Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Boswell of Aynho Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I acknowledge that we are not comparing like with like. We are looking at a sensible level at which to put the maximum benefit payment. The level that we are looking at is the equivalent of a household earning £35,000. I think that one can overelaborate the logic, which I will not attempt to do here.

Amendment 99AA, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, would introduce a grace period. I accept that there will be occasions when changes occur that are beyond a household’s control. We have said that we are looking at what transitional arrangements might be appropriate. The arguments that I was laying around the PIP are equally applicable here.

[Lord Boswell of Aynho]

Perhaps my noble friend will assist me. I have been worried a couple of times in this debate, both the other day and today. I would be grateful if he could clarify what seems to me to be a certain ambiguity in the use of the word “transition”—of course, not necessarily from his lips. This can mean one of two things: it can mean either a running-in arrangement to make it softer and more acceptable, and better understood before the policy is introduced, as it were, in macro; or it can mean the micro issue about how one deals with the individual case which is to be handled in a humane way. Does he agree that those are both important but distinctive characteristics? As we develop this argument perhaps into the next stage of the Bill, can we make sure that we keep them both in mind and address them separately?

[Lord Freud]

Yes, my Lords. Empson wrote a book called Seven Types of Ambiguity and my noble friend has cited two of them. I can clear up this particular dual ambiguity: the word “transition” here applies both to the running-in of the system and to the timing of how it will affect particular people when the system is fully run in.