---

Welfare Reform Bill

The challenge of any scheme and any evaluation is to have a control model. I do not know whether that model should involve those who do not participate at all or those who volunteer. One thing to the DWP's credit is that it is extremely good at commissioning research. In fact, most university social science departments would close down without the DWP. The hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb) would have been unemployed for 20 years if it had not been for the DWP and its predecessors—it has got a lot to answer for! The Department is extremely good at commissioning research, which often turns around and bites it or kicks it in the teeth, unlike in America, where an extreme paucity of research into the impact of policies lets Washington get away with murder, but I must move on. Amendment 46 seeks to delete—it really hurts to say it—clause 4. I am not sure what is the policy intention of clause 4. [Interruption.] No, if we wanted to nationalise the top 200 companies now, we would have to invade Tokyo, Paris, New York and Berlin or something. Clause 4 seems to suggest that, where both people in a couple are entitled to make a claim and one of them has a health condition and the other does not, the one with a health condition will no longer be allowed to make a claim and that the one without a health condition will have to make a JSA claim, subject to the job-searching routine and so on. It seems to me that that removes choice, because one individual is no longer allowed to make a claim and she—I suspect that mostly women will be impacted by the provisions—will not have the benefit that would have been previously available to her under employment and support allowance. That represents a policy deficit, and I hope that the Minister can explain what lies behind that clause. Amendment 47 seeks to delete clause 11, which will alter the conditions for receiving employment and support allowance. There are two contribution conditions—the first condition and the second condition, as those who are expert in these things will know. At the moment, the first condition is that people must have paid national insurance contributions sometime in the past three years. Clause 11 seeks, for some reason, to reduce that to two years. It aligns that benefit with JSA, so I suppose that there is some logic in that, but it seems a particularly picky and negative thing to do. I do not think that many people will be affected by that proposal and I cannot see any financial advantage to the Department, so I hope that the Minister will comment on it.