Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I shall make a brief intervention in support of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. It is important for the House to remember that whatever is said in the prognosis of someone who has an advancing life-threatening disease, it is completely unreliable; it is no better that a guess. These patients are living with uncertainty. They may die much sooner than their prognosis predicts or they may live longer, but they know that death is staring them in the face. We are talking about adults of working age. They often have dependants. They often have children for whom they must make provision. If they do not use what energy they have to work on making provision for those children, the problems in the next generation among bereaved children will be much greater. There are questions about who will care for the children, what provision will be made, what the children are being told, how they are being prepared for bereavement and so on, quite apart from legal arrangements. Many people who are single parents say that making provision for those children is particularly difficult at times. Therefore, it does not make sense to take what little energy people who are ill have and put them through a system that stresses them further. It is much better for our society to use the energy that they have to do the thing that they know needs to be done, which is to make provision for those who will be left behind after their death. I just emphasise that the uncertainty with which they live makes their lives even harder. It is impossible for an employer to know accurately about taking someone on. They may take them half way through an induction period before they become ill. Given the competition for jobs at the moment, any employer seeing this will, if they are in their right mind, say about the job that needs to be done, ““Hang on, is this sensible for my place of work?””, however much they want to help someone. I caution the Government against preventing people using the energy that they have to make provision for the future of those who will be left behind after their death.