Welfare Reform Bill

That is the nature of my concern. There is an underlying fear that, if people who have been put, for objective reasons, on the support group—neither we nor the Minister want to write them off; that is not the accusation—volunteer, people may judge that as an admission of not needing to be on the support group, ergo they should lose their entitlement to benefits or enter the sanctions regime. Other points that I raised in Committee about the available resources are worth rehearsing—indeed, other hon. Members have done so. It remains my fear that, if resources are tightened for reasons beyond the control of the current Minister or, to be balanced, of the Administration, there may not be enough money to go round and the people in the support group would be the first to be cut out because they might not be perceived as cost-effective. A subsidiary concern, which the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Danny Alexander) mentioned, relates to contractors. If the contract is not well written, there may be an incentive to drop the hard cases because they are expensive. It is not without significance that new clause 7 is co-signed by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who convenes the Public and Commercial Services Union group in the House. There are wider concerns—perhaps political or subliminal—about the treatment of people on employment support allowance and those in the support group. Just as the PCS worries about two-tier work forces, I am sure that clients and claimants will worry about the possibility of different treatment and lack of access to facilities, especially resources, if they are in the support group rather than in the employment group. There is an even wider concern about equal handling from day to day and a worry that the Government or the system will write people off as if the easiest and simplest thing to do is park them in the support group on a reasonable benefit but with no expectation of change. My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Surrey (Mr. Hunt) spoke movingly about the matter earlier when he reminded everyone that we are not writing people off. Options and facilities—perhaps new technology—may come along and enable people to work in ways in which we have not imagined in the past to be practical. Of course, it is no kindness to claimants if they hammer on a door every day and say that they want a work-focused interview. The new clause would confine interviews to a reasonable number. We should not validate people’s hopeless quests but we should not treat people as hopeless cases and they should always have the option of work-focused interviews and availing themselves of support.