Benefit Cap

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister’s undertaking to provide another evaluation subsequent to the 2014 evaluation is welcome, but I have to say to him that no one I have met outside the Government believes the assessment that was published in 2014 so he is going to have to work harder in future to secure the policy success that the Government are looking for. In the course of the next evaluation, will he look carefully at the sustainability of the work that clients achieve, the proportion of the case load that is moving into disability benefits and the proportion of the case load applying successfully for discretionary housing payments? The discretionary housing payment spend for the rest of this Parliament will be £1,000 million.

[Lord Henley]

I am sorry the noble Lord does not believe the evaluation that appeared in 2014. A very good evaluation it was, and it produced some very good figures that I do not think the noble Lord himself could question. I have quoted the figures from that evaluation and I will be able to produce further figures in due course when another evaluation appears. However, it is not just about changing the culture, although that is very important; it is also a question, as I am sure the noble Lord will accept, of fairness. We do not think it is right that those in benefit should be receiving incomes higher than those on average earnings.