The government was defeated in the House of Lords on Monday 23rd January on a motion from the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds John Packer to exclude child benefit as part of a household’s earnings for the purposes of the benefit cap.
The Lords were debating clause 94 of the Welfare Reform Bill, which seeks to introduce a household benefit cap.
The first amendment put to a vote was a Labour proposal that would protect people deemed to be “threatened with homelessness” and in priority need, which Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith had described in the Commons as a “wrecking amendment”. The
amendment was defeated by 250 votes to 222, with 17 Liberal peers voting against the coalition government.
Next up was the Bishop’s motion on child benefit which, after would reduce the savings made by the benefit cap by £113 million (0.06 per cent of the overall welfare budget). The amendment was carried by 252 votes to 232. 26 Liberal Democratics voted against the government on this occasion, including former Lib Dem leader Lord Paddy Ashdown and Shirley Williams.
The Lords then came to Lord Best’s amendments which would have introduced a ‘period of grace’ for claimants who would become subject to the cap after being made unemployed, and have would exempted homeless households in temporary accommodation from the cap. However,
after Lord Freud gave some rather vague promise to take these issues into account in the transitional arrangements to be introduced by regulation after the passage of the bill, Lord Best withdrew his amendments. Other amendments were also withdrawn after debate.
The government has now suffered five significant defeats on the bill