Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I ask the Minister for some brief clarification. If I am picking it up correctly, the definitive removal of any option for anybody aged 16 to apply for these benefits under the special circumstances is proposed. I have the benefit—it might not have seemed like a benefit at the time—of 23 years of parliamentary surgeries as a former Member of the other place. There is one thing these surgeries teach you, and that is that there can be no definitives in dealing with human beings. I can certainly recall occasions—not hundreds but certainly scores over the years—when people of that age had special circumstances. I am worried about the reasons for removing the possibility of applying, and about the alternatives being brought into legislation to account for that option being removed. I always worry about definitives and a lack of options, and I would like to hear what the Minister has to say on that.