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Welfare Reform Bill

As Mr Speaker has indicated, Lords amendment 47 impinges on the financial privilege of this House. I ask the House to disagree to it, and I will ask the Reasons Committee to ascribe financial privilege as the reason for doing so. Notwithstanding that, the House has an opportunity to debate the substance of the Lords amendment and I intend to provide the Government's full rationale for rejecting it. I will also deal with the matters raised in the amendments tabled by the Opposition and explain why they should be rejected as well. I should like to start by stressing that this debate is not simply about the financial aspects of what we are doing. The fact is that the arguments in favour of a cap are about fairness and about ending a situation in which, for some people, benefit rates are so high that is it not worth working. It is worth my saying that on this issue, the public of this country are overwhelmingly behind us.