Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, for tabling this amendment and for outlining the background to it. I appreciate that he is seeking to ensure that an individual who may be refused a loan by an external provider would have a clear route through which he could challenge that decision. It is our intention that any external provider of social loans should have a complaints procedure, as the noble Lord, Lord Freud, acknowledged. That procedure could respond to both complaints of a customer-service nature and requests for a decision on a loan to be revisited. We would make that clear in our tendering documentation and it would be one of the criteria to be met by any successful bidder. We have said that we will introduce external-provider social loans only if and when the time is right, and that we will consult further on the detail of how any external-provider loans might work before we even think about introducing them, so we are some way back from going live on that. The Bill sets out the high-level arrangements for external provider social loans, and I believe it will be clear to us all that the fully developed scheme will be complex. We have never said otherwise. It is clear from the brief exchanges today and at previous stages of the Bill that this is an area of particular concern to noble Lords, who would prefer to see more detail now. However, I do not think that specifying in the Bill the need for arrangements to include an appeals process for decisions that may be made by a provider or providers yet to be appointed is really the best way forward. However, I assure noble Lords that we will take this concern into account and look closely at arrangements for reconsidering a decision by an external provider. Those arrangements must reflect the options chosen in respect of the rest of the scheme. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, referred to the consultation. We expect to consult in the near future—that is, before spring—and separately from any other consultation. I am conscious that that is not the detail the noble Lords, Lord Kirkwood and Lord Freud, are seeking, but it is where we are. We are some way from this going live.