Welfare Reform Bill

I could have spoken to Amendment 140 and the other amendments in that group but I chose not to. I reserve the right to come back to the points that they cover at the next stage of the Bill. In our debate on the previous amendment, I sought an answer to the question: what is the appropriate length of a pilot? The Minister said that it depended on what the pilot was for. I take the point but the appropriate length is particularly relevant to Clause 24, which is shorter than the explanatory note in the Peers’ information pack which covers two pages of A4. At first blush, it might seem to some that the Government protesteth too much but, on closer examination, this long explanation of the clause is necessary and I for one am grateful for it. Specified enactments relating to working-age benefits are already being piloted. These pilots last for 12 or 24 months depending only on what is being piloted. We cannot but agree that 12 months is too short a period and that it has been necessary to have one pilot after another. Each pilot is subject to the affirmative procedure and the order can be laid while a pilot is running its course in order to set-up provision for the next one. The object of the exercise is to ascertain how to establish schemes that will, or will be likely to, encourage people to obtain or remain in work or make it more likely that they will be able to do so. The Government claim that it is necessary to extend the time limits from 12 months to 36 months, ""to develop a good evidence base"," for policy advances. The Peers’ information pack continues that, ""pilots today normally need to last longer than 12 months"," not least because their proper evaluation, ""can take at least 18 months"," and it takes a further 18 months to start a new one. Add the two together and you get the magic number of 36 months for a pilot scheme. Yet the Minister told us—I think it was last week, although it could have been earlier; time flies when you’re having fun—that the pilots were to be evaluated not only at the end of their fixed period but throughout that period. That being so, it cannot possibly take a full 18 months to have an evaluation at the end of the pilot. Even six months into a pilot, the evaluators will have a pretty good idea of its likely success or otherwise on completion. In 18 months, you can be pretty certain of the result. It is just possible that it might throw up a wobbly in the last six months, but I think we can conclude that that is unlikely. To allow a further 18 months for this wobbly to evidence itself is ridiculous. Why, then, have the Government come to the conclusion that three years is the appropriate amount of time for a pilot? There is another point at issue here, which again I alluded to in Amendment 147. The whole objective of a pilot is to evaluate whether the scheme therein is appropriate for rollout nationwide. It may—indeed, it often does—take more than one pilot to establish a final plan that is suitable for everyone in the country. The problem is that the longer pilots continue the greater is the delay to this universal application, on the one hand, and, on the other, if pilots are unsuccessful in achieving their objectives, the longer the people who are likely to be affected by a national rollout will remain in suspense. Lastly, the Minister’s letter of 22 June—which I received this morning and for which I am grateful—shows that there is a great deal of inconsistency in the Bill. Some pilots, such as the pension credit pilot that we have just discussed, are to last for only up to 12 months. Others, like the one under the Jobseekers Act in Clause 24 or the right to control for disabled people, are to be for 36 months. To add to this complexity, the pilot for the transfer of sanctions on non-resident parents from the courts to administrative action is for two years, as is the initial pilot in the drug provisions in Schedule 3. As a result, I have come to the conclusion that two years is the right length of time for most pilots. I hope the Committee will agree that the Government have to have a very good reason to deviate from 24 months. Amendment 149 is consequential. I beg to move.