Child Poverty Bill

Let me make this absolutely clear. Some passported benefits are in cash and are counted. The Minister made that point. There are some that are not, which are the ones at risk. Clearly, housing benefit is counted, as is the council tax rebate, as we will be calling it shortly. I am talking not about those passported benefits, but about the ones that are not cash measured. The Minister explained clearly, for which I was grateful, how many of them were in the basic figure. I do not think that those are the ones under risk; the ones under risk are those that do not have a notional monetary value attached to them, perhaps because it is quite difficult to do. Those may appear at risk, when you look ahead over the decade, without the good will that you would hope for from those who run the system. If one sets up a statutory target system, one must not assume good will in a bureaucracy and a government. One must assume that they drive behaviour; that is, after all, the intention. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, was actually getting at what we are driving at here, and I shall use his amendment later to raise the issue. It is the gap between minimum income standards and benefits rates. I am sure that he will refer to that as well. This is the hole that we are talking about; there is a slight mystery going on about how that is filled. This is just one of the ways in which we try to fill it. Having said that, I am grateful for this important debate about getting these benefits in kind as a full part of the system, if it is decided that they are valuable, in whatever form. The noble Earl made the point that one can design these so that you can choose packages against a cash figure. Indeed, interestingly, the OECD report particularly recommended that approach, so it makes a lot of sense. We have had a good debate. The Minister has made a clear response. The importance of "in kind" should be thoroughly measured but, for the time being, I am pleased to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 11 withdrawn.