Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, inclined as I am to agree with the thinking behind these amendments, it is only fair for me to say that Section 173(5) of the Social Security Administration Act is a sensible procedure in many cases, but not for this Bill. If a regulation is to be enacted within six months of the Bill, it is to be expected that draft regulations and so on will have been fully scrutinised and debated by both Houses and that concerned parties will have had an opportunity to comment. No doubt words such as that will appear very shortly from the Minister’s mouth. But we have seen from the lengthy and sometimes rather confused debates on certain clauses in Part 1 that there is much about the regulations that is still not clear, despite the best attempts of the Government to give us advance sight of as much material as they can and their helpful attempts to explain the points that we have raised. It is unfortunate that it is only now—nearly halfway through the Bill’s progress, after it has already passed through another place—that we are making any real progress in unpicking the confusions that remain. I therefore think that there is a strong argument for making an exception for this Bill, which, as is repeatedly said, makes extensive changes to the system of benefits for disability, and for the Minister to assure us that all the regulations that are needed to implement its provisions are fully consulted on by SSAC. As far as Amendment No. 88 goes, the problem is that great chunks of social security have been pinched by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the department is a pale shadow of what it once was. The Chancellor and his team have a different way of looking at things. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, that it was quite wrong at the time to cut out SSAC and it is just as wrong now.