Welfare Reform Bill

Public Bill Committee, 26 October 2006.

Standing Committee A

Clause 10

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

I beg to move amendment No. 31, in clause 10, page 9, line 17, at end add

‘who has undertaken such training in work-related needs and support as may be prescribed.’.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 261, in clause 10, page 9, line 17, at end add—

‘(9) A health care professional will not be approved by the Secretary of State unless he has undertaken such training in disabilities and health conditions as the Secretary of State may by regulation prescribe.’.

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

Thank you, Mr. Amess. It is good to be under your chairmanship today. The weather has somewhat improved since our previous sitting, and long may that continue. I gather from the radio this morning that I will be confronting storms, snow, ice and all sorts of other things when I return to my constituency this evening, so I hope that the atmosphere in the Committee this morning will be more in keeping with the atmosphere outside than with that in my constituency this evening.

Both the amendments would introduce training requirements into clause 10, which relates to work-focused health-related assessments. Amendment No. 31 specifies training in work-related needs and support. Amendment No. 261 refers to a health care professional having

“training in disabilities and health conditions”.

Both amendments seek to probe the Government’s intentions regarding the training of those who will carry out work-focused health-related assessments, and I gather that the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs. McGuire), will respond to the debate, so my comments are addressed to her. I raise the issue because it was suggested in our previous debate that the assessments could sometimes be undertaken by different health care professionals from those who will carry out the limited capability for work and the limited capability for work-related activity assessments, and we had a good debate about the training needs of those involved.

My key point is that it is important for Ministers to make it clear that they will ensure that those who carry out these important work-focused health-related assessments—we have discussed their functions before, so I do not need to go into them again—have a proper understanding of the wide range of disabilities, impairments and health conditions that those they are talking to might have. That is the burden of amendment No. 261. If they have that understanding, they should—this is the burden of amendment No. 31—be able to understand such conditions and impairments and make health care recommendations that might enhance people’s ability to undertake work-related activity. With those few remarks, I ask the Under-Secretary to set out the Government’s intentions.

Jeremy Hunt (Conservative, South West Surrey)

May I, too, welcome you back to the Chair, Mr. Amess? I look forward very much to serving under you as we discuss all the issues before us.

I want briefly to add to the comments made by the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Danny Alexander). When we discussed training earlier, the Under-Secretary gave us an assurance that people would be provided with all the training necessary to ensure that what is envisaged in the Bill happens. However, I wonder whether she could respond a little more fully on that issue, because there are widespread concerns among disabled people and the organisations that represent them about the level of training to be given to those who do the assessments and to Jobcentre Plus staff. I know that the Under-Secretary takes a great interest in this issue, so could she say a little more specifically about what training will be undertaken to ensure that people understand hidden disabilities? People with learning disabilities, for example, are concerned that those disabilities might not be understood because they are not visible.

There is widespread concern about these issues, and I know that the Department will have the right intentions, but with the greatest respect to Ministers, it has not always delivered to the highest standard. Will the Under-Secretary therefore give some reassurances in that respect?

Anne McGuire (Labour, Stirling)

Like my colleagues, I am delighted to be here and to be under your chairmanship, Mr. Amess. It must be lovely to be the Chairman of a Committee, by the way. I do not know of any other group of MPs who get so many compliments so early in the morning—and sometimes even late at night; but I shall not go down that road.

I can offer the Opposition considerable reassurance. I understand the reason for their concern and for their wanting matters to be spelled out in Committee. As currently happens with Atos Origin doctors, all the health care professionals who will be involved in the process will undergo training specified and agreed by the Department’s chief medical adviser before being approved by the Secretary of State to carry out assessments. That will ensure that health professionals who carry out the work-focused health-related assessments will have been trained to the standard that the Secretary of State expects and thinks appropriate. A health care professional who has not been trained to that level will not be approved.

Alison Seabeck (Labour, Plymouth, Devonport)

I am reassured by that. Will the Under-Secretary further reassure the Committee that the number of trained people will be sufficient to provide capacity in the system to manage any surge that might happen at the beginning of the roll-out, such as was described by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) with reference to pathways to work in her constituency?

Anne McGuire (Labour, Stirling)

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance because we have set quite exacting targets for the gateway process and in our expectations of the health professionals. It is in everyone’s interest to make sure that that works properly, and that will be part of the continuing discussions with Atos Origin. We also need flexibility to change the training requirements,as may be necessary in the future. That is one reason why the amendments are unacceptable—although I appreciate that they are probing amendments.

I particularly want to reassure the hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Mr. Hunt) that hidden disabilities will be one aspect of the training for the relevant health professionals. I hope that the whole Committee will accept our commitment: the training currently prescribed by the Secretary of State requires each practitioner to have a personalised continuous development plan, which includes models relating to a wide spectrum of medical subjects, including specific conditions. Practitioners must, in addition, undertake a series of modules on non-medical subjects such as cultural awareness. They may have to work with broader issues than just the medical side in their capacity as health professionals undertaking such important assessments.

I hope that that reassures the Committee, and, in particular, the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, so that he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for those remarks. She has given the reassurance that I wanted, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

With your leave, Mr. Amess, there are some broader issues about the conditionality regime in the Bill that I should like briefly to draw to the attention of the Committee, and on which I should like to seek some assurances from the Under-Secretary of State. Those considerations pertain not just to clause 10 but to clauses 11 to 13, all of which come under the heading “Conditionality” in the Bill. I hope that discussing the matter now may help us to expedite proceedings on those clauses.

In our sitting on Tuesday afternoon the Minister of State entered into a quite lively discussion about the level of funding for pathways to work. I should like to return to that. It is important to put it on the record that the Bill, understandably, and, provided that the reassurances that I seek are given, justifiably, makes it clear, as he said in language that I would endorse, that it is based on the idea of responsibility. It is based on the idea that provided the support for individuals is in place and they are part of the work-related activity component, they have some degree of responsibility for availing themselves of that support. The Bill dwells at length on the individual’s responsibility, which is again understandable, given the nature of legislation in this area, but it does not dwell on the Government’s responsibilities.

I wish to press Under-Secretary of State a little on the reciprocal responsibility that exists on the part of the Government in exchange for the responsibility that individual claimants are being asked to undertake under these and other clauses relating to conditionality. I am sure that the Ministers would agree that it is important that the Government fully carry out their part of the bargain. It has been described as a something-for-something package: claimants are asked to give something in terms of responsibility and the Government undertake to provide something in terms of support to get them back into work. That is a reasonable proposition.

It is important to say that the Government have a particular responsibility, although it is not stated in the Bill, to reassure the Committee on a number of points. The first relates to funding, which we debated a little on Tuesday afternoon. I have carried out further work on that, partly as a result of the Minister of State’s prompting, building on written answers that he and his colleagues have provided to me over some months. I examined what the costs per claimant in the pathways regime were, and what they might be expected to be, given the predictions of the onflows on to incapacity benefit over the next few years, in the two-year period for which the £360 million has been allocated.

I do not wish to go through all the references in all the parliamentary questions on which this is based. However, if one takes into account all the different available elements in the pathways pilot areas within the choices package, the number of people who have been helped and the percentage of people who have been participating in the different elements of pathways, one comes to an estimate of the annual cost per claimant within the pathways project of £571 a head. My calculations, which are based on the figures that have been provided in answer to questions about the expected onflows on to IB—in other words, the new claimants to whom initially this is devoted— suggest that, even if the full £360 million were to be devoted entirely to the roll-out of pathways, which I shall come on to in a second, the annual funds per participant allocated for the national roll-out of pathways to work would be less than £327 a head.

I would be happy for Ministers to correct my figures or to give their own estimates. If the entire £360 million is to go to pathways, and one is talking only about new claimants over this period, on those calculations, there is a funding gap of £268 million.

On Tuesday, the Minister of State fairly made the point that the Government would spend whatever was necessary—that might not be an exact quote—and sought to make reassuring noises on this important point. I am delighted to hear reassuring noises from the Ministers in Committee, but I would be even more delighted and reassured to hear similar noises from the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his pre-Budget report about the sums that will be spent. This is a serious point, because if we are telling employment and support allowance claimants that they are expected to be part of a conditionality regime, it is important to make it clear to them that the promised help will genuinely be available at the promised levels throughout the country. That is the first point on which I would be grateful for the Under-Secretary’s response. The equation is simple: if there are to be responsibilities and obligations, there must also be opportunities for people to obtain the help that they need.

The Under-Secretary may want to debate whether my calculations are accurate and whether the £360 million is insufficient, but there is a second serious question on which the Committee would like reassurance. What proportion of that £360 million will be spent on the pathways to work roll-out—I raised that earlier but, perhaps due to the temper of the debate, it was not addressed—and what will be spent on other things? I understand that Ministers will seek leave to start spending money on implementing aspects of the Bill in advance of Royal Assent—that is an established procedure—particularly on setting up the benefit, which is understandable as there is not much controversy about the benefit. If that is the intention, will the Under-Secretary explain what proportion of the £360 million will be spent on benefit administration—setting up computer systems and so on—so that the Committee will have a genuine idea of how much will be spent on providing support and assistance for ESA claimants and how much will be spent on the necessary administrative tasks that will underpin the benefits?

A third aspect, which again relates directly to the nature of the proposed conditionality regime, is the extent to which the pathways to work regime is successful for all groups of claimants. That was drawn to the Committee’s attention earlier, but I want to highlight two groups of claimants. The first is those for whom their first reason for claiming benefit is mental health, and I distinguish that from learning disabilities. Secondly, several charities representing older people have said that there is not much evidence that older workers have benefited from the pathways to work regime.

It is important that the Under-Secretary addresses that. Both older workers and those whose first reason for claiming benefit is mental health but who do not satisfy any of the 46 descriptors will eventually be subject to the conditionality regime for recipients of the work-related activity component. It is important that the Under-Secretary sets out what steps the Government are thinking about and what ideas they have to improve the available support within the pathways regime for those people. Given that the conditionality regime is the same, it is important that the Government make it clear how they will ensure that support and assistance is available through pathways. Pathways has been remarkably successful for some groups of claimants and that should be welcome on both sides of the Committee, but it has not been so successful for other groups.

On mental health, I draw the Under-Secretary’s attention to the work of Professor Lord Layard on depression and the availability of, for example, cognitive behaviour therapy services within the NHS. I wonder whether the shortage of such services at the moment is one of the causes of the condition management programme being less successful for people in that category. Perhaps she will reflect on that.

These are broader considerations about the fairness of the proposed conditionality regime and the degree to which the Government are prepared to play their full part in the bargain. I fully accept the Under-Secretary’s good intentions, but the spending plans of some Ministers in the Department are subject to an annual reduction of, I believe, 5 per cent. over the next two or three years. In that context, how does the Under-Secretary foresee funds coming forward to ensure that the available support for ESA claimants is sufficient to ensure that the full roll-out is available, not just for new claimants but for existing claimants and members of the support group who wish to take part, so that the hopes that have rightly been generated as a consequence of our discussions are fulfilled, and people are not left disappointed at the end of this process?

Jeremy Hunt (Conservative, South West Surrey)

I do not wish to speak at length even though it has been an important debate. Thanks to the analysis of the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, we have come a little closer to matters of concern regarding the funding that has been put in place for the roll-out of the pathways to work programme under the Bill. If his figures are correct, there has been a drop in funding from £571 a head to a maximum—assuming that all the money is allocated to pathways to work—of £327 a head. In comparison with the pilot programmes, that is a 43 per cent. reduction in funding. How does the Under-Secretary square that with the response of the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform in our last sitting when I asked whether there would be enough funding? He said:

“The funding model will be the same”

and went on to say that

“we are absolutely satisfied that the necessary investment will be in place through the £360 million that we have set aside.”

If that is so, he has a duty to explain to the Committee why he thinks that it will be enough if it represents a minimum drop of 43 per cent. in the investment per head on the pathways roll-out.

The Under-Secretary might also clarify why, on Tuesday, in refusing to come to this 43 per cent. figure, the Minister also said:

“We are not going to set a target per head. It will take asmuch as it takes to support someone to get closer to thelabour market”.—[Official Report, Standing Committee A,24 October 2006; c. 195-99.]

Either he does have a limit on the amount of money that can be spent on this—the £360 million that would equate to a minimum 43 per cent. drop—or he does not. Ministers owe it not just to the Committee, but to all the people who will be on the programme, to explain why the Government are confident that a minimum43 per cent. reduction per head in funding will be enough to fund an adequate roll-out of the pathways programme.

I hope that the Under-Secretary will address my particular concerns about the people in the support group, because they have more severe disabilities and will therefore require the most help to move closer to the labour market. I am concerned that that level of reduction in funding will make it difficult to give the necessary additional support to those people, as it will be much more expensive and intensive than that for people with less severe disabilities.

I do not want to rake over the arguments about the failings of incapacity benefit, because we all agree that that system does not work—that is why the Bill was introduced—but I want to put my concerns to the Under-Secretary directly. There is concern on both sides of the House that the incapacity benefit system parks people who have an incapacity and effectively says, “We are paying you a little bit extra, but that is it.” The whole purpose of the new programme is to avoid that problem, and the Conservatives want to ensure that that mistake is not repeated with people in the support group. We want to make sure that all the options envisaged by the pathways to work programme are as available to people in that group as to those with less severe disabilities who are closer to the labour market.

I also agree with the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey about the importance of training, particularly cognitive behaviour therapy, and measures to help to build up people’s confidence if, for example, they have sustained a brain injury after a car crash. The work-focused health-related assessment will be an important part of that. However, it is difficult to understand how the sophisticated training and medical understanding necessary to help people with those issues will work in such an austere funding environment. I hope that the Under-Secretary can give the Committee significant reassurance about that.

Anne McGuire (Labour, Stirling)

To a certain extent, we are revisiting our debate on clause 9, but I shall deal with some specific issues and then refer, in particular, to funding. I reassure the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey that there has been significant support for older people—those who are over 50—through the new deal for disabled people as one of the options in pathways. Indeed, he might be interested to know that, during the past year, 200,000 more older people have now gone into work.

The hon. Gentleman also referred to rights and responsibilities. Will the Committee reflect on why we are here discussing the Bill? I shall not rake over the matter of incapacity benefit, but it is an example of when the Government expected individuals to take on all the rights and responsibilities themselves. In its generic sense, government abandoned people and their responsibilities to 2. 7 million people, a figure that was trebled under the previous Administration. It was a case when the Government decided to stand back and more or less let people stand where they hung. What underpins the Bill is the fact that we are rebalancing those rights and responsibilities. Yes, individuals must do something for something, but the Government also have a special responsibility to those who need additional support at particular times in their lives.

Jeremy Hunt (Conservative, South West Surrey)

Does the Under-Secretary agree that that responsibility applies equally to the most severely disabled members of the support group, as it does to the less severely disabled members of the work-related activity group?

Anne McGuire (Labour, Stirling)

I wish to make it clear to the Committee that, when I talk about disabled people, I am not talking about one category of disabled people. When I refer to those who are in receipt of employment and support allowance, I am not talking about only one category. Of course, I mean people who are in receipt of the support element. I have spent my life working with disabled people and those who have learning difficulties, and I do not think that it is always necessary to put a lever in the discussions as the hon. Gentleman is doing. Of course, I mean all disabled people including those in receipt of support. I hope that he now takes it for granted that, when I am referring to the spectrum of people on employment and support allowance, I am talking about those who are furthest from the labour market and those who are most severely disabled.

Mr. Huntrose—

Anne McGuire (Labour, Stirling)

I will let the hon. Gentleman in, but to be frank with him he is trying my patience on this matter.

Jeremy Hunt (Conservative, South West Surrey)

I will press the Under-Secretary. I accept her reassurance that she is talking about all disabled people, but does she therefore accept that it can often be a lot more expensive and resource-intensive to help those furthest from the labour market to have the same opportunities as those nearer the labour market?

Anne McGuire (Labour, Stirling)

I thought that the hon. Gentleman was about to come some way towards meeting me on that point. I remind the Committee that, when we introduced pathways to work, his party voted against every single penny of investment that we wanted to put in to support those who are most severely disabled as well as those who are closer to the labour market. I am sorry that I have had to inject a little bit of edge into the discussion, but it is about time that we started to realise that we are all on the same track on this matter. The hon. Gentleman continues diversifying and putting disabled people into inappropriate categories. I appreciate that there are specific issues relating to the support group.

Mr. Huntrose—

Anne McGuire (Labour, Stirling)

I am not going to allow the hon. Gentleman to intervene any more. I hope that he will now accept than when my colleague the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform and I talk about disabled people, we are encompassing all disabled people. That is the philosophy underpinning the Bill.

Perhaps I can now move on to other matters raised by hon. Members, specifically on financing. I appreciate that the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey has done his calculations, looked at the parliamentary questions and so on, and come up with a figure. I can do nothing other than reiterate what my hon. Friend said in earlier discussions. We think that £360 million is the correct amount with which to roll out the pathways projects.

Opposition Members seem to get tied down in the unit cost. We are not into unit cost. The hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Mr. Hunt) smirks, so I shall explain why we are not into unit cost. As I said in an earlier debate, I operated employment programmes under a unit cost, which could be £13 a head, for example. The difficulty with the unit cost approach is that it does not allow the resources to be directed to those individuals who need more support and assistance, because there is a limit.

Mr. Huntrose—

Anne McGuire (Labour, Stirling)

Let me finish. Within a contract, some individuals do not, perhaps, need quite as much investment as others who happen to be on the pathways project. A unit cost limit is an artificial barrier to extra support for individuals.

Jeremy Hunt (Conservative, South West Surrey)

The Under-Secretary talks about my making an artificial division between groups of disabled people, but I am not doing that; the Bill does it. Many disability organisations are concerned that, in reality, there is a wide spectrum of disabilities and it is hard to make such a division. We have accepted that division in the Bill. No one is saying—I think that I am also speaking for the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey—that the cost per head should be identical or that there should be equal costs for every person in the programme. An average cost per head, taken for the programme as a whole, would appear to be a huge reduction of 43 per cent in the roll-out of pathways to work. The Under-Secretary owes it to the Committee to explain why she thinks that it will be possible, with that level of reduction, to get the same good results on the roll-out of the pathways to work programme as in the pilots.

Anne McGuire (Labour, Stirling)

I re-emphasise the reassurances given by my colleague the Minister of State in earlier discussions—we have moved from a conversation to a discussion and perhaps even to a debate—that we are confident that our funding model will deliver our pathways programme. We can argy-bargy about the funding models in Committee till kingdom come and perhaps not get to the basis of an agreement. To a certain extent, as the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey said, it is about trusting our funding model and figures. We are sure that we can roll out pathways on the funding model that we have presented to the Committee.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

In an effort to be emollient, I shall take a slightly different tack, and I anticipate that the answer to my question will be positive. Will the Under-Secretary assure the Committee that nothing will be built into the remuneration or general management appraisal of Jobcentre Plus staff or contractors in respect of ESA that would suggest that there was simply a target model? That might give rise to a perverse incentive through which people got more by processing volume rather than applying themselves to the particular cases of the individuals concerned.

Anne McGuire (Labour, Stirling)

I do not wish to embarrass the hon. Gentleman; I had a slightly more robust conversation with his Front-Bench colleagues. The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, which I am happy to clarify. There will be no staff incentives in respect of the throughput of people on the pathways to work project. I hope that that reassures him. If the Committee felt that staff were on some sort of bonus, that might make life slightly more complicated and move against the underlying philosophy of the Bill.

Kali Mountford (Labour, Colne Valley)

Perhaps the approach of Opposition Members is a function of their never having been in government or having forgotten what that is like. Do we not learn a great deal from piloting, which this Government have often carried out? We have already taken account of all the set-up costs, so they do not have to be repeated, and we have carried out the pilots, which have been successful, so we now know how best to target resources. We do not have to spend money again on the things that the pilots taught us worked less well.

Anne McGuire (Labour, Stirling)

With her significant previous experience on the Treasury Committee, my hon. Friend understands such issues. I do not want to exhaust the Committee—

Mr. David Ruffley (Bury St. Edmunds) (Con) rose—

Anne McGuire (Labour, Stirling)

Okay, she says wearily.

David Ruffley (Conservative, Bury St Edmunds)

The Under-Secretary is weary; she is also more touchy than normal. However, I am grateful that she has eventually given way. [Interruption.] There is a bit of chuntering from a sedentary position, but I want to put my point to the Under-Secretary. There is a lot of confusion in this debate about the funding model. To clear that up, will she undertake to publish details of her funding model and the methodology and assumptions that underpin it, so that we can have an open debate about it?

Anne McGuire (Labour, Stirling)

Sometimes we in Committees forget that we are only part of a greater whole. Funding models will, of course, be investigated and tested through the normal parliamentary procedure—a Select Committee, the Public Accounts Committee and so on. The hon. Gentleman does not need my reassurance that that will happen; it is what actually happens. The issue is not just about our talking here about a funding model, but all the other areas of parliamentary scrutiny that will examine the funding models.

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

Will the Under-Secretary give way?

Anne McGuire (Labour, Stirling)

I am just about to answer the question about whether we are investing just now. Is that what the hon. Gentleman wanted to know?

Danny Alexanderindicated assent.

Anne McGuire (Labour, Stirling)

There you are, Mr. Amess—I can read minds as well. I should say in passing to the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley) that I am not touchy this morning; this is me on my normal, robust form. He had the pleasure of Lord Forsyth heading the Conservatives’ tax policy committee and if I were not robust, I would not have given the hon. Gentleman an opportunity that he did not think he wanted at the time.

I turn to the investment in IT, about which the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey asked. Of course, we have the ability pre-spend under section 28, particularly on IT. I am not prepared to give the hon. Gentleman the exact figures. We are issuing contracts and it would be difficult to put some of that information into the public domain. As I have already said, however, we operate under parliamentary scrutiny, which will allow for scrutiny of the figures at an appropriate time.

With the greatest respect, I do not think that any of us has focused on clause 10 in quite the way that we should have done. Nevertheless, I hope that the clause can now stand part of the Bill.

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

I will be brief because we have had a good debate. I had not intended my opening remarks to inject the note of party political rancour that has entered into the debate between the other two parties.

Anne McGuire (Labour, Stirling)

For the hon. Gentleman’s information, I may have inadvertently said section 28. I meant section 82. Perhaps I was thinking of former battles.

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

I am grateful for the Under-Secretary’s clarification, although I was a little disappointed by her response. I accept that members of the Committee have entered into the discussion about the funding of pathways and its delivery with good intentions, but I am not at all satisfied with the answers that I received about the specifics of the funding. We might hear more from the Chancellor in his pre-Budget report about levels of investment that may or may not be put into such matters, and I hope that the hon. Lady will take that up with her friends and colleagues in the Treasury.

Even if we accept that we trust the Government—I am not saying that I do, but they are asking us to take it on trust that the necessary amount will be spent—it worries me that no clause in the Bill makes clear the reciprocity of responsibility that the Under-Secretary rightly described and the commitment that I share that would not allow a future Government, perhaps of another party or of a political hue that chose to make substantial tax reductions and seek cost savings, to reduce the funding for pathways to work and to increase their use of the conditionality regime. There is nothing in the Bill to prevent that from happening and that would allow for the fact that, in future years, the support package might be thoroughly inadequate enough to undermine the use of the conditionality regime. I know that that is perhaps not the intention of Ministers here, but the Bill could be used by future Governments, too, and that remains my concern.

Clause 11

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I have a few points to make about the clause. The more that I look at the Bill, the clearer it becomes that the next few clauses hang together and cannot be construed in isolation. I wish first to put on record my appreciation that, in this case, the Government have provided us with draft regulations and, as they refer to the substance of the action planned that we shall be discussing again in respect of clause 13, I shall at least touch on some of those issues.

As is evident from the existence of regulations and the absence of specific amendments, the clause is not particularly contentious. It gives rise to several points that I hope that Ministers will bear in mind when they work out the administrative arrangements and that relate to the reassurance of customers and the avoidance of a lot of appeal or difficulty when carrying them out subsequently.

It is clear, by definition, that the purpose of a work-focused interview is that it results in something positive. It is action directed towards the return of the person, the customer or the claimant to work, which is an entirely acceptable principle. Although I do not wish to go on as much as I did on Tuesday about such matters, my experience of looking at the pathways to pilots in Derbyshire confirmed that that approach is being taken, and I welcome it.

Within those pilots, there is no requirement for particular activity; the obligation is to appear for the interview. As we debate clauses 12 and 13, we will see that there is at least the potential of a specific obligation, albeit not necessarily to carry out a particular piece of work-focused activity, but, as it were, the noose is tightening on the claimant to do something about it. We could argue endlessly, but it would not be in the spirit of this Committee for me to suggest that that has a malicious or unpleasant overtone about the motivation of people who are claimants or customers. It is worth recording that figures I have seen from Jobcentre Plus suggest that, under the present pathways, 23 per cent of claimants never actually make the work-focused interview.

On a “saloon bar” interpretation, this could simply be because the claimants have not got a case and they do not turn up. More realistically, it may well be that, for many of them, the condition has worked its way out and they are perfectly fit and able to return to work. We celebrate that. There may be a variety of reasons, but clearly the work-focused interview is a something of a milestone along the way.

There are some interesting issues about the timing. If we take the pathways experience, my understanding is that the interview takes place in the eighth week of claim. That is over and beyond the six months of statutory sick pay, so it is quite a long time from the incidence of the condition or the initial incident. There may be a reason for not attending the interview, and some people would take the view that the system needs time to settle down and for some people to return to work. This is defensible, although my hon. Friends and I will be arguing later in a different context that there is a strong case for earlier intervention in the whole process when the condition establishes itself, even within the statutory sick pay period, but we will not get into that debate today. However, Ministers owe it to the Committee to say something about the optimum time or how flexible that can be in relation to the individual. I think that it is good to connect with people earlier in the process rather than leave them to nurse their difficulties until it is too late to find a remedy for them.

There are issues, which we will return to in later clauses, about the nature of the interview and the basis of the action plan. I cannot help, if only by consanguinity with a member of my family and the sort of discussion we tend to have, although I cannot say we spend our whole weekends discussing the Welfare Reform Bill—

David Ruffley (Conservative, Bury St Edmunds)

Speak for yourself.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I am delighted to hear that my hon. Friend thinks of nothing else.

I am inclined to look at what may be termed the hard case, or the judicial case—the moment when somebody says I have not been treated fairly and I am going to appeal because they are stitching me up. In constituency traffic, that is the kind of thing we get asserted to us by constituents even if it is not the case. To avoid any doubt, that is not the sort of approach to this process that the pathways officers I saw were taking. It is not a penal process and nobody here wants it to be.

Even within the narrow terms of clause 11, which is about the rules for interview, and paves for the draft regulations that I mentioned, there are some interesting issues. What is an interview? What is co-operation with an interview, which is required under section 6 of the draft regulations? It is to talk about assisting and encouraging the person to remain in or to obtain work and about identifying activities the patient may undertake to make that more likely.

As we have said extensively in this Committee, many of the claimants may well have mental conditions, attitude problems and feelings about themselves that are probably not objectively justified, but we do not want to penalise people if they do not quite fit in the interviewing officer’s book. On the other hand, if someone sits in the interview in what used to be described in the armed forces as a mode of dumb insolence and refuses to answer any questions or to co-operate with the interviewer, one could reasonably argue, and the regulations appear to argue this, that they have not had an interview at all. They may have attended, but they have not played their part. There are some issues about how that is to be defined.

I am a little more concerned about the nature of the record and we may need to return to this on clause 13. An action plan ideally should be consensual and signed by both parties. It should say, “We have discussed your case. We realise that you have these problems which have been identified by the work-focused health-related assessment, but nevertheless we think that you could try to do this”, and the person will undertake to do so. There is also the question of a record of what is to take place. That is specified in the draft regulations.

As the Minister said the other day, the benefit situation for the individual should be incorporated in some way into the action plan. It is a little bit more than an action plan. In financial planning, if one went to an independent financial adviser, one would call it a report and a series of recommendations or agreed undertakings. It will be quite a complex document.

Some of these things may be done for good reason over the telephone. There is always an evidential problem. There is also a serious issue—again, I do not want to get at officers involved—concerning the appropriate bag of qualifications for the individual conducting the interview. What was immensely impressive about pathways to work was that the personal advisers clearly knew what their job was. They were highly motivated and in certain cases rather movingly so. I watched them from across the room carrying out interviews. When going into institutions one looks at the body language and it looked like a positive interview, with no lurking behind a screen and telling people to account for themselves.

To do what they will be asked to do, for not great remuneration, these officials need a full bag of qualifications. They have to have reporting skills. Something has to be written down. They have to have the personal adviser skills to try to tease out what is possible. The main point for the Minister that concerns me is that they have to have an understanding of the benefits situation because that is clearly relevant to the action plan. All my experience of the Department is that people can be very good on the benefit that they are administering, or they may be good at getting people back into work, but they are not omnicompetent.

Some of the difficulties arise where people are operating in silos. One person will understand the disability living allowance very well. I see the Under-Secretary of State is nodding. Another will understand the linking rules, someone else will know what the local employment position is for the person being coaxed back into work and someone else will have an input into the health-related assessment. That is all perfectly sensible but it all comes together in an action plan which has to be competent. It has to be authoritative because it can give rise, at least in principle in later clauses, to sanctions.

Unless I have grossly oversimplified the pathways pilot model, personal advisers on the benefits side talk primarily about the return-to-work credit, which is relatively straightforward and part of the whole complex, but not the overall bag of benefits. A benefits adviser would be brought in if necessary. We are asking a lot of these action plans. They are meant to advise and to help individuals. I am sure that that is the intention. They are meant to cover a lot of ground with people who have quite a lot of difficulties. It is important that they are well conceived and defensible—if necessary, in a tribunal—because we do not want people being given low-grade action plans that do not cover their needs, might contain factual errors or give rise to other arguments further down the chain when, for example, things do not turn out to be feasible. In this clause, we need to make certain that the work-focused interview is prescribed a proper gateway to action, that it can all be dealt with in a professional way and will not be skimped on or hurried through, which can give rise to difficulties. We will no doubt want to explore this matter seriously in other clauses. I do not find anything personally objectionable in the structure or regulations at all, so there areno amendments on it but Ministers do need to think about it.

David Ruffley (Conservative, Bury St Edmunds)

I endorse everything that my hon. Friend has said. I would like to add a further point. This clause underpins the rights and responsibilities agenda, which both the Government and Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition support. As with anything to do with rights and commensurate responsibilities, there is a fine balance to be struck. This clause seems to be about encouraging people to find out more about the support that they can get. The work-focused interview is a good thing. It is designed to showcase the types of support that are available to the customer. However, it must not frighten people off. There is always that tension throughout all these reforms.

Mind and the Child Poverty Action Group have raised a point about some of the literature that customers have been receiving in pilot areas, regarding their attendance at work-focused interviews. They have evidence—I am not going to quantify it—that a threatening tone has been deployed, threatening withdrawal of benefits for non-attendance. I am not suggesting that that is widespread at all, but CPAG wants a review of some of the language used. It quotes a standard letter sent to claimants regarding their attendance at a WFI in a pathways pilot:

“As your adviser, I need to meet with you to discuss how we can improve your chances of finding work, now or in the future. We want to make sure that you are getting the right support and are claiming all the right benefits. It is important that you attend and participate in this interview. If you do not, your benefit may be affected.”

I am used to the rough and tumble of politics. I used to be, when I had a proper job, a lawyer—[Interruption.]I was going to say that I earned an honest living as a lawyer—well, a living anyway. To many in this room, that kind of language may seem straightforward and factual. It touches all the right bases in one respect: it talks about the right support and making sure that people get the right amount of benefit. However, it has affected some customers. Sue Christoforou, the policy officer at Mind, said in evidence to the Select Committee for Work and Pensions earlier this year that, after receiving such letters, some of Mind’s clients had

“gone out immediately to get a job because they feel that is what the letter is saying to them, completely inappropriate jobs and after a number of days that job fails.”

I stress that that evidence undermines neither the propositions in the clause, nor the successes of pathways and the progress that it has made. However, will the Minister commission, or assure us that he will commission, a review, whereby officials continually analyse and perhaps audit such specimen letters to ensure that the language can be tweaked, not so that it loses its force, becomes meaningless prose or is so bland that the customer takes no note of it, but so that it does not threaten clients and customers—not my words—in the ways in which some bodies say it does? One hopes that such cases are in the minority.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I am much in sympathy with my hon. Friend. If the Committee needs reminding, many of those people are nervous of any administrative process and they feel that it is to their disadvantage. Does not he agree that, under the review that he is canvassing the Minister to undertake, it would also be wise if officials kept, as I hope they do, a continuing dialogue with the disability organisations, in particular those concerned with mental health, to ensure that such text is run past them to determine whether a better outcome can be achieved?

David Ruffley (Conservative, Bury St Edmunds)

I was going to come to that point. Taking on board what my hon. Friend said, will the Minister undertake to conduct a review of the language in conjunction with disability and support groups? The review might produce a standard letter, so that its drafting was left neither to individual branches of Jobcentre Plus nor to providers, which might have different takes on it. The Minister could then present the standard letter to the Committee at one of our sittings and after due consultation with outside groups. It might address the point that Mind has raised. We do not want even one person who may be fragile or have mental health problems to be upset by the process. One way of doing so would be with language on which we agree, which would be used uniformly during the roll-out and when the allowance was up and running.

Wayne David (Labour, Caerphilly)

The hon. Gentleman refers to the language that is deployed, but does he accept that often, there is a broader problem with such regulations? In support of my argument, I cite a document that Citizens Advice has circulated about an income support appeal. The decision communicated to the client read:

“The decision disallowing income support does not fall to be revised.”

To most people that means absolutely nothing. It is double Dutch. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a wider problem that we must consider?

David Ruffley (Conservative, Bury St Edmunds)

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. The problem is about not only language that in the minds of some people may be threatening, but language that is meaningless, unhelpful and opaque. Everyone in this House must take more cognisanceof plain English. In the document that the hon. Gentleman quotes, the language bears no relation to how we talk in the 21st century. Ministers are sensitive to the issue and they are disability-aware, but will the Minister respond to my proposal for a standard letter requesting the work-focused-interview, the subject of this clause, to be made available to the Committee? If not, will he suggest why it is not a sensible proposition?

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

I endorse the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds, although I think that the Department has set up groups involving bodies that represent disability organisations, which could advise on those matters. It is an important point.

I want to raise a few points in addition to those already raised on clause 11. I join the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) in welcoming the fact that we have draft regulations. A problem with draft regulations is that they sometimes raise more questions than they answer, and I should like to probe the Minister on a few aspects of them.

Draft regulation 6, on page 24 of the booklet, sets out in some detail the requirements that must be fulfilled for a claimant to be regarded as having taken part in the interview. A quite long list of conditions must be satisfied, such as that the person must give information about work-related activity that they have undertaken. However, perhaps the Minister will consider, when he redrafts the regulations for presentation to a Committee—of which we may both be members—after the Bill is passed, the fact that they do not contain, in addition to the obligations on claimants at the work-focused interviews, any reference to what the adviser will do. That is important because, as all parties in the Committee have pointed out, a sense of the reciprocity of responsibilities, and of the fact that advisers have responsibilities, is needed. I agree with the hon. Member for Daventry that pathways advisers seem to take their responsibilities seriously, but it is important to make it clear that the adviser’s role in assisting the claimant is an aspect of the work-focused interview. Ideally, that should be in the regulations.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

Does the hon. Gentleman also agree with me about a further point, which I notice on looking at the draft regulations rather more carefully than I did earlier? There is no provision for a failure notice when a person has attended an interview but the official does not deem them to have been co-operative. There is no provision to issue a formal notice that states, “You attended the X jobcentre and we were going to have a work-focused interview, but my judgment is that your lack of co-operation meant that we did not achieve one.” Nor is there any evidential basis for being able to establish that, apart from the assertion of the officer concerned.

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, to which I hope the Minister will respond, about how the regulations will be interpreted when a decision is made about whether someone is deemed to have taken part in an interview, when there is the possibility that they were present but unco-operative. The way in which the decision is communicated is also important. Perhaps the Minister could dwell on that.

Without wishing to pre-judge the debate that we shall no doubt have on a later amendment, tabled by the hon. Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson), I think it might also be worth providing in the regulations that the work-focused interview should, at least in the first instance, include discussion of access to other benefits that people might get, to ensure that they receive their full entitlement.

Draft regulation 9 on page 25 of the booklet provides for waivers. It is my understanding that in the pathways areas a work-focused interview can be waived—and the pathways regulations specify this—when it would not be of assistance to the persons concerned, or would not be appropriate in the circumstances. However, draft regulation 9 states that a work-focused interview can be waived only if someone is likely to start work. Advisers will be able only to defer a work-focused interview, not to waive it, on the grounds that it is inappropriate or would not be of assistance. This may seem a pedantic point, but it is important because it restricts advisers’ discretion. Given that those ideas depart from previous practice, will the Minister explain the basis for that change in rationale? What implications does it have for advisers’ case loads and training? On work-focused interviews more generally, what thought has the Department given to ensuring that reasonable adjustments aremade to premises under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 to ensure that claimants can participate fully in the interview?

My last, short series of points relates to the sanctions regime in the clause. [Interruption.] When the Minister gets his pen back, will he briefly set out the rationale behind that regime? The work-related activity component can be subject to a sanction amounting to 50 per cent. for the first four weeks and 100 per cent. after that. What is the rationale behind choosing the50 per cent. figure? What is the rationale behind choosing the four-week period, as opposed to two weeks, six weeks or three months? Why not have more stages of sanction and make the arrangements more progressive, rather than having two rather steep steps?

David Ruffley (Conservative, Bury St Edmunds)

I just wonder whether more steps would add to the complexity. I thought that the Committee and these proceedings were dedicated to eradicating complexity.

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

They may well add to the complexity. I was merely trying to encourage the Minister to describe the thinking that went into the provisions. He said earlier that every aspect of the Bill had been subject to lengthy discussion between Ministers and officials. He has no doubt chewed over the issue at some length, so he might be able to describe his thinking on it.

There is also a question about the period after which someone who has been sanctioned, but who has subsequently met the requirements, can have their benefit reinstated. How does that process work?

On the impact of the new sanctions regime, has the Minister made any forecast of how often he expects to use the new powers and how many people will be drawn into the net? He said earlier that part of the idea behind the Bill was to tackle child poverty, so has he made any assessment of the impact that the sanctions—in whatever volume he predicts they will be used—will have on child poverty?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

Mr. Amess, I am delighted to see you in your place on this sunny morning. I know that it is sunny because I can feel the sun on my back and see it in the eyes of Opposition Members—at least, I think that that is why their eyes are glinting at me in the way that they are.

I had hoped that we would have finished our conversation/exchange/debate on the clause before our break, but I do not think that that will be possible. Although there are not many amendments, more questions have been posed on this clause than on many others to which more amendments were tabled. I shall try to rush through the points that have been raisedand to make some progress before and after thebreak, because we are talking largely about the draft regulations. They will be agreed later, should the Bill be agreed by this place and the other place, so there will be further opportunities to discuss the specifics.

Let me turn first to the points raised by the hon. Member for Daventry. The difficulty in conversing with him is that he asks a question and then helpfully moves close to answering it. That is not a bad trait; indeed, it is very helpful, because it occasionally saves me from asking officials. He also used the analogy of a saloon bar analysis, and although I have many images of him, I cannot see him in a saloon bar.

None the less, the hon. Gentleman asked several pretty reasonable questions, including what is meant by participating in an interview. That is described in regulation 6, on page 24 of the draft regulations, which shows that it is not simply a matter of attending. He then asked about enforcing a requirement to participate in a work-focused interview. That appears to be covered by regulation 4(1). Of course, the conversation about the draft regulations will continue as they make their way through this place.

Standing Committee A

Clause 11

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

Welcome back, Mr. Amess. I am delighted to see that you have returned after our break that seemed to last twice as long as our sitting, which is an unusual way in which to run things. Nevertheless, I am delighted to see you here.

I was in the middle of what I hope will be a short contribution because, as I was saying, many of the questions were about the details of the regulations, but there will be opportunities to shape them when they come out of draft and are taken through the formal process before being agreed by Parliament. Where I can, I shall respond to specifics without going into the detail of every draft regulation.

I shall return to the points made by the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell).

In response to the debate on why a substantial number of people do not participate in the first work-focused interview, I said that I could not imagine him in a saloon bar. I think that that was the gist of the point that he made before the break.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

Exactly.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I have not sought to question or second-guess the hon. Gentleman’s statistic of 23 per cent. so the Committee will of course take it at face value, and on the basis of that figure, I accept his point entirely.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

For the avoidance of doubt, the piece of paper from which I was reading has the imprimatur of Jobcentre Plus on it, so I think that the Minister had better agree with it.

David Ruffley (Conservative, Bury St Edmunds)

It must be true, then.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

It must be true, but the fact that the hon. Member for Daventry said it gives it additional credibility in Committee.

A variety of scenarios—we cannot rehearse them all now—could lead to the deferral of a work-focused interview. For instance, someone might be close to the labour market already, or be recovering from an ailment or injury, such as a broken leg or an accident at work, or be taking up work. Those are the types of circumstances that could reasonably lead to a deferral.

The hon. Member for Daventry asked reasonably about the timing of future work-focused interviews. Our intention is that the first work-focused interview should continue to take place in week eight of the 13-week assessment phase and provide advice about the labour market and the gateway to any benefits that an individual is entitled to, either out of work or as they get close to and eventually into the labour market. That would be an opportunity to offer wider benefit advice in a way that nearly always happens really effectively in pathways at the moment—although, as is always the case, we can do more there as well.

The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Danny Alexander) asked about sanctions—I think that I responded to the question about what taking part means.

I share the concern of the hon. Member for BurySt. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley) about not complicating the system with too many intricacies and thus creating what he noticed in other clauses—complexity and confusion—and which we discussed how to avoid. We tested analysis and thinking and concluded that the50 per cent. reduction over that four-week period will be about the right level of sanction necessary to encourage people to participate again in the conditionality. If the conditionality is not adhered to there is of course the second element of benefit reduction. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the total reduction can be only for the total amount of work-related activity. As the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs. McGuire), said, we would never impose sanctions during the 13-week assessment phase because that would take it below the current jobseeker’s allowance—we would not seek sanctions beyond that level.

Without testing every scenario, which we will do in discussions on regulations, reinstatement would take place if the person were to comply with the conditionality—in other words, attended work-focused interviews—or if on appeal they showed good cause and that the sanction was inappropriate. Of course, we have set out what would be interpreted as good cause.

I do not want to lengthen the debate, but I remind the Committee of parts of the draft regulations that have been provided on clause 11, “Work-focused interviews”. Page 26 does not contain an exhaustive list of examples of good cause, but the sanctions and safeguards provided for are on page 6. Issues about deferrals are on page 7.

I am inclined to wait for the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds to return to his place, because I want him to know that I could not agree with him more. [Hon. Members: “Here he is.”] As I was saying, Mr. Amess, the hon. Gentleman made a proposal on literature. I agree entirely, which is why we put in train some time ago exactly what he has suggested. I will shortly receive a response from officials in the Department for Work and Pensions on how the forms can be simplified, and the hon. Gentleman is right that we should share it with lobby groups and organisations. The Under-Secretary has offered to do likewise with carers’ organisations to find out whether they believe it to be sensitive enough. As I said earlier in our proceedings, we must also share it face to face with people with mental health illnesses. That is why I have brought together a group of people to do so. I reiterate that the intention is not to make that a matter of media focus; it will be a private conversation with people whom we have already met without any such focus. That is the way in which it should continue. We will listen to their experiences and test the redesigned forms with them. The lobbying and carers’ organisations have a crucial part to play, but we also want to road-test the forms with those who will fill them in.

I offer the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds the caveat, which I know he will accept, that of course the forms must contain a certain amount of legalese. They will be stipulated by regulations and must thereforeset out the legal rights and responsibilities. Notwithstanding that, there is unanimity that we can find a better way to simplify communication. There is a difficult balancing act to be performed, but it is important that we convey as sensitively as possible the responsibilities and sanctions that there will be if the activity requirement is not adhered to. We therefore have absolute unanimity on the point made by the hon. Gentleman.

Clause 12

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

I beg to move amendment No. 194, in page 10, line 41, after ‘regulations’, insert—

‘(aa) prescribing circumstances in which such a person is not subject to a requirement to undertake work-related activity in accordance with regulations;’.

With this amendment I seek to probe the Government’s intentions on directions to carry out work-related activity. It would provide that regulations could be made to prescribe circumstances in which such a person as described in the clause is not subject to a requirement to undertake such activity. The intention is to elicit more detail from the Minister on the Government’s thinking about the circumstances in which members of the work-related activity group, if one could call them that, rather than of the support group, might not be required to undertake such activity. An individual could be affected by a range of circumstances to do with their impairment, disability or health condition. That concern might particularly apply to those with fluctuating conditions. It might well be possible for such people to engage in work-related activity when their condition is less severe, but as it fluctuates there may be periods when that is not possible. Unless exceptions are described so that the conditionality on work-related activity would not apply, someone in such circumstances could be caught out by the conditionality regime. I am keen to hear more from the Minister about how those issues would apply to such cases.

It is also worth saying that the clause and the Bill seek to make obligatory taking part in work-related activity, as well as attending a work-related interview or a work-focused health-related assessment—matters of responsibility subject to reductions in benefit if not complied with. When we come to later amendments, we will have a wider debate on what work-related activity is and is not; that is not the subject of this amendment.

Owing to their disability, impairment or health condition, there may well be people for whom support or adjustments may be needed, to enable them to undertake the work-related activity required of them. If such support or adjustments cannot be provided for whatever reason, it may be inappropriate to require that person to carry out work-related activity. I hope that the Minister will agree and that the Government do not intend to sanction someone’s benefit in such cases. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I shall speak briefly, Mr. Amess. If I may say so, this probing amendment is well conceived. We need to know something about this issue. The Government are undertaking a fairly major step, although in pathways pilots they have done a little to require work-related activity over and above the relatively easily described and scoped work-related interview. A whole variety of circumstances in which that might not be possible might apply.

I suppose that unless we assume a grave deficiency in the local or national labour market—we shall not go into that wider issue this afternoon—it would normally be self-evident that somebody with limited capacity for work who is not in work although there is work to be had would need to move towards some work-related activity. That is not objectionable in principle.

In our debate on the last clause, the Minister flagged up the fact that we are trying to emphasise that there is an approach of mutuality and partnership so that officialdom works with the claimant to try to get them through. All the surveys of disabled people show that that is what many of them would like to do if they had the support. We need to scope what they can do and what will get them closer to working. At this stage, at any rate, nobody wishes to prescribe that there should be a penalty for not working. I certainly do not, but there is clearly a need to prepare for work.

The explanatory notes, which we sometimes criticise, are quite helpful on this issue. They discuss work tasters, programmes to manage health and work, job search assistance and programmes to assist in stabilising a person’s life. The latter programme may be a little less clear than the others but it is fairly clear, even from those short words, roughly what the Minister is driving at. No doubt he will wish to respond to the amendment.

In conclusion, all I need say in support of the amendment is that we clearly need to know more about what is intended and to have in mind at all times the possible constraints on the ability to carry that out—in particular when those constraints are not in the claimant’s control. Take work tasters, which are analogous to people going on work experience from their school or college. There may be health and safety considerations.

Arguably, those considerations could be more intense if a person has been out of the labour market because of some illness or disability and then wishes to go and try something out, rather than take part in a settled arrangement in which they are in a contract of employment, having succeeded in getting work. Clearly, it is important that the matter of constraints is addressed, and that there is such a reasonable opportunity.

The Minister may wish to say something about the fact that, theoretically, it may be necessary to provide access to work arrangements in order for a work-related activity to take place, let alone the work itself.

The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey has reinforced my inquiry on that matter. The whole import of the clause is that people will not have an easy transition from being limited in capacity to work and out of work to getting into work. We all want to bridge that gap, but we must do so in a reasonable way. Above all, we do not have to attach blame to the individual who, for reasons that may be beyond their control, is unable to make the transition. If there is a constraint, it needs to be met by a waiver or appropriate action. Therefore, we ask the Minister to explain what he has in mind and urge him not to be too literal-minded. We want some indication of how such a delicate gap is to be bridged, particularly at the point where there is an implied threat of sanctions, which is an innovation.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I shall try to make my response relatively brief, on the basis that, in spirit, this is a probing amendment.

On numerous occasions we have talked about the entitlement to a support group being on the basis of a revised personal capability assessment of 15 points, matching one of 46 descriptors. I shall go on to some of the specifics.

This is another example of a speech excellently drafted by others, which my noble Friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath will have an opportunity to rehearse for the first time when a Lords Committee considers the Bill. That may be the best thing to do with some of our prepared speeches, to enable me to respond to the specific points that have been raised.

On sanctions and how we will roll out work-focused interviews, I am trying to take some of the lessons from work-focused interviews and the relationship between the personal adviser and the customer, and the relationship between personal adviser, customer and sanctions regime. Many hon. Members will be aware that pilot schemes are under way in seven parts of the UK, exploring the relationship between conditionality and the sanctions regime among existing incapacity benefit customers. We will learn of the best experiences from that process before bringing that knowledge forward into the draft regulations and guidance on how we implement work-related activity.

I do not wish to stray on to discussions that we have had on other amendments, so I shall try to keep my comments narrow. The hon. Member for Daventry referred to the explanatory notes. The draft regulations state, very specifically:

“Claimants cannot be forced to undertake a particular activity.”

That means that we will not take the power to force a customer to undertake a specific action. However, the customer should undertake activity that takes them closer to the labour market over an agreed period, between work-focused interviews. Without going back to the debate over clause 11(2) to (6), in normal circumstances interviews would be expected to take place in a cycle of once in every four weeks. Inside that cycle, a customer would be expected to undertake some work-related activity that takes them closer to the labour market in that period.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I am grateful that the Minister is helping to advance our knowledge of this matter. Can he confirm that the work-related activity to which he referred, even if it is not specified that “thou shalt do x or y”, would nevertheless have to be agreed as part of the action plan? There would have to be an understanding by Jobcentre Plus or the contractor that an activity was regarded as appropriate. We will come to that when we debate a later clause. However, it is not an unconditional licence to do something just because the claimant would like to do it.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

We will discuss action plans when we consider the next clause, so I shall not go into great detail. I think that there is some confusion about the nature of the plans, which is entirely understandable. When we come to the next clause, some clarification can be provided on the interaction between work-focused interviews, sanctions, work-related activity, work-focused health-related assessment and action plans. I can reassure Opposition Members, as well as my hon. Friends, about the relationships between those elements.

As hon. Members have said, the explanatory notes provide a list of activities that would be considered work-related. It is not an exhaustive list. The following broad headings are given in the paperwork: work tasters; managing health and work; improving employability; job search assistance—not compelling a job search, but providing assistance—and, importantly, stabilising life. Under those headings there are additional, specific examples of work-related activity. As a general understanding, the tone of the draft regulations is that a work-related activity would take the customer closer to the labour market. That would be the saloon bar description.

I can reassure the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey about the specifics of protections. I accept that his is a probing amendment. Perhaps, Mr. Amess, you will allow me to give a general reassurance on this occasion, so that when we move to other clauses, hon. Members will accept that it has been given.

As to protecting customers, clause 11 identifies sanctions or safeguards that also feature on page 6 of the draft regulations. Broadly speaking, such safeguards would apply in relation to what we have described as “good cause”, including work-focused interviews and so on. Such matters are dealt with in the draft regulations and clause 12. I hope that that reassures Opposition Members. In addition, there will be a right of appeal, as with all financial sanctions.

With that broad reassurance on a number of matters relating to a variety of amendments to the clause, I hope that I have encouraged the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey to withdraw his probing amendment. I also hope that other Opposition Members who have tabled amendments will be reassured by my comments as we discuss future amendments.

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

I am, broadly speaking, reassured, although I reserve the right to raise similar issues in relation to future clauses. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

I beg to move amendmentNo. 203, in clause 12, page 11, line 18, at end insert—

‘(j) for notifying a person not subject to a requirement to undertake work-related activity of opportunities to participate in work-related activity on a voluntary basis.’.

The purpose of the amendment is to elicit a bit more information from the Minister. I would like to probe the Government’s thinking in relation to the provision of information about work-related activity to people who are not required under clause 12 to undertake such activity. This is a similar point to that which was made during previous sittings about the support group, although I suggest that this amendment is free of some of the more contentious items that caused the debate in the previous sitting.

The amendment seeks merely to provide a power to make regulations to ensure that people who are not required to undertake work-related activity, which in this case means members of the support group, are none the less provided with information about what is available. I should like to hear a bit more in the Minister’s response about what proposals the Government have in mind to ensure that that happens. It may apply not only to work-related activity but to work-focused interviews and work-focused health-related assessments, and the assistance that is generally available under the pathways to work scheme, for example. How, if at all, do the Government intend to ensure that people who are not required to take part in such activities are no less informed about the opportunities that may be available to them? I assume that there is an answer to that question. To take on board the point that the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Kali Mountford) made in our previous sitting, it should be done in a non-threatening way that does not seek to create any feelings of obligation, but that—importantly—provides information to people so that they are aware of the opportunities and of the range of entitlements available through pathways to work, which could help them get closer to the labour market if they so wished.

I shall not dwell on what is a straightforward amendment. The point that I am making is clear. I hope that the Minister can reassure me that the Government have clear plans and proposals to ensure the undertaking of such a function.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

It is proper that we raise these issues and that the Minister should respond to them. I think that he will now be aware of the interest—on the Opposition Benches and all Benches—in the opportunities for members of the support group, as much as for those who are on the employment and support allowance and who are under obligations. I realise that, in a sense, anyone who is involved in the support group in any work-related activity that they do is ipso facto a member of the voluntary sector. That sector has not so far featured as much as it might have done in our discussions. It may well provide a useful route into work. Referring to our earlier debate, what we discussed could be seen as an example of work-related activity. That would apply equally to those who are subject to an obligation and those who are not.

We all understand that people do not go automatically in one stage from a situation of restriction and limited capacity all the way through to work, but the transition should be made as easy as possible for everyone, and in particular for the various classes available in the ESA. There is an interesting logical point on which I shall briefly dwell. If people are subject to a legal obligation to engage in activities, can they be said in that sense to be in the voluntary sector at all, even if they are working in the voluntary sector as part of the work taster? That is perhaps for the philosophers and not for the Committee today, however.

We want things to be as inclusive and practical as possible. It would be unwise for me to expand further on the necessary support, but above all we want Ministers to remember the point and respond to it.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I hope that I can reassure hon. Members about the Government’s intentions, and encourage the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey to withdraw his amendment. I shall start with an admission. I may inadvertently have misled the Committee in relation to what would be work-related activity in draft regulations. As you are aware, Mr. Amess, that was contained in the Green Paper, and I was surprised that you did not invite me to be called to order, as you have on at least one previous occasion. I am surprised that others did not intervene, but I hope that I have clarified the position.

With that admission of error, I shall try to proceed on steadier footing in relation to the amendment. The hon. Gentleman has raised an important issue, which was amplified by the comments and reflections of the hon. Member for Daventry. On a voluntary basis, and where appropriate—we have discussed previously the appropriateness of the state allowing matters—someone in the support group should have access to work-focused interviews and the support available to other customers. That approach is exemplified by pathways, in which many in the exempt category volunteer for the available support. That will therefore be retained.

The hon. Member for Daventry is absolutely right about voluntary work being the appropriate route for some or many ESA customers wanting to get closer to the labour market, and therefore it will be deemed to be work-related activity. I, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and many others know from constituency experience that a great number of voluntary organisations provide a fantastic level of support to people coming off inactive benefits in order to get them closer to the labour market. The experience in pathways in many cases has been that voluntary organisations have taken inspirational steps to involve those who have been out of the labour market for a very long time. We expect that to continue and will discuss with voluntary sector organisations, charities and many others details such as the capacity in the voluntary sector to support a substantial number of new volunteers.

On the specific requirement to provide information, the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey will be relieved to have it confirmed that the questionnaire accompanying invitations to tender for provider-led pathways to work provision asked providers to detail how they would ensure consistent delivery to mandatory and voluntary customers. Their bids will be assessed on their replies to that and other questions. I hope that that reassures him. It is a key part of the invitation to tender and unless providers are able to provide that analysis, they would not be able to offer the kind of contracts that we are looking for.

I do not think that it would be appropriate to put information provision in the Bill.

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

I do not know whether Minister intends to cover this point, but he has provided some reassurance on the contracts in the provider-led areas. However, my understanding is that they will cover60 per cent. of the country only, so 40 per cent. will be Jobcentre Plus-led pathways to work areas. How does he intend to ensure that a requirement similar to that stipulated in the contract of provider-led areas is carried out equally well in the Jobcentre Plus-led areas?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

The hon. Gentleman raises a reasonable point. That requirement operates already in the Jobcentre Plus-led pathways, which cover 40 per cent. of the country. As I said earlier, many of those in the exempt categories under the current and outdated personal capability assessment process nevertheless say, “I wish to volunteer.” I am sure that that can be improved further as part of the continuing improvement in communication, which we talked about earlier, but I am certain that that communication exists and, with the existing pathways process, is one of the avenues by which current exempt customers on IB can volunteer. I am not saying, on behalf of the Government, that we cannot make further improvements and we shall continue to seek ways in which to do so. With that, I encourage and implore the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

Duly implored, I add only, before responding to the Minister’s imploring, that he might find that Members of Parliament, in dealing with constituents on such matters, are interested in being engaged in the process of ensuring improved and direct communication. With that comment, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I beg to move amendment No. 238, in clause 12, page 11, line 18, at end add—

‘(j) prescribing the support which is to be provided to a person in order to help him to undertake work-related activity.’.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 239, in clause 12, page 11, line 20, leave out ‘is’ and insert ‘may be’.

No. 240, in clause 12, page 11, line 22, at end insert

‘or such other appropriate action as the Secretary of State may by regulation prescribe.’.

No. 241, in clause 12, page 11, line 27, at end insert—

‘(d) what other action may be taken to encourage the claimant back into work.’.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

The amendments do not make the same point, but complement each other and help to probe the Government’s views on the regulations that will enact these rather sensitive provisions. AmendmentNo. 238 is perhaps the most straightforward because it suggests simply that the regulations should prescribe

“the support which is to be provided to a person in order to help him to undertake work-related activity”.

I am conscious that this point might be turning into a King Charles’s head. Every time I get up to speak, I say that there will need to be support. If I flag in my task, I suspect my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Surrey (Mr. Hunt) or, indeed, the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey would get up to make my point for me. We need to keep saying again and again: it is not reasonable for people to go without support from one state to another. They need the appropriate support to get there.

The amendment says no more than that, but perhaps the Minister could reflect on one or two things. First, when I revisited the wording of the amendment, an analogy came to my mind which has not been shared with the Committee before. This is not dissimilar from what is required in an educational statement. A statement of special educational needs does not simply diagnose a child’s condition; it lists the support that the public authority will need to provide. I throw that in because it is the kind of thing that is in our minds. If there has been a work-focused interview, it might be sensible for such a provision to be embodied in the minutes and an undertaking given.

Beyond that, I have two points to put to the Minister. The first relates to education. Many of the people who have problems returning to work may be either educationally disadvantaged or educationally demoralised. They may need, in parallel with the pathways programme, to have access to educational programmes to support them and make them employable. I am not clear whether that comes under this rubric and whether that would be regarded as work-related activity. It is educational and the Minister hardly needs me to remind him that there is an important distinction running through a lot of social security law between participating in educational activity and a benefit-qualifying activity. We perhaps should be clearer what the relationship is and who will “prescribe” the necessary education and/or see that is carried out to an acceptable level.

My second point relates to health specification. Again, all members of the Committee will know that many people within the allowance will have personal health problems, including those of a less glamorous nature such as addiction to drugs or alcohol. They will need to get themselves sorted out before they can be easily and safely employable. While I am aware from having seen the pathways project in Derbyshire that there is a very constructive working relationship with the primary care trust there, I am not certain exactly what the nature of the interface with the customer is and whether health-related interventions would be on the ticket or would be dealt with separately, bearing in mind that there is an issue of propriety about this.

It is one thing to say to an individual, “You have an alcoholism problem and in your own interests it should be sorted out.” It is another to say, “Your alcoholism problem is preventing you from being ready to go to work and to come off benefit and we are going to remediate that.” I am rehearsing some potential ethical problems and the different solutions that might be required. The person’s GP may be able to sort it out. Clearly it needs to be sorted out but we have to be clear whether it is an intervention under the health service or under the ESA and work-focused activity programme. There are delicacies about this that could give rise to difficulties. I should like the Minister to touch on those matters when he responds to amendment No. 238.

Amendments Nos. 239 to 241 are about the nature of the sanctions regime. Generally speaking the Committee has not set up any Aunt Sallies, which sometimes happens. We are too grown up and frankly the subject is too serious. However, in my view, there is not a huge population of people desperate to avoid work at any cost—I notice that the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Kali Mountford) is nodding with some enthusiasm. All the evidence is that most people with a disability or other condition limiting their ability to work would like to go back to work given the opportunity and encouragement to do so. That is the Committee’s philosophy and is not in any way contentious.

The Minister will remind us rightly, however, that we need an element of sanction for the minority that will not play the game. Let us consider the historical evidence from sanctions programmes. I have spoken at little debates on sanctions and questioned, without wanting to sound like a far-left caricature, whether they work or are necessary. In a sense, it is rather like dealing with one’s own children: if it is necessary to take the sanctions, the sanctions have failed. It is the threat of sanctions that underpins the process, not their actuality.

The amendments address the surprising fact that the Government might be one-club golfers—to borrow a phrase used to describe somebody’s economic policy, although we had best not go too far down that road. They have only financial sanctions. They have the ability to reduce benefits and it might be worth at least taking other powers, although I am not saying that they should use those all the time. We are offering Ministers a free gift here: they might consider a wider range of sanctions—more clubs in the golf bag.

The Minister might seek to question me, but I do not have a ready-made list of sanctions. Sometimes, Ministers come along with such lists: shall we take away their driving licence, their passport or whatever? I am not canvassing for that, but recording my surprise that he is going simply for the financial sanction and is not at the moment prepared to look at a range of potential ones that might be appropriate in particular cases, or become appropriate at some stage.

Wayne David (Labour, Caerphilly)

Forgive me, I am slightly confused. The hon. Gentleman seems to be making a case for other sanctions, but he is very reluctant to give any examples of what they might be.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I think that the hon. Gentleman exposes the dilemma to which I was trying to get the Minister to respond. All I am saying is that if I were a Minister responsible for this matter—entering the realm of fantasy for a moment—I would prefer to have more than one possible recourse. I do not know what the others might be, although as a matter of fact, I recorded a couple—withdrawal of driving licences or passports—which would be quite nasty for people, but I am by no means certain that they would be the right ones to adopt. Certainly, I would not like the Committee to think that I have advocated those. However, I find it surprising that Ministers have apparently closed their minds to alternative sanctions. It is one thing not to have them in a pilot scheme, but another not to at least have the power to consider them if something became possible or was worth trying out. Of course, they would have to be proportionate and reasonable.

Kali Mountford (Labour, Colne Valley)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way because I think that he was about to expand the point that I was going to put to him. For people with some disabilities, the sense of isolation can be a very big problem. Would it not be an extraordinary sanction to take away their driving licence when that might be the very means by which they can have contact with the outside world? Such a sanction might be disproportionately more difficult for some than others.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I am bound to say that I agree with the hon. Lady. In fact, I have not always been falling over myself to welcome some of the more draconian measures that have been taken by, for example, the Home Office in those regards. However, I find it surprising that, at a time when some parts of the Government can be quite authoritarian in imposing sanctions, they are not considering them in this case.

There is also a factor to bear in mind, to which the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey referred this morning, which is that the use of a financial sanction is not simply specific to the person, but affects the family, because there may not be enough money to go round. I am trying to be fair-minded, because I am genuinely rehearsing my own doubts on the matter, but equally, the hon. Member for Colne Valley says that even more malign consequences could arise from a particular decision. Nobody is trying to suggest that the matter should be penal, but we are trying at least to find the option available to a decision maker to formulate a sanction that might be fit for purpose. One might be compulsory attendance at something, specifically, after a failure. I do not know. However, I would like the Minister to think about that.

In conclusion, there is the question of resources and amendment No. 241. That is back to the world of access to work, if I can put it like that in shorthand. It is about seeing what is required to encourage the claimant back into work. That is there simply to hammer home the point that we have made strongly, and will continue to make—that the objective is to get the claimant back into work. We shall not succeed unless sufficient support is given appropriately, and that must be considered in the regulations and any sanctions that are imposed as part of the regime. Genuinely, I hope that I have not staked out a claim to take the hard right on the matter by saying that we need more sanctions, or the far left by saying that no sanctions are envisaged. I am not sure which sanctions are best, but I do not think that Ministers should disable themselves from a range of sanctions, so that they may be developed, brought in and tailored to the individual’s circumstances, in the interests of encouraging that claimant back to work—no more and no less than that.

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

The hon. Gentleman, in a thoughtful set of remarks, has opened up a fruitful avenue for discussion. By probing the question of sanctions a little further, not just the philosophy of them but the research and the question of efficacy, he underpins the sanctions-based approach. I shall be interested to hear more about that from the Minister.

In a previous debate—in this Committee Room, I think, in a Statutory Instrument Committee—I asked the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Plaskitt), what evidence the Government have for the idea that sanctions work, or that they fulfil the role that Ministers believe that they fulfil. In that debate, he said that a substantial body of research evidence showed that sanctions served the purpose that Ministers believe that they serve: they encourage people to engage in processes. In a subsequent exchange of correspondence with the Minister, I asked him to list the library references of research papers that the Department had commissioned, given that there is an increasingly prevalent element of Government policy in the social security field. I am afraid that not one academic reference came back—not one extensive piece of Department for Work and Pensions research to back up that thinking. A couple of statistics were quoted, but not much more than that. A fair response to the Minister would be that the belief in the efficacy of sanctions is a matter of principle, as opposed to a matter of evidence-based policy making, if I can use that phrase.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

The hon. Gentleman will find that I am entirely in sympathy with the argument that he is developing. I have found Ministers, when I have asked parliamentary questions, for example, extraordinarily coy on the matter of efficacy. At the moment, I cannot help feeling that the ministerial position may be more sensitive in the event than in the statement. It could be summed up in the words of Lear:

“I will do such things—

What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be

The terrors of the earth.”

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

I cannot compete with the hon. Gentleman for erudition.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

There was a young man from Inverness—

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

Who got into a frightful mess.

Over the course of the last 50 minutes we have roamed over philosophy and poetry. If I may bring the conversation back down to earth, I understand the point that the hon. Member for Daventry is making. There is a serious point at the heart of that intervention. What body of evidence does the Minister have for the idea that sanctions work? If there is no such body of evidence, what is the underpinning principle of the policy that is being developed in this Bill and others? I agree with the hon. Member for Daventry that if sanctions have to be used in many cases it means that the system has failed.

In that context, will the Minister answer a question that I posed in the earlier sitting? How often does he think that the sanctioning power in this and other clauses will be used? Another question, which echoes the point made by the hon. Member for Daventry, is what research has he undertaken into the impact of making use of these sanctioning powers, particularly on child poverty which was of some interest to the Committee in earlier discussions? What research has he undertaken into the use of sanctions on claimants?

Adam Afriyie (Conservative, Windsor)

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would also point out to the Minister that in the area of mental health, sanctions or the threat of sanctions are incredibly important to the outcome of that condition, even in the case of marginal conditions.

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

I am sure that the Minister will respond to that.

I should be interested to hear the Minister develop his argument on the issue of sanctions on the parents of dependent children. With those few remarks, I echo and support what the hon. Member for Daventry said. I hope that the Minister can continue to illuminate our discussion in the philosophical and poetical manner in which it has been conducted thus far.

Jeremy Hunt (Conservative, South West Surrey)

We have had a good discussion on these amendments and I should like to speak briefly to them. The first amendment concerns the support being offered. I should like to go back to something that the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Stirling, said this morning. She made an important point about the rights and responsibilities agenda and the fact that the Bill talks about the Government playing their part in helping people previously excluded from the labour market to get closer to it.

There are nine paragraphs in subsection (2), eight of which talk about requirements on the claimant orthe customer. Only one is a requirement on the Government and it is simply that the Government notify the claimant what the requirements on himare. Nothing in the subsection talks about the Government’s responsibility to ensure that the appropriate support is in place for the work-related activity to happen.

I want to stress, in the positive spirit of much of our discussions, that the Government’s intentions in this respect are wholly right. I have no doubt that they intend to put in place the support for people, so it seems curious that it is not written in the Bill that one of the requirements of the work-related activity process should be that the appropriate support is given. The Bill simply lists the requirements on the claimants. We do not get that balance which the Under-Secretary rightly pointed out is such an important philosophical underpinning of the Bill.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

Does my hon. Friend also agree that there is another party to this particular transaction of work-related activity, namely the employers or the person who may be involved in delivering or facilitating the activity? There is and must be consideration, particularly where a sanctions regime is likely to be invoked, as to whether any failure by the employer—or third party, in shorthand—might itself have been the cause of the failure of the claimant to meet the required standard or expectation.

Jeremy Hunt (Conservative, South West Surrey)

My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point and in fact gives a flavour of some of the things that I was hoping to say on the amendments under clause 13. He is absolutely right; the employer’s co-operation is essential. There is only person who can ensure that that happens, and that is the personal adviser who is supporting the claim of the customer in order to help them through the process of work-related activity. It is extremely important, therefore, that there is a responsibility for the Government to provide the necessary support.

All the organisations that I have spoken to that place people in work—such as Action for Blind People and Remploy, both of which I visited recently—talk about the relationship between the personal adviser and the employer being the critical factor in the success of the whole process. In particular, the important element is the support that is given once the person has been placed in employment. It is not something that stops as soon as someone is given a job; it is an ongoing process.

Accepting this amendment—I note that so far the Government have not accepted a single amendment we have proposed—would be in tune with the intentions that the Government have—[Interruption.]

Kali Mountford (Labour, Colne Valley)

In the hon. Gentleman’s examination of how the relationship works, did he find any examples where the relationship could be prescribed and did he find out whether that prescription was actually helpful?

Jeremy Hunt (Conservative, South West Surrey)

I am not sure what points the hon. Lady is trying to make, but I am happy to give way if she wants to elaborate further. This amendment is not saying that the actions should be prescribed; it is saying that the support, which will be a vital part of the success of this programme, should be agreed. The details of that support can have tremendous effects.

In clause 12 all the requirements on the claimant are written down clearly but, apart from the responsibility to notify the claimant of their obligations, there is no requirement on the Government. I do not believe that this reflects the Government’s intentions in the Bill.

It is not the place for primary legislation to prescribe precisely what support is given, but it can none the less prescribe that support should be given, and that is the point that we are trying to make.

Unless the hon. Lady wishes to intervene again, I shall move on to the question of sanctions. In my short time as a Member of Parliament, listening to my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry, this is the first time that I have heard a Member of Parliament stand up and say that they do not know the answer to the problem but that there is a problem. It is to his credit that he spoke in the way that he did because he draws attention to one of the issues surrounding the sanctioning regime. It is an issue that every member of the Committee is aware of, because I imagine that we have spoken to people involved in the pilots and have found that sanctions are very rarely used because, in practice, what personal advisers find most effective is carrots rather than sticks. Sticks are very much a last resort. I respect the Government’s view that they need to be there as a last resort, but the concern that I have—I share my hon. Friend’s concerns in this respect—is that sometimes some form of sanctioning might be appropriate when the claimant is not co-operating to a reasonable degree with the work-related activity process.

Sometimes a financial sanction might not be the right way of encouraging participation. The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey pointed out that child poverty is a key issue here. We know that a third of working-age disabled people have children and we know that one in four of people who are growing up in poverty have a disabled parent. We know that there is a strong link between the two. In that situation, it might not be appropriate to exercise a financial sanction even if someone was being deliberately unco-operative, because not only the claimant would lose out, but possibly their children as well. No one in the Committee would support such an outcome. However, in that situation other sanctions could or should be exercised.

The amendments are designed to give the Government flexibility so that in regulations they could provide for alternatives, although the last thing that we want to do is impose inappropriate alternatives. For example, we have just discussed driving licences. I agree completely that in a lot of situations the withdrawal of a licence would be inappropriate, but there might be other situations in which the withdrawal of benefits would not be appropriate but the driving licence sanction would.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry, I do not know the answer, but it would be good if the Bill had the flexibility to allow the Government to develop their thinking. Amendment No. 239 tries simply to exchange “is” for “may be” so that the Government are not obliged in such a situation to reduce benefit payments, but may do so if they chose. It is not a particularly strong amendment; it is designed to give the Government more flexibility to produce desirable outcomes.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

Characteristically, we have heard some thoughtful contributions, and hopefully I can continue that in the tone and content of my comments.

The hon. Member for South-West Surrey mentioned in passing that the Government have not seen fit to accept any of the amendments. Any fair adjudication of proceedings thus far would find that in every instance bar two or three, I think, there has been a meeting of minds over the purpose of the powers in the draft regulations that the Government are introducing. I am sure that he would not seek to caricature the Government as belligerent. In fact, I think that we have heard a really thoughtful set of contributions.

The Government and outside organisations will reflect on those comments as we move through later stages of the Bill. I think that that is the spirit in which the hon. Gentleman meant his comment; I do not think that he was suggesting that day in, day out we have thwarted reasonable suggestions. The Oppositionhave probed us quite rightly, and quite rightly we have provided reassurance. That is the spirit in which we have conducted proceedings.

On the specific amendments, Opposition Members, in particular the hon. Members for Daventry and for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, mentioned child poverty and sanctions. They are correct in their analysis. We have spoken before about child poverty, so perhaps it would be inappropriate to dwell on it for too long now, but there are common factors in the prevalence of child poverty in the UK: family size, ethnicity, disability and generational aspiration within the family structure. As we all know, one of the weaknesses of incapacity benefit is the way in which it has become generational, not because of an injury, ailment or illness, but because of aspirations within the family.

I say this gently because we should not get into the cut and thrust of political to-ing and fro-ing unless others feel that we should: it is a matter of public record—every commentator regardless of political persuasion accepts this—that until the mid-1990s, the UK had the fastest-growing child poverty rate of any major industrialised nation. That is a matter of public record. We do not need to ask why—

David Ruffley (Conservative, Bury St Edmunds)

But you are.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I am not. That was a statement of fact, although we can have a conversation about why, if Mr. Amess allows us. I am stating it as a matter of public record. The rates of child poverty in the United Kingdom are now falling faster than those in any major economy on the globe. We have not yet gone far enough; we have a lot more work to do, but the fact is that we had the highest rate, and we now have the fastest falling rate.

David Ruffley (Conservative, Bury St Edmunds)

I will not go down the party political route to rebut some of the points that the Minister was hinting at. Is he aware of the powerful comments on child poverty made by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I have no idea whether the Leader of the Opposition made them in the morning or the afternoon, or whether they were the same comments at both times of the day. I have not read the specific comments that he has made on child poverty, but I am happy to receive them.

David Ruffley (Conservative, Bury St Edmunds)

You might learn something.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

The hon. Gentleman says that I might learn something. Mr. Amess, I know that you will not allow us to go down this line of conversation for much longer, but many of us on the Labour Benches feel this genetically—we are entirely committed, for all sorts of reasons, not just to a reduction, but to the eradication of child poverty. I do not want to dwell on the party political nature of the issue, but it is a matter of public record that we inherited the highest, fastest growing levels of child poverty, when one in three children grew up in poverty. One in five children were in a workless household during that period. I do not want to apportion blame, but that is a statement of where we are, of progress that has been made, and an assessment of the contribution that the Bill can make to the eradication of child poverty.

Mr. Huntrose—

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman if, Mr. Amess, it remains in order in your judgment.

Jeremy Hunt (Conservative, South West Surrey)

I am grateful to the Minister. I am standing up to ask the Minister, in the interests of making progress on the Bill, to restrict his comments to the Bill. If he wants to discuss what happened in the 1980s and 1990s, we have our version of what happened. There were many problems, of which child poverty was one. That Government tried to tackle other problems, including the economic crisis that we inherited from his party in 1979. Before Mr. Amess brings me to order, I simply say to the Minister that it does not help. All of us on the Conservative Benches in this Committee have been talking about child poverty in the context of the Bill, and our concern is that some of the measures within it might not achieve the shared objective that we all have, which is to eliminate child poverty. If the Minister restricted his comments to that, we might have a more productive discussion.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

Order. Oh dear, things were going so well. Can I ask hon. Members on both sides of the Committee to return to the amendments?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

Thank you, Mr. Amess. Of course, I shall obey your stricture. I thought that the hon. Member for South-West Surrey was auditioning for your job.

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

I do not intend to take part in the party political bickering that has just taken place on both sides. On the question of child poverty—

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

Order. I say to the Committee for the last time: Minister, can we please return to the amendments—not child poverty, or any other party political matters?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

Thank you, Mr Amess. Of course, I will obey your strictures. I wonder, however, whether you would allow us some leeway because a specific question has been asked about the sanctions power that we are taking in the clause and the likely impact on child poverty. It is entirely up to you to judge whether that would be an appropriate topic of discussion. I did not seek to create party political friction. I was trying to record an objective analysis of what has happened in this country over the past two decades. One of the issues concerning child poverty is that it is down to hon. Members to assess what welfare reform is most likely to eradicate it.

Returning to the tone that we had three or so minutes ago, I was analysing whether child poverty could be eradicated if a parent with a dependent child spent prolonged periods on benefit, even though there was an alternative available, with appropriate support. Our sense—there is a wealth of evidence that this is indisputably the case—is that the opportunity to come off benefit and into work at the right level with the right mix of skills and the chance to progress not just into a job but into a career, is the most effective pathway out of poverty. It is not appropriate for everyone because of different family circumstances, but it is the most successful and effective pathway out of poverty.

I do not doubt the sincerity of the comments of the hon. Member for Daventry. Having that sanction is the last option. With pathways it was used for about 1 per cent. of customers and we would be delighted if it were less than that as it is rolled out. However, it is used as a last option and a further way of enforcing engagement with a process that is aimed at getting people closer to and then involved in the labour market, which is an effective way of reducing and eradicating child poverty within that family unit. The hon. Gentleman raises a reasonable point about the impact on child poverty, but it is our assessment that encouraging participation and engagement in work-focused interviews and work-related activity has a much greater effect in terms of what we are seeking to do than what may happen in a small number of cases, based on the 1 per cent. of instances in pathways where sanctions have unfortunately been necessary.

Jeremy Hunt (Conservative, South West Surrey)

What sanctions will the Minister be able to use under the Bill for someone who is not co-operating in the process, without good reason, but for whom a financial sanction would not be appropriate because it might affect children in the household who might descend further into child poverty?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I will come to that later in my comments.

The hon. Members for Daventry and for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey asked how we would progress on sanctions under clause 12. We are currently considering the effectiveness and the operation of the sanctions within the pathway pilots. Next summer we can come to some conclusions about the operation of those sanctions. From that we will draw our conclusions and form the specific sanctioning regime around which work-related activity will be focused.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

The Minister quoted the figure of 1 per cent. as being those within the ambit of the sanctions regimes in pathways. I would not like the Committee to go away with the idea that this not an important issue once the pathways are rolled out. Look at the stock of incapacity benefit claimants into which the Minister would eventually like to make inroads: 1 per cent. of that is 27,000 people and their families. There will be an awful lot of hard cases. That is an argument not for taking away the sanctions regime, but for applying it very sensitively and with the best possible range of options that decision makers and personal advisers can use to encourage those people to co-operate.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

The hon. Gentleman is right, based on those crude statistics, but I am sure that he would accept the analysis, which is that one in six of those currently on incapacity benefit have children. Therefore, 1 per cent. of those one in six is an entirely different figure.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I rise simply to correct the record. The calculation that I did in my head to make the point that a significant number of people were involved discounted the fact that, even if eventually incapacity benefit claimants were migrated on to the ESA, a significant number would be within the support allowance. I would not like the Committee to get the impression that it would necessarily be the whole lot. I am simply saying that quite a lot of people could be affected and we need to be sensitive in their interests.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

That is a reasonable point and adds to the point that I had already made: one in six of current customers have a dependent child. Initially as we move into ESA, there is no reason to think that that figure will change overnight. However, with the support group alongside that, the proportion with dependent children who could attract a sanction would be smaller still. We will seek to learn lessons from the pathways sanctions and the pilots. We will publish the evidence in the summer of next year and then construct the new system, with consultation, to ensure that we strike the right balance.

I shall turn to a point raised by the hon. Member for South-West Surrey. I am sure that he has had the opportunity to read clause 12(4):

“Regulations under subsection (3) may, in particular, make provision for determining...and may include provision prescribing circumstances in which the amount of the reduction is to be nil.”

We might learn that lesson when taking forward sanctions and we have the power in the Bill to prescribe circumstances under which a financial sanction might not be appropriate. That route might be more fruitful than the one suggested by the hon. Member for Daventry for alternative purposes and sanctions.

I shall comment on some of the specific points made by the hon. Gentleman. I do so entirely in the same tone in which he offered them because, like others, he was frank enough in his analysis to say, “Here are some ideas”. On driving licences—others have commented on this too—it could be argued that getting a licence in the first place is a work-related activity. Should we take away what could be considered to be, in some circumstances, work-related activity? However, I appreciate that he raised it as a point of debate, and we will reflect on it.

On passports, the evidence is that folk on benefit and those from poorer families, who have less access to reliable credit, credit cards, and mortgages from established banks are asked for an authoritative form of identification more often than the rest of the population. Analysis has shown how often a middle class white man is asked for proof of identification—a disproportionate number of us here are middle class white men, although not all of us. On average, I think that they are asked for identity three times a year.

Natascha Engel (Labour, North East Derbyshire)

They are Scottish.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) talks about the Scots. I think that Derby played an important part in the history of Scotland—it was almost as far as we got. However, she would not wish to get involved in that conversation. I do not know whether she advocates the permanent occupation of Derby by the Scots, and I have no idea what that would mean for accents. It seems to have worked okay in Corby and some other places.

On the passport sanction, the hon. Member for Daventry raises an interesting idea. However, let us consider the profile of customers on IB and ESA. In the absence of an identity card—let us not have that conversation today—a passport is often the only accepted form of identification for people from poorer families and households because of their lack of a reliable credit record or mortgage. That is another route we are not tempted to go down. The power in clause 12(4) is more appropriate and the one on which the Government have settled—the power to prescribe “nil” as the applicable amount.

Jeremy Hunt (Conservative, South West Surrey)

Will the Minister return to my earlier intervention? Does the Bill give the Government any alternatives to the financial sanction? I accept his helpful reassurance that the Government do not have to apply the financial sanction, but will they have the power to apply any other sanctions? There might be situations in which a sanction should be applied, but a financial sanction would be the wrong one.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I ask the hon. Gentleman to look at page 6 of the draft regulations. We do not intend to take the power to apply alternative sanctions for the reasons that I have stipulated already. The draft regulations seek to ensure that, when possible, we avoid having to use the sanctions. As I said earlier, we intend, after consultation, to take the type of safeguards we are putting in place in clause 11 across to clause 12. Hon. Members can see for themselves the extent of safeguards that are put in place. They include advising customers of appointments and making contact between each interview. I will not read the full list of nine or 10 safeguards on page 6 of our draft regulations. On top of that, and not listed, is the right of appeal against any financial sanction. That is our approach. There are very strong safeguards.

Adam Afriyie (Conservative, Windsor)

I still do not think that the Minister has answered the direct question from my colleague. What sanctions will there be other than financial ones?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

To be fair to the hon. Gentleman, he may have missed my comment. I said that the Bill does not take the power for any other sanction. We do not think it appropriate to have a wider or an alternative power to the sanction of gradual reduction in two tranches of the work-related activity component, until such time as conditionality and the customer again participates in work-focused interviews and, over time, work-related activity.

Adam Afriyie (Conservative, Windsor)

It was just the very short question: why does the Secretary of State not seek to have the ability to impose other non-financial sanctions that may be helpful for people returning to work?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

Is the hon. Gentleman willing to suggest any? I accept the tone of the remarks of the hon. Member for Daventry and the difficulty that he identified, but the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) strikes a different tone, so I invite him to identify an alternative sanction.

Adam Afriyie (Conservative, Windsor)

Let us say that for someone who has a mental health challenge the sanction might be that they must attend certain types of cognitive-based therapy. Perhaps that would be more appropriate than threatening to withdraw money.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

The hon. Gentleman, for entirely good reasons, such as other commitments in the House, may have been unable to be in Committee when we had this debate on earlier clauses. If someone participates in cognitive behaviour therapy and other types of support, they would not attract a sanction in the first place because that would be deemed to be work-related activity. Does he have a workable alternative for a sanction?

Adam Afriyie (Conservative, Windsor)

We are scrutinising legislation here and I am asking the Minister questions to examine why the Government have not chosen to make allowance in the Bill or the regulations to use other forms of sanctions that may be more appropriate.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I suspect the answer to my question is no. The hon. Gentleman has therefore come to the same conclusion as the Government, so I am glad that he apparently agrees with us.

These discussions are about the formulation of the powers that we take. Two of the most readily used alternative sanctions are the two that the hon. Member for Daventry fairly identified. As I sought to explain to the Committee, we do not think that those would be appropriate in the context. There is a general acceptance that in almost all, if not all, circumstances withdrawing a driving licence would not be appropriate. In terms of the profile, withdrawal of passports from customers on ESA and IB would not be appropriate either. At that point, we settle on a sanction as a last resort on the basis that significant safeguards are outlined on page 6 of our draft regulations.

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

I am grateful to the Minister for his reassurance and I agree with the points that he has made about some of those other sanctions. He may have been about to come to the point that I raised earlier. It concerned the evidence base for suggesting that the sort of sanctions that the Government are taking powers for in the Bill are efficacious, or is it more a matter of principle?

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I shall shortly conclude my remarks on the amendments, because I am now answering a question for a second time. The response that I have already given is that we have pilot sanctions in pathways, and we will analyse their effectiveness and publish our conclusions. We will take the lessons of that into the draft regulations on how sanctions will work in relation to work-related activity. We will consult on that and, of course, Parliament will hold the regulations to account through the appropriate channels and mechanisms and consider whether they represent the right thing to do.

Kali Mountford (Labour, Colne Valley)

I am becoming quite frustrated by this debate. Will my hon. Friend the Minister re-examine closely the safeguards needed? Is it not a fact that the process is also important? A person might be afraid of attending an interview or have had past experience that makes them feel that something of which they are fearful might happen. The visits and conversations that will take place before any sanctions are imposed might enable someone to take an opportunity that they would otherwise not avail themselves of.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

Again, my hon. Friend speaks from her experience of dealing with her constituents. She continues to campaign and brings that practical experience to the Committee’s attention. Her point is made clearly on page 6 of the draft regulations, through such provisions as an offer of

“a more convenient location or a home visit where appropriate...visiting those customers with whom there has been no verbal contact”

before a work-focused interview and encouraging an advocate to attend and support a customer at each interaction. The tone and spirit of such protections under clause 11 will be carried across and built on under clause 12 in the regulations on which we will consult.

Sanctions will be a last resort in a small number of cases in which a person does not participate in work-related activity, which, as hon. Members know, carries the broad definition contained in the Green Paper. It will involve stabilising life and getting closer to the labour market. Sanctions will apply if, without good cause—that also has a wide definition—a person does not participate. They will have the right of independent appeal against any sanction and, both in the powers that we are taking in the Bill and in the tone of the draft regulations, it is clear that sanctions are our last resort. The regime will not be sanctions led; it will be about support. As a last resort, the Government must have the opportunity to use sanctions as a way finally to engage those who have not yet participated. From the experience of pathways, we hope that 1 per cent will be the maximum proportion of people involved as we roll out the sanctions. With that reassurance, I encourage hon. Members not to press the amendments.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I am grateful to the Minister for his comments. I sense that you, Mr. Amess, and the rest of the Committee would like to make progress, and I do not intend to speak at length. The only self-indulgence that I will bring to the party is to say that last year, in my capacity as an ambassador for the National Forest, I had the privilege of planting a number of new oak trees within sight of Stanton Bridge, the exact point outside Derby where the Jacobite army turned around in 1745. I was on the right side of that particular conflict. I know that that is as far as I should go.

We were in a slightly unusual position with the amendments, because as I spoke to them I was conscious that I was probing both the Minister and my own mind. It is a difficult matter. The Minister has endeavoured to reply, but I would have been happy for him to take powers to introduce sanctions other than purely financial ones, albeit with the safeguards that he has properly set out. The Government do not often get from the Opposition free offers of greater powers, but in this case he could have banked that. I am surprised that he has not availed himself of the opportunity.

On the whole I like to emphasis the positive in a Bill, but I might wish to say a word on clause stand part. Given that we have rehearsed already the lead amendment No. 238 and the need for adequate support for claimants, I do not think that it is necessary to press it. The Minister has declined the free offer and, in response, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I beg to move amendment No. 242, in clause 12, page 11, line 40, at end add—

‘(8) Regulations under this section may make provision to ensure that the ability to carry out “work related activity” is not automatically treated as evidence that the claimant’s capability to work has improved.’.

I shall be brief because we have discussed the essential point here before, but the Committee needs to remind itself of its importance. There is an inherent equivocation in the personal capability assessment. Is it a pass or failure if the claimant shows that they are not capable of work? It follows that many people are equivocal and probably even more are worried that if they do succeed, which is the objective, they will find themselves “humbugged”—to use a Victorian phrase—by losing their benefits.

The Minister said that that is a separate process and would not be triggered by an ability to work. Formally, that is the case. However, just because he has said it once does not mean that it is not appropriate to ask him to say it again or for us to remind him that it really matters to the claimants. The last thing any of us want is for people to go bravely through a rather difficult process and make progress, only to discover that they are worse off than they intended or deserve. I hope that that does not happen.

I emphasise not only the facts of the matter, but the word on the street and people’s concern that success in the assessment itself might lead to sanctions, which might cause them not to do the sensible thing and therefore lead them into a sanction regime—returning to our earlier discussion. They would have chosen the route of failure, which would be in nobody’s interest.

Jeremy Hunt (Conservative, South West Surrey)

I shall briefly support my hon. Friend’s comments. There is widespread concern among a number of out-of-work disabled people that any involvement in the world of work could trigger a reassessment of their disability status—if I can put it that way. That could in turn threaten their benefits package, which is incredibly important to their independence.

I know that that is not what the Government intend, but mistakes happen. Citizens Advice reported an occurrence in north Wales where a higher-rate disability living allowance claimant lost his wife, after which he started to work for seven and a half hours a week. He was incorrectly advised by his local benefits office that he could not do that work and claim benefits at the same time. Clearly, that was a mistake. Those things happen. One purpose of the amendment is to provide reassurance to people that involving themselves in work-related activity will not lead to a reassessment of their limited capability to work.

In conclusion, I remind the Minister of a recent Capability Scotland survey of unemployed disabled people. It found that the reason half of them did not want to involve themselves in the world of work was their fear of losing their benefits package. The amendment might help to assuage those fears. I look forward to any reassurance that the Minister might be able to give.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I shall seek to respond quickly; I know that some people, including my the Vice-Chamberlain of Her Majesty's Household, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, East (Mr. Heppell), are becoming impatient because we have not made as much progress as was initially anticipated.

The point made by the hon. Member for Daventry about the importance of language harks back to a previous debate. The Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling, reminded me that previously, when someone undertook a PCA in respect of an IB claim, the communication said, “Dear Mrs. Jones, this is to confirm that you passed the PCA.” What is passing or failing a PCA? If someone passed the PCA, they were entitled to incapacity benefit. It is that sense of language.

I say to the hon. Gentleman that undertaking permitted work will not in itself trigger a change in benefit entitlement. A change of condition will lead to a change in consideration of someone’s entitlement to benefit. That change of condition would not be analysed on the basis of what the person was now doing under permitted work rules but on a new PCA, the process of which we discussed in our earlier clauses, based on the 15 points and 46 descriptors. That will be the sole basis for the judgment whether someone remains entitled to ESA, contrary to the quite reasonable concerns that some people in this country beyond the Committee might have. It is important to emphasise that, which is why I am glad that the hon. Gentleman gave me the opportunity to confirm that to the Committee and therefore others.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I think that we are almost there. We needed that reassurance. It is important, but I must hammer it home to the Minister that language matters a lot. The more user-friendly and positive it can be, the better. There will be plenty of people to rubbish it, but we should start with the positive.

There might be some concerns—I picked them up informally in discussion the other day—about whether people could lose out on existing benefits: for example, in the linking rules where they undertake work. Perhaps at the moment—I am using oldspeak—if they have higher rate incapacity benefit, they might come back in at a lower rate. Beyond the Minister’s assurance, which of course I accept as he has given it, is the need to check whether perverse incentives still buried in some of the arrangements’ small print, like the one that I mentioned, could mean that people undertaking work-related activity—although he referred to permitted work, which is not quite the same thing—might lose out in certain circumstances. Nobody wants that. The more sensitive we are to it, the more likely we are to avoid it. In that spirit, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

Before we come to the expected debate on clause 12 stand part, I remind the Committee that we have had a fairly wide debate already. I am perfectly happy for Members to make their contributions if they try to stick to matters that have not already been discussed.

Natascha Engel (Labour, North East Derbyshire)

I wish to make a general point about clause 12, which I think is the most important clause in the Bill. I draw the Committee’s attention to the explanatory notes, which define work-related activity as

“undertaking activity that increases the likelihood of getting a job. This may include activities such as work trials or training”.

It is the training aspect of work-related activity that I would like to talk about. The training and skills part of the Bill is absolutely fundamental to its success.

It is also important to note that we are discussing the Bill’s detail at the same time as Sandy Leitch is carrying out a general review of skills, examining the matter with a cross-departmental approach. I do not wantto pre-empt what he will say on skills, but I wish to highlight the issue and to encourage the Minister to support a cross-departmental effort involving the Department for Education and Skills, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Treasury in order to ensure that the skills aspect is never forgotten.

The Jobcentre Plus network was designed initially to be a one-stop shop for everything related to being out of work. Jobcentre Plus would be the first to admit that it does not really consider skills and skills training to be its core function, yet basic skills—I mean hard skills such as literacy and numeracy—are one of the serious issues facing the group of people that we hope to help with the Bill.

I would like to introduce the Committee to Derbyshire Dave. Derbyshire Dave used to be a miner in North-East Derbyshire. My constituency is actually not close to Derby at all; it is much closer to Sheffield. We border South Yorkshire. It is one of the coalfields constituencies, but it has a large number of people who used to be steelworkers. Derbyshire Dave could be an ex-miner or ex-steelworker who has lost his job and has been on incapacity benefit for a while, but is keen to get involved in pathways to work. Derbyshire Dave exists. He is so willing that he walked into Jobcentre Plus to demand to be put on the scheme. That is an important aspect in respect of our earlier debate; the people keen to participate who come and ask to be put on pathways to work are the issue, rather than the dragging of people into Jobcentre Plus.

Derbyshire Dave, very keen to get a job, has taken part in all the condition management programmes and retraining. The problem is that North-East Derbyshire, like many other constituencies, is rural; Derbyshire Dave is often not willing to do the kind of work available. In fact, he is being offered work behind the checkout at Morrisons or Tesco; those are the jobs we have in the constituency.

Derbyshire Dave is ready and willing to work and keen to get involved in the labour market. However, the jobs available are not suitable. What happens to him? He is in the ESA group; he goes straight on to the jobseeker’s allowance and all the support available through the personal advisers in the system is withdrawn because he is now a straightforward jobseeker. If he were to find a job, he would still for up to a year have all the in-work support that would be available to anybody who goes on from pathways into work.

Derbyshire Dave has serious issues and I am worried that in this legislation he falls between two stools. This is a problem that affects rural areas. The city strategy is fantastic and very important in bringing together all the different agencies and employers and everybody else who is willing to get people off incapacity benefit and into work. In rural areas, however, we do not have the transport networks of cities, nor their variety of jobs in geographical locations close by.

To address the issue, we have launched a rural pilot similar to the city strategies. One of the ways of doing that is to pull together all the different agencies to ensure that we can identify the issues and overcome them locally ourselves. Making sure that the local delivery is in place will be one of the most important parts of the Bill and the clause; that is the only way in which any of this can be delivered.

One of the issues that we identified in our rural pilot was that nobody was specifically responsible for mapping the local economy—the local labour market now and of the future. For any Committee member who drives up the M1 to their constituency, I should say that we are between junctions 29 and 30. Weare about to have a huge employment zone. In theshort term, that means construction jobs; in the medium term, it means more construction jobs; inthe long term, it means lots of different kinds of businesses. Nobody in my constituency or the surrounding constituencies is identifying the skills needs now, in the medium term and in the future to make sure that the people on incapacity benefit in my constituency are able to have the benefit of the jobs once they come up. We are debating the Bill against the backdrop of the eight accession countries.

David Ruffley (Conservative, Bury St Edmunds)

We are listening to the hon. Lady’s contribution with interest but also a bit of alarm. I am very surprised to hear that there is not more strategic thinking to identify conditions that might be prevalent in her area and to work out what form of training package might fit the needs. I am staggered and disappointed to hear about the various public bodies, whose job is to think strategically and answer the hon. Lady’s exact questions. Will she say a bit more about the issue?

Natascha Engel (Labour, North East Derbyshire)

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. I deliberately painted a rather bleak picture to highlight the problem. We can make national legislation and produce a good national legislative framework for the system to exist in, but only local delivery matters. Lots of different public, private and voluntary organisations are doing some of that work.

The city strategy brings all of that together in a coherent manner, which may not be true in rural areas, and I am worried about the difference between the rural and the more urban. We have organisations that do a wonderful job in identifying skills needs, and we have a rather large employment-creating project on our doorstep, which is fantastically exciting, but even though we are thinking strategically and considering future skills needs, that is not strategic enough. We are doing all that against the backdrop of the accession eight countries, which presents one of the biggest problems that we face in rural areas. I would welcome the Minister’s comments on all of those points.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I am pleased to follow the hon. Lady, who made some interesting and helpful contributions, the first of which was to bring a degree of enthusiasm to a subject that deserves more than cynicism. We need to realise that the Bill is about real people whom we are trying to help. That is not an unworthy aim for politicians. It is sometimes unnecessary to claim that, but it is still important to feel it.

The hon. Lady stood up for rural areas. She will not be surprised if I respond to her on that. I know something of the coalfield communities, and I think that she made the point, by implication, that not all rural areas are affluent, and that they have difficulties. I was recently reading the report of the Government’s new rural advocate, Dr. Stuart Burgess, which says that there are problems with the ability to access a proper range of services, with transport, and with other issues we have discussed. I agree that, however well things are done at the centre, it sometimes seems as though the rural areas are somewhat in default. Will the Minister spend a moment of the Committee’s time talking about his approach to the projection of the system into rural areas?

The hon. Lady also talked about skills. I could join her in doing that and talk enthusiastically for the rest of the day on that subject, which is central to the debate. We have debated medical and quasi-medical conditions, but the issue is wider than that. All the work that I have seen, which includes the work of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, shows that participation in education, in the widest sense of the word—not necessarily narrowly vocational-specific activities, but activities from literacy to leisure and pastimes—is good in itself and good for people’s health. It involves interaction and affects confidence. The Minister will appreciate this, but we need to keep saying it: it is important that his Department and the Department for Education and Skills and others work together on these matters.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds rightly asks, is not all that happening? In a sense, formally it is, but the hon. Lady is right to put up her hand and say, “This really does matter in rural areas, and we have to be involved in it,” particularly where there are patterns of morbidity, distance and exclusion from the labour market, which there will be in some areas. I can find a few of my own that are not too clever.

The hon. Lady’s final point, about volunteering, is the one she made best. That is because of the enthusiasm with which she expressed her remarks. She talked about Derbyshire Dave, who wanted to get on with things and was prepared to do everything, but somehow the services did not come along. The important point is that he was fired up to do something. It occurs to me that the whole clause is about the negative, such as regulations and the conditions under which sanctions can be applied. Most of the debate has been not about the negative, but about helping people. I hope that it will stay that way.

I return to something that we have debated before, and make the only other point that I want to make on this clause. Many enthusiastic people who are already on incapacity benefit would like to work if the opportunity arose. That is where we start. Others—we have discussed them at some length during our debate on this clause—might not want to join the party and might ultimately come at least within the ambit of the idea of sanctions.

It seems important that we should emphasise the positive, not the negative, and one of the most important things is the individual’s motivation. Sadly, some people within the support allowance category will find it difficult to return to the labour market, and by definition no one in that category will find it easy. On the other hand, if they are willing volunteers they should be actively encouraged. Other people within the employment allowance category will be less active and less keen, and if resources are not unlimited—we will not reopen that issue—it may be important for Jobcentre Plus or the private contractors to go out to look for people who actively want to participate. A simple rubric that I will leave with the Committee is that it might be better, rather than having a conscript on the employment allowance, to have a willing volunteer on the support allowance.

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

I want to follow the comments made by the hon. Members for North-East Derbyshire and for Daventry, and to underscore for the Minister the importance of delivering such services and supporting people when they undertake work-related activity in rural areas. I represent some 5,000 square miles of the highlands and isles of Scotland, where the distances and—less so, these days—weather conditions, such as severe cold weather, make the strategic co-ordination of such activities incredibly difficult. I understand the point that the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire made. In some ways, it is even stronger if one is talking about a few people up a mountain track up the Cairngorm mountains or Monadhliaths who, in some circumstances and because of a range of disadvantages, would be unable to take part in activities that are being promoted through a city strategy or any other urban-centred strategy. It is critical to reflect on the needs of people in sparsely populated rural areas, as I am sure the Minister will agree.

I am delighted that the Minister has come to Inverness to visit the “Unlock Your Potential” project, a joint effort between the SHIRLIE project, which is an extremely well-respected and successful voluntary organisation that promotes supported employment, and Jobcentre Plus in the highlands. Jobcentre Plus has shown commendable innovation in coming up with the ideas around the scheme. It is trying to deliver the sort of joined-up thinking in sparsely populated rural areas that the hon. Lady referred to. I hope that the Minister will confirm that that is part of the Government’s wider thinking for rural areas.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I will try to respond briefly to the reasonable points about skills and the wider debate that we have not as yet touched on. I will be quick.

My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire mentioned the importance of training and skills. To drive out poverty in a family, we need not only to get people into work but to sustain them in work and to enhance their skills. There is evidence that the most effective way to enhance skills is while someone is in work rather while they are out of work. The hon. Member for Daventry knows about these issues. I am not trying to belittle anyone who is taking other routes and engaged in other activity, but analytically work is the most effective place for a customer to be to enhance their skills.

My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire is right to say that Sandy Leitch is working on a review at the Treasury’s behest. I had the opportunity to meet him along with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to discuss his emerging thinking and to seek to influence some aspects of his conclusions. I am happy to report that there is nothing that my hon. Friend has said today that Sandy Leitch would not agree with—I base that on my conversations with him. It is important to mention his work, and of course he will come to his own conclusions in his own time.

We may wish to reflect at another time on the role of skills coaches as well as personal advisers. On rural poverty, I would be happy to visit Inverness the next time that my family and I go to the excellent Conon Bridge hotel, which is in that part of the world. I do not know whether it was appropriate to say that, or to talk about its cheap weekend breaks. Anyway, the next time I am there with my family, I will—with my family’s indulgence, of course—take the opportunity to visit the projects that the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey mentioned.

On rural poverty and the rural dimension, there are all sorts of issues to do with transport. People in rural areas, particularly young folk, identify it as a key issue in respect of their connection to work and the opportunity to get out of poverty or to advance their aspirations. I was reminded of that again on a relatively recent visit to Jamie Oliver’s restaurant Fifteen in Newquay. The trainees there identified the importance of transport in a rural environment. It enables them to get to their workplace and to maintain themselves in work.

The cities strategy is important. It is about a consortium of people who have shared aspirations and a determination to work together. I have already mentioned Wales, which, to its credit, has stolen a march on the rest of the United Kingdom. In the rest of the UK, the strategy will be rolled out in the cities, but in Wales, as I have said, it will be rolled out in the heads of the valleys and in Rhyl. I do not know all the topography and terrain of that part of the world, but I do know that those places are not as yet major cities. We will have an opportunity to learn from the experiences, co-operative working and innovations of the consortiums, particularly in Wales, and use that knowledge in a further roll-out of the cities strategy. With those remarks, I invite the Committee to agree that clause 12 stand part of the Bill.

Clause 13

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

I beg to move amendmentNo. 157, in clause 13, page 12, line 1, after ‘plans’, insert—

‘( ) requirements on employers’.

Sir David Amess (Conservative, Southend West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 38, in clause 13, page 12, line 2, at end insert—

‘(d) the role of a person to whom an action plan document is provided in determining its content;

(e) the requirements that must be met by any such person, or employees of such person receiving authorisation under section 15(1) in assisting a person to whom an action plan is provided;

(f) the right of person to whom an action plan is provided to appeal against its contents.’.

No. 143, in clause 13, page 12, line 6, at end insert—

‘(3A) Regulations under this section may make provision for action plans to include requirements to be placed on the Secretary of State, or any person authorised to carry out functions on behalf of the Secretary of State under section 15.’.

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

I will try to be relatively brief. All three amendments relate to the action plans and raise concerns which I hope the Minister will address about how the action planning process will operate.

Amendment No. 157 goes back to a debate that we had earlier, so I shall not dwell on it too much. However, it is important to talk a bit more about the requirements on employers. In a debate last week, the Minister said that engagement with employers is essential because, in the main, the Government do not create jobs. But he also implied that the Government themselves should be doing more as an employer to engage with the sorts of people we have been discussing.

Can the Minister expand a wee bit on what role he thinks the Department for Work and Pensions and other central Government Departments could have as employers, and whether they will have a role in recruiting people from incapacity benefit, or from employment and support allowance, as it will be?

Another key question is how any employer engagement undertaken by the Department or, indeed, by contractors on behalf of the Department—delivering pathways to work, for example—will relate to the action plans that will be drawn up for individuals. Is it the Minister’s thinking that within the action plans reference could be made to the role that employers will play? That is the substance of the first amendment. The burden of one of the other amendments is that the action plan is not just about the individual. It is about what the personal adviser can do to help an individual and what potential employers might do in the context of the individual action plan.

Amendment No. 38 is about safeguards in relation to the reconsideration of an action plan. Subsection (4) provides that an action plan can be reconsidered under certain circumstances to be specified in regulations. Will the Minister assure us that an individual who is the subject of an action plan will have the right to request a change to it, or to withdraw it completely and to ask for a fresh one to be drawn up if circumstances change?

Amendment No. 143 is intended to probe the Government’s definition of the “prescribed circumstances” in which a person will be provided with an action plan document. With those brief words, I invite the Minister to spell out his thinking.

Jeremy Hunt (Conservative, South West Surrey)

I wish to speak to Amendment No. 157, which is on requirements on employers. A concern that many people have about the Bill is that there is not enough in it about how we will improve communications with employers, who are an important part of the equation. Both Ministers will be aware of statistics that show that there is still a huge amount of discrimination by employers. Some 38 per cent. are not prepared to take on anybody with any disability, and63 per cent. are not prepared to take on someone with a background of mental illness. It is important to involve employers in the process, and the amendment suggests that requirements on employers should be part of the action plan.

We have had Sheffield Dave and Derbyshire Dave; may I mention Tunbridge Wells Tim? I have changed his name, because I do not want to put his real name on the record. He suffered an acquired brain injury when he was a teenager when he stepped out of a bus and was mown down by a car that was moving very fast alongside it. He was in a coma for many months. The result is that he has a learning disability that will be with him for the rest of his life. He was supported brilliantly by Kent Supported Employment, which did a fantastic job of placing him in a job. He tried several times to get a job, but he was open about his learning disability and was not interviewed. Then he applied for a job at the Odeon cinema in Tunbridge Wells andwas supported considerably by Kent Supported Employment. He did not mention his learning disability, but as soon as he was invited for an interview Kent Supported Employment contacted the Odeon and explained the situation. The Odeon staff were very willing to see him and he is now doing a brilliant job in that cinema.

When I went to the cinema and spoke to people about it, I asked the staff about the challenges involved. They mentioned the role of the personal advisers who help disabled people to get into employment. They said that it is crucial, and they gave an example. Tim was serving ice cream and some of it dropped on the counter. He started to eat the ice cream that had been dropped. Had they not known about his disability, that would have been a sackable offence. He would probably not still be working there. The excellent relationship that the cinema had developed with the advisers meant that they were able to deal with the situation. As a result, his prospects there are going from strength to strength. That is a good example of why involvement with employers, including, as the Minister rightly said, the Government’s involvement, is incredibly important.

I turn to the comments made by the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire. There are some brilliant employers—parts of BT, Asda and Royal Mail—that do an excellent job. However, they say that they have been driven to do so by labour market shortages. It made them consider tapping into another labour market: people who have a limited capability for work.

BT has found that disabled employees save it a lot of money. It costs the company £3,000 to £5,000 to employ someone, and if it keeps someone for longer, it saves money. BT found that the retention rate after one year for disabled employees was almost 10 per cent. higher than for non-disabled employees.

There are good stories, but the unemployment trajectory is firmly upward. The hon. Lady also raised the issue of accession states.

David Ruffley (Conservative, Bury St Edmunds)

I pay tribute to the way in which my hon. Friend has shared a heart-warming and positive story from Tunbridge Wells. Does he recognise the statistic about tight labour markets? The Shaw Trust, among others, has suggested to me that the employment rate of disabled people in Berkshire could be eight or 10 times higher than the employment rate of disabled people in Bridgend. We must understand that and develop policies to deal with it.

Jeremy Hunt (Conservative, South West Surrey)

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and it underlines my point. One of the most important outcomes of the Bill, the general direction of which the whole Committee supports, must be the stepping up of involvement with employers. With the pathways to work pilots, we have the mechanism to make it happen. However, there are practical requirements of employers, which is where the amendment has some value. Employers are obliged to make reasonable adjustments through the Disability Discrimination Act 2005, but a reasonable adjustment will vary depending on the disability of the person seeking employment. The personal adviser will be aware of the disability and what the reasonable adjustment should be.

The amendment would clarify what employers were expected to do, as they form part of the bargain. Under the 2005 Act, the provision would become part of the action plan and a helpful part of the process. On that basis, I look forward to the Minister’s comments.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I am happy to respond to the points that the amendment raises. Hon. Members are right to say that there are inspirational examples throughout the country, and they have referred to a couple of them. I, like many on the Committee, have had the opportunity to listen to people in my constituency and elsewhere describe how they have been helped by employers who have provided leadership and inspiration.

John Robertson (Labour, Glasgow North West)

I have listened to the hon. Member for South-West Surrey, and he has taken some matters out of context. I think I know a little bit about BT, seeing as I worked for the company for 31 years.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

You were employed by them.

John Robertson (Labour, Glasgow North West)

That might be nearer the mark. BT has always employed people with disabilities, and it has always sought to help those people who become disabled during their employment.

Will my hon. Friend the Minister allay my fears about the figures we have discussed? Employment is rising all the time, and that is one reason why we are considering such people for employment. The issue has nothing to do with unemployment, because more people are employed now than at any time in the history of employment figures.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

My hon. Friend is right to say that there are now more people in work, and before the hon. Member for South-West Surrey intervenes, I do not seek to make a wider point. For the first time in our history, there are 29.02 million people in employment. For the first time since records began, the UK has more than 29 million people in work. Before the hon. Gentleman says that that is because of migrants, I shall point out that migrants make up less than 1 per cent. of our labour force. The big increase during the past year has been in the employment of people over 50 years old. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary said, there are 200,000 more people over 50 in work today than there were on this date one year ago. I believe that there are about 609,000 current vacancies in the labour market, for jobs that employers are trying to fill. In that context, we have the opportunity to put in statute the kind of support that people who have been out of the labour market for a considerable time are entitled to expect.

I do not have the honour of representing the city of Glasgow—the city of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson)—because my constituency is just outside it. The Silverburn centre is being built there—my old school was bulldozed as a result—and the agreements that have been entered into by employers are a model for what could happen in other parts of the United Kingdom. A series of employers have entered into agreements on the number of local people employed and on the number of people who have a history of long-term unemployment coming off IB and other benefits. If such agreements could be replicated throughout the country, it would take us a long way towards what we are discussing under the Bill.

I turn to the specific points that have been made. We have experience of listening to IB customers who have been supported into and retained in work because of the inspiration, far-sightedness and progressiveness of employers. The hon. Member for South-West Surrey mentioned some, and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West, who used to be a manager at British Telecom for many years, cited his own company; I know that he has declared an interest every time he has mentioned it and its trade union.

We can discuss the nature of the agreements contained in the clause in terms of action plans, because there is a degree of misunderstanding about what they would contain. The action plan is not a legal document, and the customer will not be asked to sign it. It is simply a record of the conversation between the individual, the personal adviser and the customer, and of what the customer has agreed to undertake. The customer is under no obligation, and we are not taking the power in the Bill to oblige a customer to adhere to the content of an action plan.

I understand some of the concerns, and I hope to allay them by virtue of these comments. Perhaps that might impact on hon. Members’ attitudes to some of the other amendments that have been tabled. The action plan is intended as a route map back to work. No one will have to fulfil a specific commitment contained in it. In fact, when it comes to an appeals process, if that was appropriate in terms of sanctioning at a later date, the customer would have to show that they had undertaken work-related activity in the widest sense, as outlined in the Green Paper, rather than that they had adhered to the contents of the action plan. I hope that hon. Members have a greater understanding and less confusion about the role of action plans in the context of work-related activity, and that that impacts on their attitudes to, and concerns about, an action plan.

The hon. Member for Daventry spoke about the close and important relationship between the personal adviser and the customer. The action plan is intended to be issued at the end of the first work-focused interview, after eight weeks. It can, of course, continue to be updated but, for the avoidance of any doubt, I repeat that its contents are a record of the conversation. They do not compel the customer to undertake a specific activity or fulfil the content of that action plan. The onus on the customer is to undertake work-related activity, the nature of which was outlined in the Green Paper, as that would take them closer to the labour market in between work-focused interviews. I hope that that reassures hon. Members about the nature of the action plan.

In that context, it would be inappropriate to try to place in an action plan a legal or organisational responsibility on employers in a local environment with which each customer would be expected to interact, because we are not even putting into the action plan a specific responsibility with which the customer has to interact. To put the type of responsibility on employers that we are not even asking customers to undertake would be wholly inappropriate in the context of these action plans.

Employer engagement is absolutely crucial, which is why we take the opportunity to meet and to listen to some of our major national and local employers to see what more we can do to support them to ease the transition into work of people who have been out of work for a considerable period. As we roll out ESA, the return to work credit of £40 a week for 52 weeks will ease the customer’s pathway back to work. We can always look for ways of improving that pathway and easing the transition. Extension of the linking rules to two years is a new and important way of doing that.

Even if it were workable—there is a legitimate argument on whether it would be workable—it is not necessary to designate in an action plan, which is the note of a conversation between a customer and the adviser about what could bring the customer closer to the labour market. However, the customer has no legal responsibility to follow that advice, so designation would probably be unworkable and is certainly unnecessary.

To give the Secretary of State the additional power to place requirements on himself and external organisations that are carrying out his functions, as the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey is seeking to do in amendments Nos. 38 and 141, could mean requiring a pathways to work provider to make available a specific type of training to customers. That can be better done through the contracting system and that is how we intend to deal with the specific point raised by the hon. Gentleman.

Importantly, the draft regulations on work-focused interviews, which have been provided to the Committee, set out the responsibilities of the customer during the interview and they will be expected to participate fully. The Government already have adequate powers in legislation to place requirements on employers. In particular, the employment provisions in the Disability Discrimination Act place duties on employers not to discriminate against disabled people in recruitment and employment, and they must make reasonable adjustments.

Amendment No. 38 would provide for regulations on the role of the customer in determining the action plan and the right of appeal against it. The action plan is best considered in the context of a route map. It is not a legal agreement or a legal document in the sense that some hon. Members have been concerned about and it is not appropriate to make it subject to appeal for that reason. Instead, subsection (4) allows for regulations to enable the customer to ask for the action plan to be reconsidered. We intend to make regulations under that power when we introduce the mandatory work-related activity to allow the customer to request an alteration to the action plan if they feel that that is appropriate. Not following the action plan is not a sanctionable offence and the action plan cannot specify a course of activity in relation to work-related activity. The amendments advocated by the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey are therefore unnecessary. Equally, it would not be appropriate in a conversation between two individuals to place a requirement on another external organisation—that is, an employer—that we do not even expect one of the parties to the conversation to fulfil as part of the action plan.

With that general reassurance about the nature of an action plan, I hope that hon. Members will be encouraged to reflect, not to press the amendments and to consider the importance of subsequent amendments on conversations under clause 13.

Danny Alexander (Liberal Democrat, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)

This short debate has been useful, not least because of the opportunity to put on the record the importance that the Government attach to working with employers. I think everyone in the Committee attaches critical importance to that. There was almost nothing in the Green Paper about that, so it is good that the Minister’s comments have provided more information on the record than was in the Green Paper. With that in mind, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Jeremy Hunt (Conservative, South West Surrey)

I beg to move amendment No. 51, in clause 13, page 12, line 10, at end insert

‘including, in particular, circumstances where work-related activity cannot be accessed by him for a reason related to his physical or mental condition and circumstances where work-related activity is judged by a health care professional approved by the Secretary of State to be having a detrimental effect upon his physical or mental condition.’.

I do not need to detain the Committee for very long. Briefly, the purpose of the amendment is to reassure a number of external disability organisations that it will be possible to review and change action plans in a couple of specific situations, the first being when the provision that is laid out for a disabled person in an action plan is not accessible. There are concerns that blind and partially sighted people, in particular, do not receive adequate support in a number of employment programmes. Because of the benefits sanction that sits behind the action plan, it is important that such people should not be penalised where the provision is not accessible.

Secondly, there are also concerns that it should be possible to change an action plan if it is any way detrimental to the health, impairment or disability of the person concerned. I am sure that it is possible to do that, but the issue is a concern to a number of people. Part of those concerns is legitimately created by the fact that some provision has not always been adequate in some of the employment programmes that have existed under the pilots. It would be most welcome if the Minister could reassure the Committee on that point.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

May I start by repeating what I said in my earlier contribution? It is important to avoid confusion and others not understanding the full implications of what we say in this Committee. I confirmed earlier that the action plan will not attract a sanction, and the hon. Gentleman repeated that that was a concern.

Mr. Huntindicated assent.

Jim Murphy (Labour, East Renfrewshire)

I see him nodding so he accepts what I say. On the basis that action plans do not attract a sanction, I hope that the concerns that outside organisations have expressed about the nature and role of action plans, and about the relationship between action plans and any sanction in an appeals regime is reduced. The action plan is a route map. It sets out a type of activity that a customer could be expected to undertake. It will not compel anyone to undertake any specific activity, and as we roll out work-related activity, we will take the power in subsection (4) to set out

“the circumstances in which reconsideration may be requested”.

We shall, of course, consult on the regulations before we bring them before the House. With those comments, I encourage the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.

Jeremy Hunt (Conservative, South West Surrey)

I am grateful for the Minister’s reassurance on those points, particularly on where sanctions can and cannot be applied. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.