Member

Moving on, there is a practical point to be made: we do not yet know what the recommendations of the review will be. To legislate now that the Government must implement them in full before acting on any overpayments, or before the wider Bill can be brought into force, risks binding Parliament and the Executive to a course of action without knowing the content of what that action will be. I respectfully suggest that it is premature and potentially quite problematic to impose a legal obligation to implement recommendations that are, as of now, unseen. We should instead allow the review to report, assess its recommendations carefully and ensure that they are acted on in a proportionate and timely way, but we should not let that process paralyse the implementation of vital enforcement powers or the fair recovery of funds that have already been misallocated. That comment chimes with the vast majority of questions that have been raised in this short debate, as prompted by the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister and Lady Fox.