Member

It is not a good position for any of us to be in when we cannot explain what the rules will be to people who expect to be affected by them, and I am unconvinced that these rules will have the deterrent effect that is being claimed. The SLSC, which I thank enormously—it has done terrific work on all this—notes the tension between avoiding undesirable outcomes and maintaining disincentive effects and suggests that we question the Minister, which I am so doing, on how, given the risks, disincentives will operate in practice. The committee suggests that we should inquire about the management of the risks of withdrawing support—homelessness, crime and illegal working, which have already been mentioned—from someone who is destitute for whatever reason. It suggests that we raise the expected effectiveness of the change of speeding up processes relating to investigations into fraud, so as to allow removal of support. Currently, support is discontinued, reduced or withdrawn from all of 0.05% of those receiving it.