Welfare Reform Bill

The Minister is not dealing with the point. On the latest updated assessment, something like a quarter of the people who will be caught by this cap are on employment and support allowance. Depending on which category they are in, it requires people to move closer to the labour market, but does not require them to work. Why are the Government using this leverage on people in that group? Thirty-eight per cent of them are on income support, which is again a category of people who, for all the reasons we have debated, are not required to work. For people on JSA, you could see this might be an extra spur, but why does this measure cover those people who, under the Government’s assessment and on the basis on which they are going to construct universal credit, are not required to work?