendment 60 would give the main contractor unrestricted power to use, access and employ subcontractors. I do not see anything wrong with that. Surely the Secretary of State is not the person to say whether the prime contractor can or should employ the services of a subcontractor in each particular case. Surely to goodness the main contractor, who decides that he has this range of difficulties in his casebook, has the knowledge, and should have the power, to engage such subcontractors for such subset of these long-term unemployed people as are appropriate for his casebook. I find that rather difficult and will have to read that part of the Minister’s speech extremely carefully.