---

Welfare Reform Bill

I am very grateful to my noble friend for answering with the statistics that he has to hand. It is especially helpful to have that on the record. Oddly enough, I am less concerned about crisis loans where you are dealing with an emergency. Frankly, you may be dealing with young homeless people, substance abuse and so on, and the recovery rate is not going to be terribly good. One understands that. I am concerned about the budgetary loans, which go to lone parents or couples at stable addresses who do not have the capital to manage bumpy expenditure but for whom the recovery rate is pretty good and pretty secure. I am anxious about the rejection of applications from those people simply because the budget is cash-limited and, after the initial capital allocation, becomes self-financing. Will my noble friend say what plans there are to increase that budget per head?