---

Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, no. I am making a different argument here. It is an argument about cost. However, I will come back to the ““arbitrary”” issue from the perspective of what happens elsewhere. Other countries do not have benefits which precisely mirror the design of the ESA, but a number of countries already impose time limits on eligibility for both sickness benefit, which covers temporary incapacity for work, and invalidity benefit covering long-term or permanent incapacity. For example, Austria, Belgium, France, Denmark, Ireland, Spain and Sweden all impose 52-week time limits on their citizens.