Welfare Reform Bill

The noble Lord is right. In 1997, something like 33,000 people were accessing single room rent and the figure is now about 12,000. That is roughly the magnitude of the change. There is some evidence that it is partly attributable to the fact that we have many more young people in employment. That is testimony to the success of the Government’s economic policy, which has helped many more young people into work and of course has led to their not needing to access the benefit. The cost was correctly stated by the noble Earl, provided that customer behaviour does not alter as a result of the change. If it did change, we consider that it could be many times that figure. That needs to be put in context.