Welfare Reform Bill (Programme) (No. 2)

Returning to the right hon. Gentleman's proposals on prescription charges, is he not concerned about the evidence that we received at the beginning of the Public Bill Committee from a number of witnesses who said that there was a significant difference between school meals and prescription charges? School meals are an ongoing cost every day, whereas prescription charges tend to come in a batch. By tapering the amount of money that somebody received, they still would not be able to afford significant costs—potentially the cost of a number of prescriptions at the same time—because the amount of money concerned would be an ongoing amount, unlike under a system more similar to the current one, where all the prescriptions are paid for when they are needed.