Welfare Reform Bill

Yet again, I am extremely grateful to the Minister. He spoke early on in his few words about this being a major simplification. I am not sure that many people outside this Room, and perhaps a few in it, would agree with him. Certainly initially, until it is all worked through, the Bill produces a subset—I should not call it a subset, but I do—of jobseeker’s allowance and rolls it into a single benefit. Yes, of course I understand that the fully fledged jobseeker’s allowance as it has been up to now requires fortnightly so-called "signing on" interviews because the job adviser needs to be satisfied that people really are actively seeking work through applying for posts through advertisements and the various other ways in which that can be done. However, we are now talking about people who are not actively seeking work. They do not fit into the progression-to-work group either, until their child, as the Minister has said over and over again, becomes three years old. So it is always necessary to have a first interview, but I suggest that it really isn’t necessary to have another until the child is slightly over three. I will have to work on this for Report.