Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I support the thrust of the noble Baroness’s amendment. I do not think that there was much that I ever did as Minister which was the cause of great rejoicing, but I was grateful for at least one memory. I recall several meetings that we had together, trying to see that we ended up in a situation where amounts paid to service users did not inadvertently affect their benefits. I have been trying to recall all of the detail of that. I am not sure that I can, but I am sure that the Minister will be able to bring us up to date or remind us. Part of what we were trying to do then was to see if a sensible application of the current rules, by way of clear guidance across Jobcentre Plus, would be a route to tackling it. It was in part, but it did not deal with the whole of the situation. There can be no doubt that engagement of those who actually use our services in shaping how they are organised and delivered can be of enormous public benefit. This particularly applies to the multiplicity of research projects which can underpin innovation and vital developments in services. Service user engagement is to be strongly encouraged. We are thoroughly supportive of this. As the noble Baroness has said, it seems entirely reasonable, as we reflect on the introduction of universal credit, to see how far a legislative solution will cover the situation, rather than perhaps just relying upon practice and guidance, as happens in part at the moment. However, as we have heard, that does not cover all of the gaps, and there are a range of issues about whether payment just covers actual outgoings, about whether there is an excess or profit, about the frequency of activity and about whether any spreading or averaging rules would apply—we went down that avenue at one stage. There is also the issue of protecting those who decline a payment from the notional income rules. It may be that the disregard regime in universal credit could help or could be made to help. On the basis of the noble Baroness’s figure, that may not be the case. Turning to the specifics of the amendment, I have an issue about terminology. It refers to expenses, "““wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred in the performance of the duties of the employment””." It is an interesting point to distinguish employment and involvement. It is certainly the case in tax legislation, and I think in benefits legislation also, that the phrase ““wholly, exclusively and necessarily”” precludes taking the costs of travel from home to work out of the arrangements. There has always been a distinction between the cost of undertaking travel as part of your work or involvement and putting yourself in a position to do that, which is travel from home to work. Therefore I am not sure that the formulation is necessarily the right one. This has been going on for a number of years. Progress has been made, but it clearly has not solved the problem, as we have heard. It would not have a huge price tag, if any, to use this opportunity with universal credit to deal with it absolutely.