My Lords, I will do so on the question of the welfare of children. First, there is no difference between myself and my Front Bench on this issue—there may be on some issues but not on this one. The noble Lord has not dealt with the point I made when I referred to what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, said, although I did not do so simply because she said it. Noble Lords have quoted from the IFS peer review, which showed that the great majority of those affected by the cap did not move into paid work; indeed, the House of Commons Library said:
“There is no general consensus that the … cap … is proving an effective means of moving claimants into work”.
My noble friend also made a point about those who are not expected to move into paid work anyway. The point is: what happens to the welfare of children in those households which are still out of work? It cannot be in their best interest, which is supposed to be a primary consideration, to reduce the incomes of their parents further and further below the poverty line.
I also quite accept what was said about role models and the value of work, and so forth, but I remind the Minister that in one of our earlier debates I referred to some research from the University of Bath. That showed that where a lone mother goes into work then cannot maintain that job for whatever reason in an insecure labour market and falls out of work again, it raises big questions in those children’s minds about the value of work, and that it can be totally counterproductive if you push people into paid work in a way that is not helpful to them and their families.