Benefit Cap

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I accept one part of the right reverend Prelate’s question: it is valuable for all concerned, particularly children, to live in households where all those who are likely to earn are in full-time employment. It is work that is the benefit to children. I can assure the right reverend Prelate that the number of children living in workless households is now at a record low. We have seen falls there; the number is down by more than 80,000 in the past year and well over half a million since 2010. We need to wait to see the evaluation of our further changes to the benefit cap before we make any further promises of the sort that the right reverend Prelate is seeking from me.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, the Government made it clear during the passage of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 that the aim of the benefit cap was to achieve positive effects through changed attitudes to welfare. Beyond the employment statistics that we have heard today, are there any other signs of a shift away from a culture of welfare dependency towards a culture of work dependency?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for highlighting that point, something ignored by noble Lords on the other side. Trying to get away from the culture of welfare dependency into a culture of work dependency is exactly what we are trying to do, and it is what we have achieved. That is why I wanted to highlight to the House—I could repeat it to my noble friend but I do not think that that is necessary—just what the 2014 evaluation showed. We will look for an evaluation of those further changes in due course.