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Welfare Reform Bill

Where do I go from here? I want the ideas behind Clause 9 to work. I suspect that we all do. The real question is whether this is the right way to get addicts off their drugs. I shall deal with this in a fairly seriatim way. Amendments 95 and 96, which would remove from the Bill the element of propensity to use drugs, raise a pertinent question. Our position on providing benefits to those people who take drugs is clear. They must make an effort to combat their habit or risk the loss of benefit. I go along with the clause that far. As I have said twice already, it really should not be acceptable for the state to subsidise substance abuse with no questions asked. This is not a Hobson's choice, as some have made it out to be. The aim is not to harry and hound drug addicts off benefits altogether. We should not treat Clause 9 in isolation. It should be seen in the context of the rest of Part 1. I said at Second Reading that with rights, in this case to JSA, go responsibilities. Indeed, the whole premise of the Bill is based on that precept. For a long time now we have had the responsibility of actively seeking work. Now we move that responsibility on to attend a progress-to-work interview and agree an action plan. For drug users, the action plan is to help them in the long run to kick the habit, and other barriers to work, and to reintegrate them into the workplace. There cannot be any noble Lord in this Committee who seriously thinks otherwise, nor any who would prefer to see drug addicts left to their addiction, with all the catastrophe that that entails, especially if the modern world believes—I very much took to heart this comment from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher—that to be a drug user is an illness rather than a crime. I agree with her that that is an extremely important development. Surely the ideal that we are all groping towards is to wean addicts off their drugs and rehabilitate them so that they can participate fully in society and the world of work. Where we differ—the Government clearly differ from those in the Committee who have spoken—is how that is to be achieved. The method that the Government have chosen is to put responsibility into the hands of Jobcentre Plus staff. They will be moved to the front line of rescuing drug addicts from the depredations of dependency and will be responsible for setting them on the path back to work. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, is wrong and that nobody is going to be asked to give a urine sample in a jobcentre. That is for other professionals further down the line.