Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Baroness Morgan of Drefelin and Lord Newton of Braintree

Monday 14th November 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Newton of Braintree]

In an attempt to stop the Minister having to pop up and down, I think that I am right in saying that he has not responded to my concern about the effects of this proposal. Whatever the figures turn out to be, there appear to be some “losers”. What are the effects of this? What steps will be taken to protect or to provide transitional measures? We are talking about sums of money that are significant to people who have not got very much. We have to keep that in mind all the time. The Minister has obviously had his ears bashed enough and no one thinks that we will press the amendment, but we hope that he will think about it.

On carers, I listened with mounting horror to the fact that we shall not know what the effects will be by the time we return to this. If among those 652,000 so-called losers, or whatever number it is, there are a number who also lose carer’s allowance, we are talking about a number of households which will lose serious amounts of money in relation to their income. We need to know what is happening in order to make a judgment about these proposals. I do not expect the Minister to say anything else but he needs to know that this former Secretary of State recognises some concerns.

[Baroness Morgan of Drefelin]

My Lords, I, too, invite the Minister to expand further on the blue badge. Obviously, we have just had a very important discussion about passporting, carer’s allowance and so on. The Minister was almost seen to be giving me reassurance about blue badge and other mobility passporting issues. Perhaps he could expand on the discussions that he is having and on what he hopes the outcome of those discussions might be, and give me a little more hope on that matter.