New Clause 11
Welfare Reform Bill
12:30 pm
Jeremy Hunt (Shadow Minister (the Disabled), Work & Pensions; South West Surrey, Conservative)
Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the factors that can make the process take much longer than it should is the complexity of the assessment process? My hon. Friend the Member for Daventry sensibly referred to the minimum constraints and the Government making swifter progress in the sharing of information. If there were much better sharing of information, and hence sharing of verified information that the local authority could trust when making its assessment of entitlement to housing benefit, we would then be able to speed up the process considerably and achieve the important two-week period.