Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I know other noble Lords have attached their name to this amendment but I crave the indulgence of the Committee for a few minutes. As my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay said, we were in cahoots on this 20 years ago. We are in cahoots on it today and I support him totally in what he has said and what he is proposing. At one stage I thought it was a pity that this group of amendments had not been placed with the next group. I did not agree with everything that was said on the previous group, but I do not have the courage to say who I disagreed with and so I will keep my head down on that. I should like the Minister to explain to me sometime—not tonight—the overarching coalition philosophy that links the Public Bodies Bill proposition that Ministers should take all decisions and the NHS Bill philosophy which says that Ministers should take no decisions. He can think about that and come back to me at his leisure—which might be in about three years’ time. I, too, am grateful to Gingerbread for some helpful briefing. I wish to cover some historical points, one of which indicates that I have some sympathy with one of the noble Baronesses facing me—namely, the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock””. My noble and learned friend has used characteristically more emollient language than I, but the original CSA proposals were made difficult by two things: one was that the Treasury wanted too much money out of it too soon; the second—and there have been echoes of this in the discussions today—was that the political classes, and I include myself in that, did not understand what they were dealing with. There are four people in this Room who are former MPs—one of whom is in a Trappist position because she is the Deputy Chairman—my noble friend the former Member for the Cities of London and Westminster; my noble friend the former Member for—I forget what it was called but it was the Borders.