Welfare Reform Bill

It is a dilemma. I think that the entire House sympathises with the noble Lord. Many of us have been faced with this dilemma in the past. You are eligible for benefits in the UK if you are ordinarily resident. Much of the protection has been about whether you are allowed to go away for extended periods of holiday and still continue to claim. That is secure, but the problem of contributory benefits is that which flows out of the free movement of labour and, as a result of that free movement, generates you a right to a contributory benefit whichever state you may subsequently live in. We understand the Minister’s dilemma very well, but I would have thought that there is a route out, which is of course to recategorise this as a special non-contributory benefit. That has a long pedigree in social security and European Union co-ordination of benefits and would therefore take it out of the label ““contributory””. It would take it out of the labour market eligibility, because these young people have never been in the labour market. We are trying to apply a label to them that is not appropriate. By relabelling this, perhaps along the lines suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, we should in my view be secure.