That is absolutely right.
My final and principal objection to the proposal is this: last November, I put it to the Business Secretary in this House that an employer in his Twickenham constituency would, under these arrangements, be able to make acceptance of job offers conditional on people agreeing to accept employee owner status. He denied that that was the case, yet patently the arrangements allow for it. The risk in the current jobs market of people being pressurised, or feeling under pressure, to take jobs with this type of status will be increased.
I am pleased about the Minister’s concession today. I raised the point with him on Report, but did not get the kind of assurance or concession that he just gave, and it is good that he gave it. Lord Forsyth said he was astonished that the coalition was even thinking of bringing forward a measure under which people could have their right to jobseeker’s allowance withdrawn if they did not accept a job on this basis. Of course, we will need to study the guidance. We have not seen it yet, and the first we heard of the concession was from the Minister just now. Notwithstanding the concession, however, and for all the reasons I have just given, we continue to support Lords amendment 25.