That is a complicated and rather interesting question, so if the noble Lord will accept this I would like to reflect upon it and write to him. One thing is that in the past couple of years we have in effect held level the number of people on out-of-work benefits. It is really quite a complicated question, and I shall go away and try to come back to him with a proper answer.
My noble friend Lord German asked about the 2013-14 savings. The three-year freeze of the basic rate and the 30-hour element of working tax credit have saved £975 million from 2011-12. The three-year freeze of child benefit saves £1.25 billion from 2011-12, and uprating certain elements of tax credits by 1% saves £320 million for the same period.
On the automatic stabilisers, the multiplier that we use is decided by the OBR, which is using a rate of 0.6 for welfare spending. That compares with a fiscal multiplier for capital expenditure of one. Clearly, one of the attractions of moving an extra £5.5 billion into infrastructure over the next two years is that it has that larger multiplier effect. The investments for the next two years are in new roads, science infrastructure, free schools, cutting the rate of corporation tax and increasing the annual investment allowance to £250,000. The OBR has said that it expects the level of GDP to be higher as a result of Autumn Statement policies.
My noble friend asked about the location of the reports on tax credits. I shall send the link to the relevant website. I apologise that it is difficult to find.
On the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, about who pays and about the rich, there are very good reasons for changing the top rate of tax, not least that the analysis of the rise from 40p to 50p, which was meant to have raised £2.5 billion, found that it raised considerably less. HMRC has found that it would raise at most £1 billion, and even less than nothing when indirect effects are taken into account. Clearly, that analysis is of the rising effect; one could look at the argument the other way when one starts to reduce it.