Welfare Reform Bill

Yes, that is the £2 billion of the implementation. The £628 million was within the £1.5 billion figure that I was talking about. I apologise for the confusion. There are a lot of figures. There are too many £2 billions. This is the oddest topic to joke about that I have ever come across, but there we are. The noble Lord raised an issue about the complexity of universal credit in comparison with the ESA. This is a large project. There is no doubt about that. It breaks down to three different projects from the one that the noble Lord, Lord Knight, was talking about. The first is the universal credit administration platform. That is a DWP responsibility. That incorporates large elements that have already been developed, such as the payment accounting system. The next thing is the universal credit real-time earnings calculation and the payment and accounting system. That is basically the front end of the system and the rules engine behind it. Then there is the feed, which is the HMRC RTI system. You are looking almost at two components there: the supply of the information, which is being piloted—those pilots are getting going—and the data cleansing because, as the noble Lord rightly pointed out, getting the data through in a way that is readable and matchable is the key. Currently, the HMRC is working really hard on getting that right. It has got up to a data cleanse of 98.3 per cent and its aim is to push that higher and higher. On data security, we will use our secure file transfer system, which is already in place between DWP and HMRC and is currently used for national insurance systems as well. We have recently had an independent assessment, which is an extra piece of independent scrutiny, undertaken by IBM on that technology plan. I should add on data sharing, as there was a question from my noble friend Lord German on data standards, that we are using the relevant information—the ISO standard. In fact, it is not a question of having it to be used for universal credit; we are already doing so and it is in place today. We have a robust governance process with the Major Projects Authority. There is a commitment from me to keep noble Lords well informed on this matter, and I can make that commitment from a stronger position than most Lords Ministers because I am responsible for it. I make that commitment informally and I make it formally. The development can also be monitored by Select Committees in another place—the Work and Pensions Select Committee or the Public Accounts Committee—and they indeed look at it. All the structures are in place to ensure that the introduction of universal credit is properly scrutinised and on that basis I ask the noble Lord not to press this amendment.