Welfare Reform Bill

The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, has delivered a trenchant argument to support his amendment, which would create an automatic review of the Bill once it had passed and become an Act of Parliament. A few moments ago, in response to something that the noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, said, I imported half-marks upon myself. I am afraid that I am going to have to do the same to the noble Lord; I can support him only partly. I certainly have no problem with laying the report before Parliament, but I take issue with the noble Lord’s proposed timing. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, talked about the long-term nature of the Bill. Three years after passing is too soon for many of the provisions; it is quite possible that many of them will not have been implemented, while others will have been implemented too recently for much to be discerned. I suspect, too, that the noble Lord’s problem resolves principally around Part 1 of the Bill. Indeed, the speeches from other noble Lords suggest that they follow that suspicion. The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, mentioned pilots. It is my view that at this stage the pilot schemes themselves will be acting as a form of review because they will entail a process of continuing evaluation. For a translation of the Latin "Pelion on Ossa", you might read "pilot on pilot"—which is what we are likely to see. I am not sure what good would come of duplicating that evaluation to the point where we had what would in effect be a review of the review. Rather, the noble Lord, whose intentions are entirely sound, would do better to focus his scrutiny on the outcomes of the pilots. When they are brought to a close—after two years, hopefully, if the Minister is sensible and takes my advice—much of what the noble Lord is looking for will in fact have been accumulated and will need to be carefully considered. It is at that point, after the pilots have been completed, that the type of review proposed in the amendment would come into play. If I may be so bold as to suggest a reworking of it so that there was a review three years after the pilot schemes came to a close, I would have no difficulty with his idea at all. I hope that this is the last time, on this ninth day of Committee, that I shall be uttering. I therefore repeat and confirm what the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, said about the ministerial team. Over the many years that I have stood opposite the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, I have been struck by his very good humour, no matter what provocation I have thrown at him. That has certainly been exhibited over the past nine years in Grand Committee.