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Welfare Reform Bill

I do not disagree with that. No system of benefits can survive without sanctions. They are an essential part of any such system: there will always be some people who deliberately undermine the system and calculatedly refuse to participate, so they are necessary. However, sanctions should be a measure of failure of the system, not a measure of its success. I am not saying that they are regarded by the Government as a measure of success, but I think that, subliminally, they almost are; it is as if the attitude is, "Well, we've managed to catch this many people doing something wrong and sanction them, and that shows the system's working." That is not the case. We in this House should always keep an eye on what is happening to levels of sanctions, and be very concerned when they rise. The core point of new clause 8 is that sanctions must be balanced with incentives. We do that in terms of the employment and support allowance, but we do not do it in respect of lone parents. I think that the system is broadly right—I do not have any fundamental principled concerns about it. However, if we are going to make it work, we need to make sure that sanctions are borne down on and are matched in all cases with the incentives that we know work.