Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I thank all the noble lords who have spoken in support of this amendment and who have helped to push the Minister slightly further than he had intended to go when originally reading from his brief. I am pleased to know the Minister is not a ““work first”” devotee. I was going to say, ““You could have fooled me””, but his response to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has confirmed that is the case and I welcome the spirit in which the Minister has responded. Even I am beginning to pick up the ministerial nuances to understand that was a helpful response. My noble friend Lady Hollis helpfully reminded the Committee of some of the exemptions that exist and it is helpful to have on record that those exemptions will continue. The noble Lord said that it is always possible to do training in the evening. If you are a lone mother, trying to bring up children, trying to do your job and support them in their education, and to keep them off the streets, is it realistic to think that you are also going to do training as well? It is asking too much of lone mothers when we already ask too much of them. We expect them to be responsible, in paid work, in education, keeping their kids off the street and so forth. I hope the noble Lord will come back at Report with some response to what the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, suggested in terms of opening up the potential for the future in the flexibility of this clause. The noble Baroness also raised a question about the context of Government expenditure cuts. It is not clear that this is going to cost very much to extend beyond the exemptions that already exist for this group. It would be helpful to know what the cost would be of doing it now rather than at some future date. Perhaps the noble Lord could let the Committee know. I suspect it would not be very much at all. In the spirit of the human capital approach, I am not sure what the stumbling block is to doing it sooner rather than later. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 51EA withdrawn. Amendments 51EB and 51EC not moved. Clause 22 agreed. Clause 23 agreed. Clause 24 : Imposition of requirements Clause 24 : Imposition of requirements Amendments 51F and 51FZZA not moved. Clause 24 agreed. Clause 25 agreed. Clause 26 : Higher-level sanctions Clause 26 : Higher-level sanctions Amendment 51FZA not moved. Amendment 51FZB Moved by