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Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I support Motion A1 as the best outcome we could possibly hope for in the current circumstances. However, I would like to suggest another area that the review should look at in terms of a foreseeable consequence, which is the impact of this measure on social support networks. I was an adviser to a Joseph Rowntree Foundation-funded project carried out by some of the people involved in the review instigated as a result of the noble Lord's earlier intervention: namely, Sheffield Hallam University, which has been looking at the relationship between poverty and place over a three-year period. It produced a report last year which considered these research findings and set them against various explicit and implicit assumptions in government policy. One of the points made in the report was that if forthcoming social housing and housing benefit reforms obliged low-income households to relocate, this might most affect those with the strongest connection to their existing neighbourhood. Surely this goes against so much of government policy. These reforms will make it harder for people to find work because social networks are very important in helping low-income people find work. They will make it harder for those with children to enter or sustain work because social networks are so important in terms of help with childcare. The reforms will undermine the big society. Social networks are the capillaries of the big society. The report suggests that the reforms will reduce people's feelings of security, safety and sense of belonging. I am sure that this is not what we want. I do not know whether the Minister will respond positively to my suggestion. However, if he does respond positively, as he did with regard to the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Best, for a review, I hope that he will take on board the impact of this change on social support networks.