Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very important point and it is related to the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy. There are two areas where we will have to have specific rules. First, in the start-up phase, what are the rules for that and how long does one allow for it? Secondly, in the period when something goes badly wrong, when you have had a business going very well with profits and then you have a sudden collapse, what do you do about that period? That was the example that the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, raised. Those are two of the issues that we are looking at very closely and how to get that right. One of the things we want to get out of this is the most business-friendly suite of support that we can put together. In this sense, working tax credit for the self-employed does become a support for entrepreneurial endeavour, tied with other support for new business such as the new enterprise allowance.