Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I would like to raise a philosophical point about the Government wandering into the world of employment relationships. I am not sure whether philosophy is allowed but I will have a go. Employment relationships are complex, and I am not just talking about the legal implications. A bargain is reached between the employer and the employee about how each will conduct themselves. Any external factor can easily upset the applecart. I give a hypothetical example to illustrate that. I know from being a former chair of ACAS that its helpline receives a million calls a year from both employees and employers. ACAS staff outline what avenues the caller can pursue but stop short of giving actual advice. Human nature being what it is, this is often interpreted as strong advice. If the information is used in the wrong circumstances, it can cause trouble rather than solve a potential problem. We all sift the information that we hear, so an employee who has had a work conditionality interview, as it were, with the local Jobcentre Plus could go straight to their employer and say, ““The social says you’ve got to give me more money or increase my hours””. There may well be thousands of philanthropists out there just waiting for the opportunity to pour largesse over their employees’ heads, but this situation could also lead to real difficulties in the employment relationship. Some employees are clinging on to work by their fingertips right now. I cannot help thinking that this measure is a precedent in terms of government relations with the world of work. I read what Chris Grayling said in the other place and it all sounded terribly reasonable. He said that ““they””; that is, claimants, "““would come back into the jobcentre from time to time—periodically, every few months—to talk about their prospects, and that we would seek to put some additional conditionality on them, as and when it became possible to do so, to move to a job with longer hours””." An example was given where a lone parent could move to a job with longer hours as the children grew up. That was called, "““a degree of push within the system””.—[Official Report, Commons, Welfare Reform Bill Committee, 5/4/11; col. 412.]" How grown up would the children have to be? Would the extent of unemployment in the area be taken into account, as the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, has asked? Is it really the Government’s intention to force people to give up one job to pursue another? How would this affect self-employed people? Would they be in danger if they showed that they had made no profit in a particular year? Would they be advised to give up their business in order to take up higher-paid work elsewhere? I know from my seven years in ACAS that the employment relationship is a very delicate one. I worry about how this issue is going to be handled.