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Welfare Reform Bill

This is an interesting moment at which to stop and reflect on how the pilot worked out in practice. I remember it very well. It was very controversial in 2001—when, indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, was at the sharp end—which was quite a while ago. If the pilot was carried out under Section 19 of the 1995 Act it should have been limited to one year. It may have been introduced through joint legislation in conjunction with the Ministry of Justice or the Home Office—I do not know—but 2001 is a long while ago. I would like to know exactly when the pilot ended and when the evaluation was made available. The potential sanctions were for up to 26 weeks’ benefit. That will be familiar to Members of the Grand Committee because those are exactly the kind of sanctions that are applicable under the provisions of this Bill. Although the community service sanction, as it became known, is not in point with our unemployment scheme—I understand that perfectly well—the possibility of improving compliance is an essential part of the Bill. If the pilot did not improve compliance and if, as the Minister said, the costs of sanctioning and of transferring information between the courts, the benefit system and the potential community offender outweighed the benefits of the scheme, are there any lessons to be learnt from the evaluation in terms of the work we are doing on this Bill? There should be some questions about hardship payments, for example, because they were part of the pilot and may be part of the new legislation that we are putting in place with this Bill. It is a little casual, if I may put it that way, for the Minister to say, "These plans were put in place in 2001. They were too expensive and did not work very well, so let us take them out of the legislation". I think that we are entitled to a little more than that. A written evaluation of the scheme must have been shared between the department and the Ministry of Justice, if no one else, and I for one would not mind seeing it. If it is not classified information—although I am always looking for state secrets if I can find them—perhaps the Minister can put a copy of it in the Library. There may be lessons that are directly apposite to the legislation we are considering. If that is so, the Committee should see the fruits of the conclusions that the Government reached in withdrawing the scheme.