Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill — Second Reading

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 4:58 pm on 21 March 2013.

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Photo of Lord Freud Lord Freud The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions 4:58, 21 March 2013

My Lords, it was clearly laid down in the primary legislation that that was an expectation, and they were informed by their advisers of that expectation. We are looking now at a subsequent finding by the Court of Appeal, on which we have asked for leave to appeal. However, nobody could have anticipated the finding which is in dispute. There was a lot more information going to clients than was in that letter, because they were in communication with their advisers.

One of the fundamental points at issue here is that we are trying to design a much more flexible welfare system in which we individualise responses. That means that we do not send out loads of generic letters with long lines of prose about what will happen if you do this, that or the other. We are aiming to have a specific conversation with people through a flexible system.