Welfare Reform Bill

My Amendment 125, like Amendment 124 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, refers to the removal of adult dependency increases to the state pension from 2010 to 2020. I understand that the rationale behind the Bill getting rid of these increases is not solely about saving money but about adapting payments to reflect changes in family patterns since the payments were introduced in 1948. Amendment 125 would not reverse the change made by the Bill, but it is designed to probe the transitional period, although the noble Baroness has already posed some of the questions that I might have thought to ask. I accept that the plan is not to make any new payments after April 2010, and that existing awards will not be ended until 2020, which ought to be ample time for existing awards to run their course. From that perspective, it is logical to be able to bring the scheme to a close before 2020 if no existing families are left on it. However, my honourable friend in another place posed two questions to which the Government did not really give any enlightening answer, so I shall re-ask them in this House, and I hope that the Minister will be in a better position to elucidate. I have said before that it would be a rare bird indeed in social security law if some people did not lose out; the challenge is to mitigate that loss or cushion the blow. To that end, what exactly will the Government do to keep claimants informed of the changes and how they will be affected? Although I acknowledge that monetary savings were not the only consideration, there will none the less be savings of up to £17 million in 2014-15. There exists an opportunity to compensate the poorest households, which will lose out under the proposed changes. Has the Minister given any thought to the good uses to which that money could be put?