Welfare Reform

Lord German Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, if I have forgotten what is in the White Paper, I stand reprimanded. In practice, we are looking to take elements of the hardship payments and the Social Fund generally and to localise them, including some of the loans. We are also looking at putting other elements into the universal credit. No hard decisions have yet been taken in this area. We are looking to finalise the restructuring of the Social Fund as we go into the next few weeks and introduce the Bill.

[Lord German]

My Lords, I am not surprised that the Minister has found that the ILO agreement suits the welfare reform proposals before us. However, does he agree that a symbol of a good welfare system is not how many people are locked and trapped within it but how many can be helped to get out of it? Is that not the reason why the welfare reform proposals are before us?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for putting his finger right on the point of these proposals: this is a measure to help people back into work. I should point out that a very similar measure, the Work for your Benefit scheme introduced by the previous Administration, was looked at by the Human Rights Joint Committee in the light of Article 4 of the ECHR, and it was found that it in no way went against people’s human rights or constituted forced labour.