Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I feel slightly as though I have trapped myself, and I will explain exactly why. I spent a lot of time on the carers’ allowance. I was very worried about the cliff edge at £100 earnings, and so I reinserted a carers’ element into the universal credit, very deliberately, to get rid of that and to have a smoothed effect. I have spent some money—or we the taxpayers have spent some money; it is not out of my own pocket—and I find myself slightly hoist on my own petard by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, by making a subtle connection between the universal credit and the carers’ allowance. This was not there originally, when it was a carers’ allowance. I see that there is a connection—I have created it, but it is fairly narrow—to get that taper to work. It does not undermine the way in which we think about carers and the way in which we look at the universal credit. As I say, I will be able to explain the principles of how the allowance will work right at the start. We will see the actual numbers later when we start to look at the real carers’ allowance. I think noble Lords should be more tolerant of me than they are being.