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Welfare Reform Bill

As the person who had the honour, privilege and pleasure of introducing this in the first place, I congratulate my noble friend on coming to a clean decision on it. The easy way would have been to have let them fall into disuse without actually changing the legislation. My noble friend is to be congratulated on cleaning it up in this way. At the core of the problem—this is why the pilot at the time was limited in its geographical areas—was the issue of double jeopardy. The question was whether it was legitimate to sanction someone for failing to observe a community sentence which meant, if that sentence was being properly monitored, that that person should have gone back to prison anyway. At the time, the changing direction of the Probation Service had not been sufficiently clarified so we were putting financial sanctions in that would not have been needed if the Probation Service had been working effectively; they would not have applied or, indeed, been relevant. What has happened, as I think my noble friend said, is that since 2003 we have sharpened that aspect. Given that most of those offenders should not be in a position where they are receiving any benefit in the first place, there is not much point having sanctions on benefit for people who are not receiving it. Clearing up the legislation has made that section of the original 2001 Act largely redundant. It was uncomfortable because we were trying to work out whether it was reasonable to go for what some people were alleging was double jeopardy or whether, in the absence of an even degree of involvement by the Probation Service in enforcing community orders, anti-social orders and so on, it was legitimate to have this as an additional penalty. We were trying to steer a line through that, and I am delighted that we do not have to continue to do so. We should congratulate my noble friend on clearing it up for us.