Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I like to be able to flesh out these adverbs—no, they are not adverbs. My grammar is slightly frail. The answer is that I cannot be any more specific. If that is news, I am not in a position to provide any more definition. Clause 59 removes Section 11 and Schedule 3 from the 2009 Act, and also removes the provisions which Schedule 3 inserted into the Jobseekers Act 1995 and the Welfare Reform Act 2007. We know that the vast majority of people with substance dependency issues eventually want to break free of their addiction. The National Treatment Agency reports that, last year, more than 200,000 people in England entered treatment. That represents about two-thirds of all those with dependency issues. In 2010-11, 27,969 adults left treatment in England free of dependency, which is an increase of 150 per cent compared with 2005-06. Waiting times continue to reduce—96 per cent get into treatment within three weeks of referral. In England, we spend more than £400 million on drug treatment and this budget has not been cut. We want to build on that. We believe that the right approach is to offer support and encouragement for those who want to tackle their substance addiction. We are therefore ensuring that our advisers have the confidence to engage in the often difficult conversations with those who they believe have dependency problems, that they understand the issues that addicts face and that they work in partnership with local treatment agencies to improve referral rates. By encouraging closer working between Jobcentre advisers and treatment service providers we will increase the number of people moving into sustained recovery. If claimants decide to take up the treatment opportunities available to them, we will look to ensure that they have the opportunity to focus on that treatment and make it succeed. This is not being soft on addicts. The choice to tackle addiction is not an easy one, as anyone who has tried will confirm. Claimants who decline the offer of treatment will be expected to comply with their ordinary full labour-market conditions as a requirement for continuing to be entitled to their benefit. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, asked about universal credit. We are clear that the imposition of work-related requirements under universal credit must not conflict with an individual’s treatment regime. We want to maximise every individual’s chances of an early move into work. For those with substance dependency, the first logical step will often to be to confront their addition, and we do not want simultaneously to impose labour market requirements that make it challenging or even impossible to complete treatment. This will be our guiding principle under universal credit and we will make sure that this can be achieved. The structure of universal credit legislation makes this relatively straightforward. We have considerable flexibility in the powers we are taking in the Bill to ensure that we can tailor work-related requirements to fit with the circumstances and capability of an individual. We will be considering how best this can be done as we develop regulations. The provisions inserted by the Welfare Reform Act 2009 are inappropriate and likely to have unintended adverse consequences for substance or alcohol-dependent claimants, their communities and the public purse. The provisions have not been commenced and do not reflect this Government’s direction of travel in dealing with the very difficult question of drug and alcohol addiction, nor do they take account of the introduction of universal credit, which will replace both the income-related strands of JSA and ESA in due course. Hence we seek to repeal them. I beg to move that Clause 59 stand part of the Bill.