Welfare Reform Bill

That is very good to have on the record. It would be interesting to know why he floated the idea in the first place. One thing that drove me into politics was the Tory Government scrapping single payments for people on benefit and replacing them with loans. The idea that a Labour Government would even float high interest rates for poor people was pretty shocking. I know that the Secretary of State said no, but why did he say yes in the first place? That is what is so worrying. It even became a policy for a weekend, until it was stamped on by an adverse press reaction. We have to make sure that that does not happen, as he says. On child support and child maintenance, we had a bizarre exchange about driving licences and passports, as though such sanctions cannot be imposed at present. It does not happen very often, as far as I am aware, but the Government have had the power for many years to take driving licences and passports, so what's new in the Bill? Presumably the fact is that there is a bit of due process to go through and it takes a bit of time, so the Government, in characteristic new Labour fashion, want to sweep away the due process because it gets in the way and slows things down. By and large, before the Government get to the point where they threaten a father, typically, with taking away his driving licence or passport, the Child Support Agency or the Child Maintenance Enforcement Commission have been engaging with that person for years. The idea that a few weeks, or however long due process takes, is some insurmountable barrier is absurd.