Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, noble Lords will be aware that we intend to use the power in subsection (2)(d) to establish the conditionality threshold. In summary, the threshold will be defined by establishing the hours we expect each individual in a benefit unit to work, taking account of their particular capability and circumstances, and multiplying this by the relevant national minimum wage. We believe that setting their threshold in this way is the right thing to do. It will mean that we can impose work-related requirements only on those claimants working less than we could reasonably expect in benefit units falling under the threshold and it ensures that we take full account of a claimant’s circumstances and capability. As we have discussed, we believe that we must have the power to encourage and support such claimants to do more to support themselves. Without a threshold many more working claimants would fall into the all work-related requirements group. We do not want to bring into conditionality those claimants who are working as much as we can reasonably expect. Having a threshold is essential for this. Finally, we intend to use this power to do more than set the conditionality threshold. We will also use this to add other categories of claimant to the no work-related requirements group, ensuring that particular groups of claimant are treated appropriately. This includes working claimants on jury service, claimants on adoption leave and claimants who are over state pension age. It is clearly important that such claimants remain out of conditionality. I should make clear to my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale that paragraph (d) is a protective measure. If we did not have it, we would not be able to protect those people from conditionality.