Welfare Reform Bill
Earl of Listowel Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I would just remark that if that is what the Prime Minister was intending to say, his usual high command of the English language eluded him on that occasion. My noble friend Baroness Wilkins emphasised the fear that people have about this process and about the WCA. My noble friend Lady Hollis was quite right to refer to carers. In fact, my shorthand amendment was meant to encompass that and I entirely accept the point. I am increasingly concerned about the impact of this on young carers as well. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, referred to support for work. He is right, it should not only be about supporting people linked to the labour market. It is a question of how we are going to increase growth and create jobs as well, which is a much wider debate.
My noble friend Lord Beecham made reference to the housing benefit changes and the impact that those will have on labour mobility. I think that the noble Lord referred to people not losing out from universal credit. When you look at the impact of universal credit and some other measures in the Bill, particularly the benefit cap and housing changes, I am not sure that that assertion would necessarily hold true. Having had a good start to proceedings today, we will revisit many of these issues.
The Earl of Listowel
I apologise for coming a little late to this debate, but there is an important point on which I would like some clarification. The Minister in his response said that we are trying to move from a complex system to a simpler one. That resonates with me, having listened to what Professor Eileen Munro has been trying to do with social work, where there was a very complex, bureaucratic system and they have tried to move to a more simple system. But they have discovered that the professional judgment of people at the front line becomes particularly important. The way they use their discretion becomes much more important, and listening to the noble Baronesses, Lady Wilkins and Lady Campbell, and the way in which some of these complex cases are being dealt with by people at the front line reminded me of what my noble friend Lady Meacher said about the importance of training people who work on the front line. It perhaps also reinforces the point I have made in the past about making the culture of the organisation in which people work sensitive to the needs of those who may be mentally ill or vulnerable, and who may respond very poorly to people who seem to be persecuting them in the way they are pursuing them. Have I understood that correctly or is the Minister referring to a different paradigm?
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I think we would all support the concept of a system that was simpler and more readily understood. It helps with take-up, which is the point that the Minister made; we accept that. As we go through the Bill we will examine in fact how simple we can make the system. People have complex and sometimes very chaotic lives. How easy it is to distil those issues into a very simple system and still maintain fairness is one of the challenges we face as we go through the Bill. I readily accept the need to provide full support for people, particularly those at the front line. In a sense, we have an interesting situation in which the work programme, the “black box” approach, gives a lot of discretion in that respect to those working at the front line, but at the same time we have a universal benefit which is more constrained and potentially more restricted. Having said all that, it is probably time to withdraw the amendment, at least for the moment.
Welfare Reform Bill
Earl of Listowel Excerpts(13 years ago)
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The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I would like to join my thanks to those made this afternoon, and to speak briefly about the importance of involving employers, about the governance of Jobcentre Plus, and briefly about housing.
I thank the Minister for the help of the civil servants. There were a number of very helpful briefing meetings which were most welcome, and I am sure this will continue.
The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, raised the issue of involving employers, and if I might I will give an example of how effective that can be in terms of reaching the most hard to reach people out there.
There is a programme, started by the National Grid utility about 10 years ago, led by their chairman, Sir John Parker, which employs young people from within the criminal justice system, and has reduced the reoffending rates among those young people from 70 per cent to below 7 per cent. National Grid has brought in a number of other partners, such as the engineering firm Skanska and another engineering firm Morrisons, and other businesses have been joining in such as software businesses. Because this has come from businesses they have been able to build trust among other employees, and while it would seem most unlikely that many of these companies would wish to employ people from the criminal justice system, in fact they found that because they have made the effort to recruit these young men—they have given them the training and the promise of employing them if they complete the training—those young men have become loyal employees, and have actually risen quickly up the managerial ladders of these companies. They are filling a gap, because these companies have an aging workforce and they need young people to enter their firms.
That is a very important point, and it brings me again to think about whether employers are firmly enough plugged in to the governance of Jobcentre Plus. I hope to table an amendment later in the Bill which will look at how one might perhaps involve more of the stakeholders in the running of Jobcentre Plus. I will not expand too much on this now, but if you look at the example of the Youth Justice Board, which has proved so successful since its introduction about 10 years ago you will see that, its chairman is a former chief executive of a local authority, so she can go to chief executives and directors of children’s services in local authorities and explain to them how important it is that they provide employment and find housing for young people who leave young offender institutions if they are not to reoffend, cost the taxpayer huge sums of money, and ruin their own lives. So I will bring that amendment later.
I am certainly very concerned about housing, but I am grateful for the signals from the Government, who listen very carefully to concerns, and I look forward to that debate. I will sit down at this point, but I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, for allowing this opportunity for a broader debate at the beginning of the Bill.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, I shall comment briefly on a couple of the speeches that have been made. The way the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, introduced the whole of this absolutely explained my frustration and irritation at the short amount of time any of us have been given to do anything at all with this Bill. The noble Lord’s hard look at the use of language was very illustrative too, and that has of course been added to as far as things like social tax are concerned and other points that have already been made.
Above all, I hope that it will help us, because the atmosphere has not been particularly good regarding the whole of the way in which this has been arrived at between the usual channels. To have a little debate like this, setting the scene, will I hope influence how we all approach what we are going to be dealing with. I will leave it at that, but I have been very impressed, let me put it like that, particularly by what the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood has said, and by the way he set the scene for the opening.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
My Lords, it is important that we in this Room remember that we are being observed by the world outside. How we respond to the needs of disabled Members of our House reflects more widely the respect that we show to disabled people in our society. Getting this Committee right is important, not just for noble Lords who wish to participate but for building confidence among communities outside this House that they are being taken seriously and that their concerns have been raised and heard within this House too. I am sure that the Minister is well aware of that. I know that there have been concerns about the way that we are conducting this Committee, and we are doing that in public, rightly so.
The Earl of Listowel
I hope that the Committee will forgive me; I omitted to declare my interest when I spoke about the work of National Grid Transco. I have received hospitality from them on a number of occasions and I have declared that.
Baroness Grey-Thompson
I was asked yesterday morning to come into this room and check for accessibility. I came in at 2.15 pm to check that there was enough room and we are fortunate that a huge amount of work had gone on to make sure that there was enough space for wheelchair users who might come to speak or to deal with various colleagues’ needs. On the point about voting, my personal view is that it is incredibly important that if I take part in a vote, I actually walk, or push, through the Lobby. As much as being able to see my name in a list, it is important to me that Members of your Lordships’ House see which way I push. If there is a Division—I hope not today—I will be going to vote and that is something important that we should all have the opportunity to do.
I know that not all my fellow Peers feel as strongly about walking down one of the Lobbies as I do, but it is very important in terms of democracy.
Welfare Reform Bill
Earl of Listowel Excerpts(13 years ago)
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The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, in the brief time available, I should like to address the principle of universal credit, the impact of the Bill on foster carers, and the training and support of staff dealing with adults with mental health issues. There will not be time for me to speak about housing benefit but I am concerned about the impact of the changes on families, although I welcome the introduction in the other place of a commission to look at those changes. I believe that I am right in that.
I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, for so eloquently putting the principle of universal credit and explaining its importance in getting adults into work. My noble friend Lord Bilimoria, among others, spoke about the importance of work to the soul and to the spirit. I have no doubt that there is work and work, but in terms of breaking the isolation that many people experience and of giving people a sense of purpose and feeling that they have a contribution to make, work is very important to our society. That aspect of this Bill is extremely welcome and has been too long delayed.
Perhaps I may give an example. Tomorrow evening, at the Tallow Chandlers Hall, some of us will celebrate the work of the National Grid young offender programme. Over the years, it has trained more than 1,500 young people from the criminal justice system. It has taken them into employment as fork lift drivers and pipe layers. Among these young men, reoffending has reduced from 70 per cent to well below 7 per cent. For the first time, many of them have found in their mentors—older men who have taken an interest in developing their skills—a kind of father figure and a good, positive male role model. One sees these young men, perhaps fathers with young children, and thinks to oneself that they will be there for their children and will set the right example. Of course, this will also take families out of poverty.
Several years ago, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, talked about the importance of ensuring that mothers get into employment. If mothers are employed, it is far more likely that their daughters will themselves enter employment in their teenage years. There is so much to welcome in this aspect.
I am concerned about the impact on foster carers. Children are taken into care because of abuse in their family, which may include neglect, or because of particular disabilities they may have. Sometimes they have to be fostered because of the impact that the care system has had on them. There has been a long-standing shortage of foster carers and we need an adequate range to get the right placement for the right child. We need foster carers who are prepared to take sibling groups. It is a challenging prospect, but many families around the care system have large families and it is important to keep siblings together where possible.
I turn to social work support. We still have a shortage of social workers and variable quality, though it is improving. We still have social workers tied down, spending 80 per cent of their time on paperwork rather than dealing with families. I welcome the attention that the Government have given to the concerns of foster carers. I welcome the letter from the Minister, Tim Loughton, to Robert Tapsfield, the chief executive of the Fostering Network, the voice of foster carers in England and Wales. He assured him that the Bill will not have an adverse impact on foster carers. Robert Tapsfield met the noble Lord, Lord Freud, recently and I welcome the statement yesterday evening addressing a number of his concerns.
Two outstanding issues remain. One concerns the under-occupancy penalty. I would be grateful for the Minister’s reassurance that foster carers will not be penalised. They need to keep one or two spare rooms for their foster children. I would also like reassurance about staff. There should be statutory guidance on training them to deal with foster carers. They are a small group within the larger system and need particular attention and treatment.
I shall say a little more about staff who deal with mental health issues and foster carers. My noble friend Lady Meacher spoke eloquently about the need to care for often vulnerable adults and to train and support staff properly. I was grateful that the Minister arranged for my social worker colleague to speak to Ross James in his department about training and supporting staff. The culture of the organisation is so important in terms of ensuring that people continue to show compassion and understanding to these vulnerable groups. One looks at the success of the Youth Justice Board over the past 10 years and how the treatment of young people in the criminal justice system has been turned around. At the top of that institution is a board whose directors include the chief executive of the Children’s Society, Bob Reitemeier, and a judge from the youth court, and it is led by a former chief executive of a local authority. These are people who know social care issues well.
If one looks at the immigration system, where there are perhaps similar issues about encouraging people to return to their country of origin if their asylum claim has been disallowed, there is again experience on which we can draw. We can also learn from mistakes, such as at Yarl’s Wood, where the prison service was given charge of these families with their children without any input from the social care arena.
This sort of work can be draining for people on the front line—we see this particularly in the health service —and they need support. They become so fatigued that they can no longer use their discretion in an appropriate way. They must not be overworked and underpaid in the way described by my noble friend. I would be grateful for an opportunity to meet some of the staff who will be delivering this service, as well as the senior management of these agencies, in order to learn more about the culture that surrounds the payments made and the provision of help in this area.
I conclude by saying that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, pointed out, we need to give people in this situation the confidence to go into work. Most will want to work and to break the dreadful culture of dependency. Work is important to the human spirit. It combats isolation, which can lead to all sorts of mental health issues. It is important for people to feel that their life has a purpose. I welcome the Bill and the principle behind it, although I have many concerns about its application. I look forward to working with colleagues and the Minister in Committee.
Housing Benefit
Earl of Listowel Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Freud
My Lords, the key principle behind these housing benefit reforms is that people who are benefit recipients should experience the same kind of pressures as everyone else. That is the way to integrate them back into the world of work, which is one of the fundamentals of our whole welfare reform strategy.
The Earl of Listowel
Is the Minister aware that there is a concern that some families may be moved to different areas, which will put additional pressure on children’s services? Is there a mechanism to give additional support to local authorities if there is an additional burden on those services?
Lord Freud
My Lords, yes, the system works so that, as families move to different areas, funding follows those families. There may however be lags, which clearly is an issue of some concern. The fundamental principle is that funding follows the requirement.
Women: Assistance in Pregnancy
Earl of Listowel Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Freud
There are two areas of financial help. The first is the budgeting loans. As I said yesterday, we are encouraging people to look at budgeting loans in the widest possible way. The second area is community care grants. Again, we expect that many people in the most difficult circumstances will be able to take advantage of those. The noble Baroness’s second question concerned what we were doing to help pregnant women. The Department of Health and the Department for Children, Schools and Families are developing a project, Preparing for Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond, which is looking at a renewed model of universal antenatal education and preparation for parenthood.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, is the Minister aware that young women in care are two and a half times more likely to become pregnant than their peers and that a quarter of young women leaving care are either pregnant or have a child already? Will he consider asking his colleagues who talk with local authorities whether all best practice in the area of support for such young women is collated and being shared as it should be?
Lord Freud
My Lords, I share the noble Earl’s great concern for children in care and take his point about the relatively much higher rate of pregnancy. I shall look closely at what we can do in that area.
Housing Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 2010
Earl of Listowel Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I know that everyone is waiting for the Minister’s response to this debate, so I will be brief. I support my noble friend Lord Best’s Motion, and wish to speak on two issues. One is the availability of social housing and the other is the child protection issue, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, my noble friend Lord Adebowale, and other speakers. I join the consensus of concern in this area.
The noble Lord, Lord German, raised the question of the availability of social housing. Most of us can agree that it is a tragedy that in this country we have failed to invest in good social housing for our people. I visited recently in Walthamstow a mother with a young, six week-old infant who was sharing the house, the bathroom and the kitchen with five other households. We have let such families down badly. I have visited private housing which is being used to fill the gap in Redbridge and some of it is of appalling quality. We have let these families down by not investing and not thinking strategically about securing sufficient social housing supply. The concern, in a sense, is that this will add insult to injury: we have let these families down and we may yet let them down further. I strongly support my noble friend in his call for a considered assessment of the impact of this change.
The noble Lord, Lord Knight, spoke about the impact on children’s services of the migration of families from one area to another. Among other local authorities, he mentioned Haringey. Your Lordships may recall from the report of my noble friend Lord Laming into the death of Victoria Climbié what he discovered about the state of the social services department in Haringey. Among other things, there was a shortage of social workers and a high number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children entering the local authority, putting an additional and unexpected burden on the children’s services. Social worker managers said that it became like a service production line. Social workers were overloaded and Victoria Climbié’s social worker, Mrs Arthurworrey, had far above her maximum case load. This was the context of what happened to Victoria Climbié and the terrible fate that befell her. I urge your Lordships not to forget what happened in that case.
It would serve the Government’s interests well if they were to consider carefully the impact of these changes on children’s services. If something goes wrong and children’s services become overburdened and social workers cannot answer the needs, the media will understandably be very scathing about what they see as the roots of such problems. It might be unhelpful to the Government in the longer term if it seems that the policy on which they are now embarking might lead to the failure of services and the death of a child or some other outcome. I strongly support my noble friend’s Motion and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Baroness Turner of Camden
My Lords, it may not be part of our convention to challenge regulations in this way but we are not living in conventional times. We are faced with a determined attempt by the Government to undermine the welfare society with which we have lived since the end of the last war and to replace it with something called the big society—hence the attempt to change benefit provision without regard to what this will mean for many vulnerable people.
This is the case with housing benefit. Many people have been kept from desperate poverty and even homelessness by the existence of this benefit. Among them are many single parents, mostly women, and it is surely in our interests that such women should be able to bring up and support their children. Often they have poorly paid part-time jobs and some of the difficulties that such women and their families face have already been demonstrated to us very dramatically by one of the previous speakers in the debate.
I am a Londoner and I believe that London is a special case. The mayor may have been attacked for some of the statements he made—he was regarded as having over-reacted—but, on the other hand, he has a point. There are many areas of London, including the one in which I live, which have changed dramatically in the past 20 or 30 years. They have been developed and upgraded. I have lived there for 40 years, and it was relatively inexpensive when I moved there, but it no longer is. It is desperately overpriced. Rents are impossible, except for well-off people.
If the arrangement is that benefits in future should be related to the market rent, many people will be unable to afford the resulting rent without the appropriate benefit. Such people will have no alternative but to move. The mayor made that point strongly in his statement. It is true that people will be unable to go on living there if rent is related in some way to the market rate. That would be impossible. A number of speakers have already referred to what might happen in such circumstances and the social results of such an arrangement. People will have no alternative but to uproot and move to different places, where there may be overcrowding and other undesirable effects on their health and that of their families.
For those reasons, I hope that your Lordships will agree at least to support the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best. I certainly do and I hope that everybody else feels the same way.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I apologise. I omitted to declare my interest as a landlord. I do so now.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)
My Lords, this has been an important and interesting debate. I commend particularly the noble Lords, Lord Knight of Weymouth and Lord Best, on bringing forward these Motions and securing this debate. I shall try to answer as many as possible of the points raised, but, since there was an awful lot of them, I may not cover absolutely everything.
Perhaps I may first put the debate into context and explain why the statutory instruments are essential to advance the changes that we have planned. Housing benefit increases have been quite startling, as a number of noble Lords have pointed out. During the last 10 years, housing benefit expenditure as a whole has nearly doubled in cash terms from £11 billion to £21.5 billion in the current year. Only £2 billion of this increase is due to caseload. About £5 billion is due to general price inflation, but, most importantly, £4 billion is due to growth in private and social rents over and above general inflation. Private rents for benefit recipients have risen in real terms 10 per cent more rapidly than rents in the general market. These are exactly the sort of increases that we are seeking to contain. Without any reform, expenditure is forecast to be £24 billion by 2014-15.
It was imperative that we acted swiftly to stop the runaway costs of housing benefit, those costs having been allowed to rise without restriction year after year. As we made clear in the June Budget last year, welfare reform savings play an important role in reducing the overall budget deficit. The changes introduced by the statutory instruments alone add up to £1 billion by 2013-14.
We must be fair to the taxpayer. It is not right that families who work hard to pay their own rent have to pay even more so that those on housing benefit can live in homes that they could not think of affording. Some of the rates are extreme. I know that not a lot of people are taking £2,000 a week for a five-bedroom property in central London, but there are some and the current system allows it. Further down the scale, £500 a week is being paid for two-bedroom properties and £370 a week for one-bedroom properties at this year’s rates. The Government’s measures are designed to take this under some control.
One of the measures that we have announced, and which has been widely welcomed tonight, is providing for an additional bedroom for disabled people living in the private rented sector who need a non-resident, overnight carer.
Noble Lords have gone through the other changes, but I shall summarise them. They include applying an overall cap to local housing allowance rates and setting the maximum rate at four bedrooms. Those rates are £250 for one bedroom, £290 for two bedrooms, £340 for three bedrooms and £400 for four bedrooms. That is a little over £20,000 as the top rate. We are also removing the £15 weekly excess, which the previous Administration would have liked to do but did not. I do not think that anyone argues that it is appropriate that we pay people more than they pay in rent. It was introduced to encourage a process of negotiation between those who are renting and landlords, but it does not seem to have had that effect, so there does not seem to be much point in paying those figures.
The final element that we have been discussing tonight is the adjustment of the local housing rate from the median to the 30th percentile. Overall, there has been a lot of scaremongering generally, and a little of that tonight—and some false reporting about the measures, although there has not been that tonight. Some estimates of the number of people who will be made homeless are, quite frankly, ridiculous. It is simply irresponsible to suggest that thousands on thousands of people will be made homeless and will have to leave the capital in droves, as some have said. I welcome the opportunity to put the record straight and to respond to the concerns raised today.
First, I shall address what is essentially a London issue, surrounding the maximum weekly rates of local housing allowance that we will apply from April. They are still extremely generous rates. It is still far more than the vast majority of people pay out—at the rate of four bedrooms and £400 and more than £20,000 a year, a typical family would need to earn £80,000 a year to be able to afford that kind of rent.
These reforms are not about excluding benefit recipients from the nicest areas, as some have argued. We are simply ensuring a fair deal for the taxpayer. The simple truth is that individuals who claim housing benefit according to local housing allowance rules should face similar choices to those people in low-paid work. There is simply no reason why we should see people moving vast distances, and no mass moves out of the south of the country. In all but three of the most central areas of London, at least 30 per cent of properties will be affordable within local housing allowance rates. I shall just explain that figure, because there has been quite a lot of misunderstanding about it. The survey is based on the properties that are not in large occupied by recipients of housing benefit—so it is 30 per cent at least, except in those three areas, plus whatever elements of the housing stock currently occupied by housing benefit recipients that will go on being affordable. So it is a large proportion, although it is impossible to put an exact number on it, because clearly we are expecting prices to move and more properties to come into that category. But a large proportion of houses will remain affordable.
A small number of people in the most expensive places will, of course, have to move, but they will not have to move far, and we will work with local authorities to give those people the support that they need. In central London, 2.5 million jobs are accessible within 45 minutes of travel. Bus fares, although they went up this month, are no more than £1.30 for a single journey so they can go long distances on a bus. Low-income working households mostly pay a rent slightly lower than the appropriate local housing allowance rate. This group living in private rented accommodation is mobile; 40 per cent of them have been in that accommodation for less than a year. It is not unusual for families to move. Indeed, over a quarter of a million people moved out of or between inner London boroughs in 2008-09, which is a point that the noble Lord, Lord German, made.
On the estimates of homelessness that various bodies have put out, it is important not to rely on those estimates if they are based on what landlords say they will do or on early experience. We must look at the shortfalls. After the reforms, 32 per cent will see no change in shortfall, 450,000 households will have a shortfall of less than £10 a week and 35,000 will have a shortfall of more than £20 a week. Not all of those will have to move, let alone become homeless.
One difficulty in writing an impact assessment when there are behavioural and market-based effects is that it is not easy to quantify those impacts, because they involve a complex interplay of behavioural decisions by individual landlords and individual tenants. We are talking about market forces here. Although economic theory would suggest that if a purchaser of up to 40 per cent of a market reduces the amount that they are willing to spend, it will cause rents to fall, it is only in the end through observation that we will be able to obtain absolutely conclusive evidence.
We have had similar concerns raised about our decision to cap local housing allowance levels at the four-bedroom rate but that reflects the kind of housing choices that are made by larger families who are not on benefit. It builds on the restriction introduced by the now Opposition in April 2009 to cap at the five-bedroom rates. Let us be clear: most families not on benefit cannot afford to live in properties with five or more bedrooms. We are reflecting here the choices made by families everywhere.
These measures have been closely scrutinised. We have made available more data on impacts than has ever been the case. Clearly, some people will receive less benefit as a result of the changes but that does not necessarily mean that all of those people will be drastically worse off. The gap between the 30th percentile and 50th percentile can be quite narrow. On average, it is currently £15 a week for one-bedroom properties and £26 per week for two-bed properties in London. In the outer south-east area, the difference can be as little as £8 a week for two-bedroom properties. Clearly, one effect that will happen is that the 30th percentile and the median can start moving together if we do not get the downward pressure that we are trying to impose on the rates. That would actually be bad news for the Government, because we would not lose some of the gains but see a market response as those medians move together, rather than the wholesale disruption that some people have been forecasting. In practice, setting the local housing allowance rates at the 30th percentile merely reflects the choices of low-income households; we know that from the research that we undertook last year.
The noble Lord, Lord Best, told us about the attitude of landlords. Rather than accept his concerns wholesale—although he is clearly a great authority in this area—I would point out that, in the last 18 months, more than 400,000 private rented sector tenants have been claiming, which shows that landlords are certainly prepared to rent to tenants claiming housing benefit. I repeat my point that, at 40 per cent of the market in not all, but many areas, landlords will have no choice but to reduce their rents and give back some of the excess gain that we seem to have seen in this part of the market. We are also giving landlords an incentive by widening local authority discretion to pay housing benefit direct to the landlord, a point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas. We are not giving this discretion away for nothing and the complex language here was to make sure that we get something for something: that if we are translating a payment stream from, let us say, a triple-B-rated level to a triple-A sovereign income stream, we get something for our money. That is why that is written so carefully.
Because I do not want to run out of time, I will jump to the key thing and I will come back to whatever I can fit in after that. I want to turn to the important issue of the monitoring and evaluation of these changes. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Best, for his timely Motion. I am very happy to agree to his proposal for an independent review. I make a firm commitment to the House that we intend to commission independent, external research to help us evaluate the impact of the reforms. This review will cover all the areas that the noble Lord outlined in his Motion. I can assure the House that it will be comprehensive and thorough and, of course, I readily agree that the outcome of the evaluation should be presented to both Houses, together with a written ministerial statement. Among the issues that it would cover—these were points raised by noble Lords—will be homelessness and moves; the shared room rate and houses in multiple occupation; what is happening in Greater London; what is happening in rural communities; what is happening in black and minority ethnic households; large families; older people; people with disabilities and working claimants. That is what this review will cover.