Clause 48
Welfare Reform Bill
6:00 pm
Danny Alexander (Shadow Minister and Disability Spokesperson, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)
I want to take this opportunity to probe the Government’s thinking on this change. In previous debates in this Committee in which we have discussed benefit sanctions or conditionality, I have been keen for information from Ministers about the evidence on which the proposed change is based.
As I understand it, the clause will extend from three years to five years the period in which benefit may be sanctioned or lost if a second benefit fraud conviction takes place. Will the Under-Secretary tell the Committee on how many occasions the power has been used since it was introduced with a three-year limit? When it has been used, on how many occasions has it resulted in benefit being withdrawn entirely, and in how many has benefit been withdrawn partially?
In the no doubt detailed assessment that the Under-Secretary and her officials carried out before proposing the change, in how many cases would the power have applied since it was introduced if the five-year time limit had been in place rather than the three-year time limit? It is important for the Committee to understand, looking back, what difference the extended power would have made in practice in evaluating the judgments that Ministers have made in advancing the clause. I look forward to her explanation of that evidence base.