Welfare Reform Bill

I rise with some trepidation to make a few comments. I had not planned to make a speech and am relying somewhat on my memory of 30 or 35 years ago when I was heavily involved in campaigning for increases in the income disregard; in those days it was £4 a week. The arguments that were always put to me in that context were around the poverty trap. I very much support the basic principle of the amendment, that you need a stepladder back into work. However, I am conscious of the huge complexities of achieving a nice, neat stepladder because of the multitude of benefits and the implications for the incentive to get closer to full-time work if you have a clunky income disregard. I hope that the Minister takes the amendment away and gives serious thought to how best to achieve a nice, neat little stepladder. However, I fear that, in trying to achieve that, he will have to take account of the housing benefit withdrawal rate, changes in council tax as your income increases, and so on. It is no simple business. I remember huge tables of this sort of material from many years ago. I support the principle of the amendment, but the Minister and his department will have a lot of work to do if he is to achieve this without dropping large numbers of single parents into a poverty trap at a slightly higher level; that is, if he is really going to achieve a money saving, which is ultimately what the Government—and no doubt any alternative Government—would be after, by encouraging lone parents to return to work in a way that would reduce the state contribution to their weekly income. I hope that I have said enough to convey one or two points to the Committee.