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Welfare Reform Bill

This is quite a big group of amendments, including Amendments 175, 175A, 176, 177, 178, 178ZA, 178ZB. I said two things in relation to the last group of amendments, in the names of my noble friend Lord Goodlad and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. The first was that I was perfectly prepared to accept the Bill's proposition that there should be a pilot, with a sunset clause, to examine the efficacy of the administrative removal of driving licences, with the ability to appeal to the courts if the decision is contra to the applicant’s wishes. I merely extemporised in saying that on what I said at Second Reading. I also said that my proposals differed somewhat from those of my noble friend; they had the merit of being simpler and potentially more acceptable to the Government. I did not intervene in the cross-chat at the end of my noble friend’s group of amendments, but it occurred to me that whether you used the courts or not, CMEC would have had to do the work already, so that the duplication that he was talking about almost certainly would not exist. It would have to prepare a case for itself, which I suspect would not differ one iota from the case that it would have to prepare for the courts. What I suggest in these amendments is that the Government are allowed to test the administrative withdrawal of all travel authorisations, including passports and identity cards, for the two years they are proposing for driving licences alone. I do not believe that I have yet had an answer to the question I asked on Second Reading; namely, by what logic the Government are demanding to have a sunset clause only for driving licences and not for all travel authorisations. That position is as illogical as it would be for me to accept the Bill’s proposals for driving licences, including the sunset clause, but not for passports. My series of amendments, therefore, with the addition of my noble friend’s Amendment 175A, for which I am grateful, would mean that all travel authorisations would be treated equally in all respects. This is, I hope, achieved by amending Clause 43 by adding the words "travel authorisation" to the words "driving licence", which already appear in the Bill. Unfortunately, I did not have the consequential amendments as complete as I should have done, so I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Goodlad for Amendments 178ZA and 178ZB. I suspect that I should have amended Schedule 5 as well, which I shall look at that more closely if I decide to pursue this matter on Report.