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Welfare Reform Bill

The Minister will not be surprised to know that the amendments in the group have the support of the Opposition. I am pleased that the Government accepted them in the other place and worked closely with Baroness Campbell of Surbiton on co-producing them. The Government have effectively done what we urged them to do when we debated the issue in the Commons. The Minister will know, because he was the one dealing with part 2 of the Bill, that we pressed in Committee for the exclusion of community and social care services from the Bill to be removed. He is right; we highlighted the fact that the Bill included a broadly drawn power, which sounded encouraging, that was narrowed substantially by the exclusion of community care services. When we pressed the Minister in Committee, the answer that he gave was about avoiding duplication or causing confusion. We pressed him on that, and I am pleased that the discussions that took place—presumably between the Minister's Department and the Department of Health—have been successful. He has confirmed that the pilots will be able to include community care services and that if those pilots are successful, as I very much believe they will be—