Part of Welfare Reform Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 5:00 pm on 24th February 2009.
As I hope that I have indicated already, this is a probing amendment and I shall seek the Committees leave to withdraw it on the basis that I have drawn some reassurance from the Ministers entirely appropriate remarks. Having heard the Ministers two examples, however, I am not entirely convinced by the aim. In the first example, he said that somebodys ill health might prevent them from carrying out their original direction, but I am not entirely convinced that the aim of doing justice to that person could not be achieved by a simple variation rather than by a revocationvarying the terms of the order, so that the completed part stood but was varied to something more suitable to the persons current health conditions. I am not sure that variation would not be a better way of dealing with it than revocation, when what was directed in the first place would no longer count because it would have been revoked. However, I draw reassurance from the Ministers explanation of the intentionthat, as far as the individual claimant is concerned, the provision is intended to be positive. In the light of his helpful remarks about that positivity and its effect on any subsequent interpretation of the provisions, should it come to that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.