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Housing Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 2011

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the Minister for his usual, comprehensive diligence in responding to the debate. We have had a very good debate, which I do not want to prolong. I take it from what the Minister said that he has registered that there is continuing concern, not just among the bodies that we have cited but in this House and in this Committee, about the potential effects of implementing this policy. I also take it, from his invitation to feed back any information on untoward results, that any evidence that might controvert the evidence on which the department has founded the regulations will be happily received. Speaking for myself, I will be watching this area, as will other colleagues, extremely carefully over the next 12 months. As well as being very grateful to everyone who has taken part in the debate, I want to say two other things before I sit down. First, the Minister has invested discretionary housing payments with a role that I did not think that they had. He said—I wrote it down—that there is ““no limit”” on discretionary housing payments, but he has to be very careful about this. I do not want to read too much into what he said but, for example, a very powerful case was mentioned this afternoon. I take it from what he said that, as there is no limit on discretionary housing payments, it would be possible for a local authority, if it thought it appropriate, to apply discretionary housing payments not just for transitional provision or for temporary problem solving but—if it has the budget, which is an important point that was made—to apply its discretion systematically over time. That is not what I thought that discretionary housing payments were for. We will all go away and reflect carefully on that. My final point is that we need to monitor all of this, including the use of discretionary housing payments. We also need to ensure that we keep in kilter with the devolved Administrations, as I am not sure that these local authority duties are exactly the same in other jurisdictions in the United Kingdom. Having said all that, this has been a valuable debate, for which I am really grateful. I know the Minister of State well enough to know that he has obviously engaged with the issues seriously, and we are grateful for that. If we get any other evidence or feedback from other sources, including the pressure groups and other bodies that are competent to operate in these areas, we will take advantage of his kind offer by ensuring that the department is made fully aware of the circumstances as those unfold after January next year. I am grateful to the Minister for making that clear. On that basis, I am happy that the Committee has indeed considered the statutory instrument in what has been a very valuable debate, and I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. Motion agreed.