Welfare Reform Bill

I understand that, but had I not been handed the letter, in only the past 10 minutes or so, I would not have dared to take this step. We are talking about directions in relation to childcare. It is true that we fully deployed the arguments on childcare during our earlier debates, occasioned not only by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, but also by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, and—dare I say it?—me, on the first amendment that we discussed on Monday last week. The letter to which I refer is about a mother on income support who was told to attend a compulsory work-focused group information session with up to 15 other single mothers at a particular time on a particular day. The letter—I shall not read out all of it—states: ""I am still breastfeeding. My son is very active and only just learning to walk. Whilst he does eat some solids, 80-90% of his food intake is still breastmilk, about half of which is consumed in the mornings between 6am to noon. He is thriving on it … Because I would rather not disrupt his eating pattern at this stage"—" a fair cause, as I am sure the Minister would agree— ""I called the agency to change the time of the Session. I was told there was no flexibility, only the date could be changed. I was then informed there is a crèche on the premises. Because my son feeds on and off, particularly in the morning, this is unlikely to be of much use to me. He is unlikely to stay in the crèche anyway, so I will have to keep him with me, which will be disruptive to the group"." If this good lady’s supposition is true, it would be a cause for a direction, would it not? She has been informed that there is no opportunity to change the time or date of her work-focused interview. That must be wrong. I shall of course send the Minister the full letter. I should be very grateful for his consideration of this matter, in relation particularly to directions, because that is what we are talking about. I beg to move.