Welfare Reform Bill

To satisfy both my noble friends, there is a balance to be struck between making decent progress on the Bill and having coherent discussions. I hope that we have achieved both, or will achieve both, today. I come back to the Minister’s response, but will comment on what other noble Lords have said. The overall tenor of our very powerful debate this afternoon is clearly to the effect that people are extremely unhappy with these provisions. Comments have ranged from suggesting that we should not have them at all, with Clause 51 not standing part, to a series of detailed amendments. Noble Lords have made a range of extremely pertinent points. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, talked about job prospects and asked where the fairness was in this. My noble friend Lady Lister talked about the value of the contributory principle and making sure that it does not get lost, as well as the quality impact assessment and the challenges of denying people an independent source of income. The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, talked about the changing of the rules. We do not have an answer yet as to why the Government changed their mind on that, and the Minister may wish to respond further in due course. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, raised a range of concerns focused on how the WCA works, and how people access the support group, particularly those who are terminally ill. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, was one of those noble Lords concerned about whether Clause 51 should exist at all, while the noble Lord, Lord German, talked about the WCA getting it right. I absolutely agree, and we have common cause on that, but we should get it right irrespective of these provisions as it serves a purpose around conditionality and support that should be available to people. As for what is arbitrary and what is not, I warm to the Minister’s definition—it is what others do, so it is not arbitrary. On that basis, we might almost apply to join the euro, but I do not think that the Minister would suggest that. Our amendment fundamentally looked at these things being dealt with by way of orders, so you could build an evidence base as to what was appropriate. Yes, we had a two-year minimum, which one would accept was not based on the most robust of evidence. My noble friend Lady Hollis warmed to the thrust of the amendment, as it was one way to ameliorate some of the impacts of the provisions, although it does not deal with them entirely. For example, it does not deal with the independent source of income, which my noble friend Lady Lister was concerned about. My noble friend Lady Gibson was also concerned about the very existence of Clause 51, and there were some very moving examples from my noble friend Lady Hayter. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, led the charge on the challenge that the assessment period should not be included, that Clause 51 should not be there at all and that there should not be a start to this before the legislation comes into force. There was an interesting reference to Lib Dem conference resolutions, which we might keep in our sights. However, we should thank the Minister for a very full series of exchanges on a lot of detailed points. Fundamentally, this comes back to costs, which he always quotes at us. I agree that we shall have to study Hansard and get into the figures. He could not resist the jibe about the deficit, although I wish he had because I could have resisted pointing out that we have had an international financial crisis that has affected all major economies.