Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I was talking just before the break about the number of foster carers who will be affected by the proposal. We do not have the figures because the Government do not collect the right data, but the 2010 survey commissioned by the Fostering Network found that 6 per cent of all families lived in private or social housing. We know that the split between private and social is 32 per cent to 68 per cent. As there are roughly 45,000 foster families in the UK, if we take that figure, there would be approximately 2,700 fostering families in private and social housing and 1,836 in social housing, but those are extrapolation figures. I would be grateful if the Minister could assist us in that matter. What is critical in this suite of amendments about children is that the Government do not jeopardise our caring for children with disabilities, and particularly our fostering system, by introducing measures that would penalise those groups of children. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell me that that is an unintended consequence, if people believe that we will impact on such groups of children. I hope that the Minister can assure us that those particularly vulnerable groups of children will not be affected by the Bill.