Welfare Reform Bill (Programme) (No. 2)

That is a reasonable option to allow people to take, but I seriously doubt whether it is an answer to the problem, for a whole host of reasons. In particular, there is a striking imbalance between where the social housing occupation is and where the demand for private rented accommodation is. Many things worry me about what the Minister has just said, because here we are on Report, months after an impact assessment set out what the proposals are likely to mean, and suddenly an option as to how the Government think that the penalty might be avoided is thrown in. Let us sit down and have a proper impact assessment—a proper review. Let us see, for example, how any income from rental would be treated in the benefits system, because that could become subject to the same rules as non-dependant deduction, which would not leave people better off at all. Before the Minister asks me to regard it as a serious option, let us see exactly how it would be workable as regards the match between demand and supply and how it would be treated for the purposes of tax and other benefits.