Clause 14
Welfare Reform Bill
10:30 am
Danny Alexander (Shadow Minister and Disability Spokesperson, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)
It is good to be in Committee again, Mr. Amess. In the spirit of the remarks of the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell), I hope that we can make some progress today. I certainly will be working to achieve that. I am sad to say that once again, while the weather in London may be clement, the weather in the highlands is rather inclement, as it has been over the weekend. I am not sure whether that has much bearing on our proceedings, but I thought that it was worth starting with that observation.
I shall be brief. The clause gives Ministers the power to direct that certain activity does not count as work-related activity. Presumably such a direction would have to be issued retrospectively. In other words, someone would be carrying out a certain activity and the personal adviser would, for whatever reason, decide that it was not work related.