Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Lord Hylton Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2015 Lords Chamber

No Government should take that position. If a Government claim that this is what drives poverty, they should be willing to expose that to the light of statistical evidence. They are walking away from that. The only reason most of us deduce from that is: you do not believe that the results will justify your measures. I fear that that is right.

[Lord Hylton (CB)]

My Lords, I have much sympathy with the amendments in this group, but at the risk of appearing pedantic I ask the proposers of Amendment 25 what the meaning of “equivalised” is. It occurs four times. Does it mean “equivalent” or something else?

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)]

I can answer that. It is a general way across the world that social scientists compare family to family of different sizes so there are ways of weighting each child or adult in the family.