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Welfare Reform Bill

There is a broader point underlying this important group of amendments—the spatial incidence of unemployment. The pilot Pathways to Work experience suggested that in carefully picked areas of the country, things were capable of being handled, and lessons have been learnt. But some geographical locations, such as the travel-to-work area around Merthyr Tydfil, the north-east and the heavy industrialised areas, have a high stock of incapacity benefit claimants. The circumstances that apply in the small number of areas covered by the pilot is qualitatively different in terms of problems being faced, labour market conditions, culture, background and the way in which the department is able to deploy this policy. It is right for the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, to ask for assurances about consistency of assessments. The department is living in cloud-cuckoo-land if it thinks that conditions in Basildon are the same as those in Merthyr Tydfil, because they are not. If we do not recognise that right from the beginning, consistency of assessment will fail and the department will miss an opportunity with regard to the scale of the support measures necessary to deal with the spatial geographical incidence of the unemployment figures resulting from the collapse of the large-scale smokestack industries. Can the Minister widen the questions raised by the amendments to deal with the quantity, level and scale of the difficulty faced by the personal advisers in Jobcentre Plus in these special areas of the United Kingdom?