It is true. We will debate it elsewhere.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, asked who will do all this. We are developing a system we call universal support under which we join with local authorities to support people with particular barriers. We have never had this kind of system before. We have had systems where individual problems are addressed but no one has tried to sort out people’s problems in their entirety. We have now found a way of doing this. Through district partnerships with local authorities we are trying to make sure that people’s problems are addressed. We have a relatively narrow position at the moment—we are considering budget and digital issues—but it is a potent position and it is likely that we will pursue it.
The noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, referred to the Select Committee’s recommendations on barriers. We have already announced that we will replace both the work choice and the work programmes with the work and health programme.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, showed his usual mathematical skills, but he got the wrong denominator. That is because £15 million is quite a lot of money in a flow measure in the first year, and I can assure him that he need not multiply it by everyone in the group because we are looking only at the flow. There is no impact on the work capability assessment of doing permitted work; it is a functional assessment.
Perhaps I may recap the commitments we have given and which noble Lords have generously pointed to. We have put an extra £15 million into the jobcentre flexible support fund, a rise of 22% that will go straight to the right people. We have removed the 52-week limit on permitted work in ESA. We have set in train a way of protecting people with progressive conditions to make sure that they have a rapid route into the support group when they need it. We have also made a number of commitments and changes to the Bill as it has gone through, and I thank noble Lords for their help in focusing on where those changes were needed. We have taken on the DPRRC recommendations. We have amendments to bring in exemptions to the benefit cap for people in receipt of carer’s allowance and guardian’s allowance. We have exemptions to the measures limiting support to two children in child tax credit and universal credit for kinship carers and sibling group adoptions. We have agreed a year-long exception for all supported accommodation from the rent reduction measures and we have placed a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to publish income measures annually. We have really gone through the Bill with the help of Peers around the House to get it right.
I shall return to the amendments at hand. I hope that the Government have made a strong case not to accept them because they do not work as intended. We have already had the original amendments returned with a ruling of financial privilege. I hope that the House takes the relationship between this House and the other place seriously and gets its judgment right.
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