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Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have supported the amendment with some helpful additions to the argument. I do not know whether any other noble Lords spotted it, but the Minister asked the ““noble Lord”” to withdraw the amendment. I do not know if he was making a Freudian slip and trying to reduce the bevy of Baronesses opposite him. I should like to make a couple of more critical points before I come to a more positive one. I can understand the Minister’s frustrations that there are other parts of government that will not allow the department to do its calculations on a dynamic basis, but I was a bit disappointed that the department’s thinking was not dynamic in relation to this matter and it was not prepared to acknowledge that there could actually be positive dynamic effects through a second-earner disregard—whether they be anti-poverty or paid work effects, and all the things that the department is in favour of. I do not know whether these are just the noble Lord’s own arguments or those that are simply in the brief that comes from the various documents we have been given, but it seemed to me that there was still the unitary-household approach and an inability to understand that while couples are couples, they are also individuals within couples. I ask the noble Lord to go away and think about that a bit more and about the importance of individual autonomy within the context of coupledom. I would have been even happier if he had been able to go one step further and commit himself on the second-earner disregard in the longer term. We have, however, made progress today. What the Minister has said takes us beyond some of the other things which have been said. I now take it as the official departmental view that it will, in the fullness of time, consider improving incentives for second earners, either through a second disregard or through the taper, as and when resources permit. I therefore beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 52C withdrawn. Amendment 52D Moved by