Lord Christopher
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Welfare Reform
Lord Christopher Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Christopher
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether their welfare proposals took account of the International Labour Organisation’s Convention 29 on forced labour.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)
My Lords, I can confirm that the proposals in the White Paper Universal Credit: welfare that works are compatible with the United Kingdom’s obligations under the International Labour Organisation's Convention 29 on forced labour.
Lord Christopher
My Lords, I am obliged for the Answer, which does not take us a great deal further than it did last Thursday. I have two concerns. One is the obvious Question that I tabled, and the other is that what is proposed at the tail end of exercises with those who are on benefit is clearly without any constructive objective whatever. This is a fascinating document, written 80 years ago. It is an interesting social read. There are 33 articles and I will read just three lines.
Lord Christopher
It is no good looking at something if you do not know what it is. The Forced Labour Convention states:
“For the purposes of this Convention the term forced or compulsory labour shall mean all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily”.
I have been in touch with the ILO this morning and I believe that it is looking at the jurisprudence that has gone on in the past few years. Will the Minister explain how what they are doing meets that objective?
Lord Freud
The mandatory work activity is designed to help a small number of customers to get back into the labour market, with labour market disciplines. If the noble Lord is referring to the attitude of the ILO on the matter, ILO experts produced a report on it in 2007 in which they accepted that this kind of work to help people back into the workplace was acceptable.