The UK Government has suffered a defeat over its welfare reform proposals as peers supported a move to exempt child benefit from the £26,000 benefits cap.
The Press Association reports:
Peers voted by 252 to 237, majority 15, in favour of an amendment introduced by the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, the Rt Rev John Packer, which received Labour backing.canada goose Lodge Ned Hoody
He said: “It cannot be right for the cap to be the same for a childless couple as for a couple with children. Child benefit is the most appropriate way to right this unfairness.”
He argued that, in effect, the cap denied child benefit payments to people whose other benefits had reached £500 a week.
“This cap is not simply targeted at wealthy families living in large houses,” he said. “It will damage those who have to pay high rents because often that rent has increased substantially in the course of their occupancy of that house.”
The defeat was the fifth the Government has received on the Bill, including three on one day earlier this month…
Or, as Channel 4 News reported: canada goose Manitoba Jakke
An amendment tabled by the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, the Rt Rev John Packer, calling for child benefit to be excluded from the cap, was passed by 252 votes to 237, a majority of 15.
A Labour amendment to exempt families threatened by homelessness from the cap was rejected by 250 votes to 222, a majority of 28. But 17 Liberal Democrats, coalition partners with the Conservatives, supported it.
The Lords was debating the government’s plans to ensure that a workless household cannot claim more than £26,000 a year in benefits – the average income after tax of a working family. The cap is equivalent to £500 a week for people with children.
Labour backed Bishop Packer’s amendment, despite being in favour of a cap in principle.
Bishop Packer said the cap “failed to differentiate between households with children and those without”, adding: “This cap is not simply targeted at wealthy families living in large houses. It will damage those who have to pay high rents because often that rent has increased substantially in the course of their occupancy of that house.”