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Welfare Reform Bill

Indeed; that is exactly what the provisions in the Bill would enable us to do after two years. We want to ensure that we give people work at that stage, but we would require them to take it up. I saw my right hon. Friend's proposals yesterday; I always look seriously at his suggestions. The reason that time limits have not been supported in this country is that there is a danger of establishing an arbitrary system in which people who have been on benefits through no fault of their own—for example, if they found themselves out of work in the current economic circumstances—could find that they had used up the time in which they were allowed to take up their benefits. Such individual injustices would probably undermine the argument for such a system.