It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), and I say to him and other right hon. Friends on the Front Bench that if new clause 1 has emerged from their discussions with DWP Ministers, the Bill has provided at least one bit of good news. I commend them for their efforts.
In listing 10 questions, my right hon. Friend has done the Committee a great service because one thing missing from new clause 1 is any mention of terms of reference—if I had been a bit quicker this afternoon, I might have included that in the amendments standing in my name and those of my hon. Friends. My right hon. Friend’s questions give the work of the independent reviewer a good starting point, and I say to my Front-Bench colleagues and the Minister that I know time is pressing, but if it were possible—perhaps even before deliberations in the other place—to draw up draft terms of reference based on my right hon. Friend’s 10 questions for the other place to consult on when debating the Bill, that would be helpful.
I will not go through each of my right hon. Friend’s 10 points because he spoke eloquently about them, but, of course, the numbers and quality of decisions are important. His question—I think this was point No. 7—about how people are surviving when they have been sanctioned and have no income is relevant and an issue on which Members of Parliament from all sides of the House will increasingly have to focus in the weeks and months ahead.
Let me say at the outset of my short contribution that I am in favour of, and not opposed to, sanctions. If we offer something to young people and others who are out of work, we need effective sanctions to back that up. Unfortunately, however, at the moment we do not have a proper offer for young people and others who are out of work, and that is part of the problem. It is important for sanctions to be fair and lawful, yet we heard in earlier debates this afternoon that the Court found the regulations and notice to be unlawful, which is why the Government have introduced this Bill.
My right hon. Friend mentioned the large numbers of people who are being sanctioned. All hon. Members know from their work in their constituencies of the increasing number of sanctions cases. We take a view on how fair or unfair those sanctions are, but I increasingly question the quality of decisions. A number of my hon. Friends have referred specifically to representations they have made to the Department for Work and Pensions on looking at decisions again because they were plainly unfair. In many cases, the decision is overturned, because any common-sense look at them would tell us that the decision was wrong. There are serious questions to be asked about both the quantity and the quality of sanctions. It is important that the review takes place—it is a welcome concession in the discussions between those on the Front Benches.