Welfare Reform Bill

I shall make some progress because we do not have that much time and other hon. Members will want to contribute. The Government have said that there will and should be some exemptions from the cap, but we believe that work should be the primary way in which households can avoid it. We will therefore exempt households that are entitled to working tax credit. There will be a similar exemption after 2013 for working households on universal credit. Excluding child benefit will only dilute our aim. Being in work—even part-time work—must always pay better than relying on benefits alone. We have always acknowledged that there will and should be exemptions from the cap among benefit recipients. Those will be households where someone is in receipt of disability living allowance. We will also exempt war widows and widowers. I can announce today that we intend to exempt the small number of households where someone is in receipt of the support component of employment and support allowance but not in receipt of DLA. We have been clear that we are looking at ways in which to ease the transition for families and to provide assistance in hard cases. That is no different from what we did when we introduced the housing benefit cap a year ago. We used the time before the measure came in to work with those affected; we had flexibilities around the start; and we ensured discretionary funding for local authorities to support hard cases. It is our intention to take the same approach with the Bill.