Child Poverty Bill

One of the big problems when you do a survey is that the responses to it are apparently fairly confused, with people not knowing what they should be reporting and what they should not. Some people report nil because they do not consider benefits as part of their income. That is part of the concern. The other part is deliberate underreporting. In support of the amendment on the black economy, I have quite a lot of data to introduce to the Committee about what various academics estimate that economy to be, and where it might be. This is a genuinely difficult issue. I imagine that if a surveyor came into noble Lords’ rooms and asked them to tot up their incomes, everyone in this Room would find it pretty difficult to do that on a consistent basis. That is what some of the researchers who have questions in this area say. We will have other opportunities to discuss this. I did a few sums on the back of a dirty piece of paper on the cost of my 0.15 per cent reduction from 10 per cent. If we were to take the IFS figure of £19 billion and calculate purely on income transfers, the cost of the reduction would be in the order of £200 million. I do not feel that I should put that kind of cost in a probing amendment, so I take pleasure in begging leave to withdraw it. Amendment 4 withdrawn. Amendment 5 Moved by