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Welfare Reform Bill

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his signal of support for the package of measures. In relation to children and the housing benefit sanction, we must remember that housing benefit is administered by local authorities. We intend to give the decision maker—the local authority—an area of discretion in cases involving families with vulnerable children. We do not envisage the full sanction applying in such cases but, for the reasons to which I referred, it is important that a line is drawn. We as a society, and we as law makers in this House, should send out a clear signal that we are no longer prepared to ignore the antisocial behaviour of the small number of people—it is a very small number—who continue to flout any proper standards of social behaviour to their neighbours, and who expect their neighbours, through their taxes and income, to support their lifestyle. However, it will of course be necessary when there are competing considerations—when there is not just a single person or a couple with no children—to take into account the innocent children who are wrapped up in such cases, and we will of course make sure that there is no question whatever of families with children being turfed out into the street.