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Welfare Reform Bill

Responding first to the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, it is inevitably the case, as my noble friend confirmed, that when having pathfinders and pilots it is not infrequent for there to be different financial arrangements in the pilots from the generality of benefits. As my noble friend says, we need a controlled situation to test the benefits of the arrangements that we are looking at. I stress that our pilots revolve around the benefit being conditional, not around inactivity being a choice. I do not wish to raise my noble friend’s hopes on this. I reiterate that I am happy to reflect on it given the history and what was said in the Green Paper. However, I cannot promise to come back with an amendment that she would find satisfactory.