Welfare Reform Bill

I support this amendment as someone who used to be responsible for delivering the benefits system. When I was in that position, I remember railing against the complexity of the system and am therefore delighted that we are doing something about that. I also railed against the complexity of some of the bureaucratic communications that were sent out. Since I am now more often on the receiving end of those kinds of communications, I fear that my railing had little impact because they are still excessively complicated and I find it quite difficult to understand some of the letters that I receive. It is placing a very heavy burden on benefit recipients to expect them to understand fully all the communications that they receive and therefore fully to appreciate sometimes when an overpayment has been made. For those of us who had an overpayment of, say, an occupational pension that we have to repay, irritating though it is, we can probably afford to do that over a period of time. It is a very different issue for a benefit recipient to repay a large sum of money in their circumstances. Therefore, I support the amendment. It is really important to get some clarification of the situation as we move forward.