Welfare Reform Bill

I shall not keep the Committee for long. I think that all of the Committee is agreed on the basic principles of the Bill and would like to see them succeed. However, in Grand Committee, I think that the feeling has increasingly grown that the success or failure of the Bill ultimately will be in its delivery. It will be in matters such as whether there will be enough committed funding; whether there will be enough quality staff available; whether they will be well enough trained; whether they will have the interpersonal skills to manage the delicate balance between being the friend and advocate of the client at the same time as being the policeman; and whether the leadership will be good enough. Finally, will there be support from experts in disability and mental health, and for the needs of children, which we discussed under my earlier amendments? The noble Lord has written to me about this but I am afraid that I have not had time to look at his letter in detail. It will not be easy for decision-makers to be tough enough with the skivers while being sufficiently understanding towards those with real problems. That will be especially true if the Government set jobcentres targets for the number of people whom they can get back into work. A great deal will also depend on the regulations that the Secretary of State makes, of which we have not so far seen one single example. I understand that the Bill is about a project that is still developing, and I can quite see that the Government want to keep as much freedom of manoeuvre as possible for it, but that does not alter the fact that we as parliamentarians are being asked to authorise the Government to make major changes in the law which will crucially affect the lives of many citizens, and we are being asked to do so without any clear idea of what regulations the Secretary of State will make. I suggest that it is no more than natural justice and reasonable that Parliament should be kept honestly and fully informed about the way in which the project is developing and given a genuine assessment of its successes and failures. Since I set down the amendment, I have noticed that Section 9 of the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 requires the commission to report to the Secretary of State annually. In the case of this Bill, the Secretary of State should also report to Parliament. Perhaps an annual report might be a better solution than the single report in year 3 that I have suggested in my amendment—I would be perfectly happy with either. I beg to move.