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Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, in speaking to Amendment 1, I shall speak also to the other amendment in this group, Amendment 8. However, with the leave of the House, before addressing this first amendment, I should like to return to some matters that we debated earlier. On Report, I said that we would consider further the Government’s position to require those lone parents with a child in receipt of disability living allowance to undertake work-related activity. This matter was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas. Work-related activity is an important part of our strategy to move lone parents from inactivity on benefits to an expectation of actively preparing for the time that they are able to work, but we are determined that lone parents must be able to balance these activities with family life. We have already announced that lone parents will be able to fit the work-related activities around school or free nursery hours and that no lone parent with a child under the age of three will be required to undertake such activities. We realise that lone parents caring for younger children who receive disability living allowance may find fitting work-related activity around their caring responsibilities more difficult. We have already introduced a number of safeguards to ensure that lone parents can balance these responsibilities. After careful consideration, we have now decided to ensure that lone parents on income support who have a child under the age of 16 and in receipt of any rate of care component of disability living allowance will not be required to undertake work-related activities. Of course, they will still be offered full support to help them to prepare for work, which they can take up on a voluntary basis. As it was previously our intention that the exemption relating to children in receipt of the middle and highest rate DLA care component be dealt with in regulations, it is our intention that this procedure be applied to cover the extension to children in receipt of the lowest rate care component of DLA. As regards Amendment 1, Clause 28 inserts a new paragraph in Schedule 1 to the Jobseekers Act 1995, which will introduce an automatic 13-week exemption from the jobseeker’s allowance conditionality rules for victims of domestic violence. This clause, which was inserted in the Bill following a government amendment on Report, includes provision for secondary legislation to deal with more detailed issues, such as the exact definition of what constitutes domestic violence and the circumstances in which the exemption will be applied. In considering this amendment, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee expressed concern that regulations under this new provision would be subject to the negative procedure. It was particularly concerned that the power to define what is meant by "domestic violence" should be subject to appropriate parliamentary control. Amendment 1 will ensure that the affirmative procedures apply to all regulations made under this new provision. Amendment 8 corrects a drafting omission and will ensure that orders made under Clause 47 will be made by way of statutory instrument. Noble Lords will recall that this clause covers the power to remove the exclusion of community care services from the right to control provisions. Clause 48 provides that such orders will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure in Parliament, the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales. I beg to move.