Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendment 30B, spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope. He has recognised early on that to push or argue for a broad sweep of payments without research and without targeting is unreasonable—I do not think that it would happen anyway. Nevertheless, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has said much that I intended to say, so I shall restrict myself to saying that I totally agree with him about vulnerable women in particular. Without going into the broad issue of the place of women in society, we all surely accept that women in all strata of society do not get the full consideration and services that they should. I do not want to go into controversial territory, but I think that pregnant women, particularly in the vulnerable groups mentioned by previous speakers, are bombarded with other advice about pregnancy. They do not seem to be bombarded with advice on how to maximise their income or benefits to their unborn child—we all know the damage that can be done to unborn children by poor diet, smoking and all the rest of it. Leaving aside grants and a heap of things that would cost a lot of money without achieving anything, does the Minister accept that we should target advice on that comparatively small vulnerable group and perhaps establish a greater level of knowledge about that sector of society? That could certainly be achieved with that little extra assistance. I am firmly in support of Amendment 30B.