The Welfare Reform Bill returned to the House of Commons for consideration of the amendments made in the House of Lords, where the government had been defeated in seven votes.

The Lords amendments had sought to mitigate some of the impact of the reforms on poor and disabled people, but each of the defeats was
reversed. The coalition government secured large majorities in each of the votes. The division on the Lords proposal calling for social tenants with one spare room to be exempt from under-occupancy penalties linked to housing benefit was the closest, with 310 voting with the government and 268 against, including a handful of Liberal Democrat backbenchers.

The government offered few concessions to its opponents. People who have been in work for the previous 12 months will get a nine-month “grace period” before the benefit cap is applied. A small number of households where someone is in receipt of the support component of employment and support allowance but not in receipt of disability living allowance will be exempted from the cap.

Up to an additional £80m will be provided for discretionary housing payments for those affected by the benefit cap in 2013-14, and a further £50 million in 2014-15, although Employment Minister Chris Grayling insisted that the government does not exepct “anything like that amount of money” to be needed.

Most controversially, after the debate the government used a motion to a cross-party procedural committee to have the Lords amendments declared invalid under the rule of “financial privilege” which prevents the House of Lords opposing tax and spending decisions agreed by the Commons.

The bill now goes back to the Lords. However, due to the government’s invocation of the Commons’ financial privilege there is little scope for further changes.

The Lords amendments defeated

(courtesy of BBC News)