Welfare Reform Bill

moved Amendment No. 73: 73: Clause 12 , page 11, line 38, leave out subsection (7) The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 82, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, is grouped with this amendment. I apologise for my confusion just now; there are moments when this Committee seems to go very slowly, others when it goes exceeding fast, and sometimes I find it rather difficult to keep up. This is a probing amendment to see how rigorously the conditionality of this part of the Bill will be applied. It appears that a claimant is at risk of being sanctioned with the loss of part of his benefit or even, as the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, makes clear, his eligibility for any part of the ESA if he were to come off his medication or refuse medical treatment. Can the noble Baroness expand on what medical treatment she envisages a claimant could find himself unable to refuse? There can be many good reasons for not taking prescribed medication. Noble Lords around the Committee know more about the medical effects of particular treatments than I do. But I am assured that there can be many good reasons for not taking prescribed medication or treatment, such as unexpected side effects, a fluctuating condition or merely an unwillingness to undergo a certain treatment regime. Undergoing treatment is often a very personal decision. For example, do the Government intend to make the participation in cognitive behaviour therapy compulsory for some disabilities, a matter to which the noble Countess, Lady Mar, has referred? If so, how do they intend to enforce that, given the near impossibility of judging whether someone is fully participating in this sort of treatment? I would also like to query when a sanction would be considered appropriate and when a full disqualification would be imposed. The Minister suggested on Amendment No. 49 that sanctions would be imposed only on the amount of benefit above the basic allowance. No claimant would therefore see their income fall beyond the level considered suitable for the assessment period. I think that that is a summary of what the noble Lord just said. Can the noble Baroness confirm that this is correct? This concern was raised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights which felt that the limit suggested in regulations—that 50 per cent of the work-related component could be withdrawn for four weeks and 100 per cent after that—should be put in the Bill rather than being consigned to secondary legislation. Can she also tell us what sort of behaviour would lead to the imposition of sanctions and what would lead to total disqualification? This last sanction would, I imagine, be used only in extremis. However, we have also been reassured that there would be a high threshold on any sanction at all. Finally, can the noble Baroness explain what will happen to a person disqualified from ESA? Will he go on to JSA or will he enter a benefit no-man’s-land? In other words, will he lose all benefit of any sort? I hope that she can reassure us that these sanctions and disqualifications will be restricted to only the most egregious cases of obstruction and that sensitivity will be shown when discussing what treatment and medication is necessary for meeting the requirements of the work-related activities. I beg to move.