Government Response to the Committee's Welfare Safety Net Report

This is the government's response, published 5 November 2019.

Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.

The Government states that it "remains firmly committed to maintaining a strong welfare safety net" and responds to the Committee's recommendations individually, partially accepting some and not accepting or not agreeing with others.

• On poverty measurement, the Department "partially accepts" the recommendation to adopt the Social Metrics Commission measure: new experimental statistics are to be published in 2020, and the Government "will then assess whether to adopt this measure as an additional or sole statutory measure".
• It does not agree to develop a measure of destitution, stating that "There is no agreed way of defining or measuring destitution", and it does not accept the recommendation to reduce the maximum deduction cap to 20%, as there are "no plans to further reduce the rate".
• On benefit uprating, the Government "notes" the Committee's recommendation and says the Secretary of State "can only make decisions at the time of her formal review". On Local Housing Allowance, it says "The Department is considering this issue".
• It does not accept the recommendation to uprate the benefit cap, saying it "cannot accept this recommendation at this time because to do so would pre-empt the outcome" of a review, with the evaluation results to be published "in due course".

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