Schedule 3
Welfare Reform Bill
9:15 pm
Anne McGuire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Disabled People), Department for Work and Pensions; Stirling, Labour)
We have set out in the schedule a number of amendments to primary legislation that follow on from the creation of the employment and support allowance. Since the Bill was introduced, we have had the opportunity to identify a number of further amendments which are necessary to ensure that the new benefit operates alongside other benefits appropriately. For example, the amendments include provisions to ensure that children in families that receive income-related employment and support allowance will, in Scotland, England and Wales, be entitled to free school meals just as families that receive income support are. Other amendments will ensure that recipients of income-related employment and support allowance will not be liable to pay contributions for various services they receive from social services, just as income support recipients are not. Further amendments will mean that deductions can be made from income-related employment and support allowance for council tax purposes just as they can be made from income support.
The changes are necessary to ensure that recipients of the new benefit are not inadvertently disadvantaged, that the relevant rights and obligations still apply to them, and that employment and support allowance fits into the framework of existing legislative provision. I urge the Committee to accept the amendments.