Welfare Reform Bill

The hon. Gentleman needs to understand that a televisual contraption has been invented that allows people who are not in the Chamber to watch the debate. We heard some old flannel from the Scottish National party—I am not sure whether it was a Front-Bench or Back-Bench contribution, but then neither was the hon. Member for Glasgow, East (John Mason)—which I still cannot fully understand. That is a real pity given the Bill's importance for Scotland and the ravages left behind by last Government. At least six colleagues on the Labour Benches made substantive contributions, which is very instructive. None the less, I broadly welcome the tone of the debate, and much of what was said in concentrating on the Bill. I understand that people can get confused by references to the Green Paper, the White Paper, the Gregg review and the Bill, all four of which need to be read in their entirety. Not everything needs primary legislation, as the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) noted, but I can tell him that I have always tried as far as possible to prepare at least the grid of what secondary legislation may follow on from primary legislation. That was certainly true of my approach on previous Bills, such as the one that became the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008. The hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) made a perfectly fair point about the secondary legislation and other bits of legislation that might follow on from this Bill. I can tell them that, as far as we can, we intend to have at least a draft outline of the direction of travel of the regulations ready for the Committee. I am very sorry that I missed the debut of the right hon. Member for Maidenhead. I am afraid that, on balance, the pull of 15 primary and secondary heads from the London borough of Harrow was sufficient to win me over and I was not able to listen to her contribution. Even so, I welcome the broad support that she has given the Bill, and what I hope is the shift in tone evident in her remarks. Her predecessor gave us a mixture of rank opportunism and utter confusion. The right hon. Lady appears to have changed her view of the help and treatment of problematic drug users. I was not entirely sure about that from her remarks, but that must be the right direction to go in. She has certainly changed her opinions about passports and driving licences, and I am afraid that she was entirely wrong when she suggested that the Government had been instrumental in withdrawing an amendment to the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill in the other place. Lord McKenzie and Lord Skelmersdale both made it clear that, in order to get that Bill through in time, the Tories would not press their amendment that would have removed the Child Support Agency's right to overturn court orders on child maintenance after 12 months in certain circumstances, in return for the Government converting passport removal to a court-based procedure. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, very clearly, the only way to get the measure through the other place was to water it down at the behest of the Conservatives. If the right hon. Member for Maidenhead has shifted her position on that, that is also very welcome. With the best will in the world, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, North (Mr. Rooney) will know, the conditionality regime for lone parents and the age shift alluded to by Freud may well have their genesis in the Nordic countries, or in Michigan or Wisconsin in the States, depending on one's view; they certainly do not have their genesis in Chingford, notwithstanding the contribution that the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith) makes on such matters, albeit belatedly.