Guardian's Allowance Up-rating Order 2012

My Lords, let me deal with some of those questions. I do not like to do this, but I think this may be a case where I had better go away and follow up by writing to the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, because I suspect that I will not cover all their questions in the detail that they merit. I shall make one or two broad points in response and then, as I say, I will follow those up with detailed answers. The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, talked about the context in which these orders and regulations are coming forward. It is clear that the level of unemployment is higher than the Government would wish to see. Of course that is the case, but nevertheless, it is a level of unemployment within which the private sector has been vigorously generating new jobs—in excess of half a million new jobs in that sector in the past two years. On the specific point raised by the noble Lord about the availability of jobs, the latest monthly figures show that there are some 476,000 vacancies in the country. It is simply not the case that jobs are unavailable, and the private sector has been investing vigorously in what are very difficult economic circumstances as we rebalance the economy from an overreliance on the public sector and on excessive leverage. It is critically important that we press on with everything we are doing to encourage people into work, partly through the construct we are talking about this afternoon, by raising the starting rate of tax and with the other measures we are taking. The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, raised the question of RPI and CPI. Again, this is not a measure that we take lightly or will reverse in some way. It is a change that we are making because, as I explained in our previous debate and on other occasions, we believe that CPI is the better measure in this instance. The overall impact of the effects of the measures is best looked at in the distributional effects set out in each of the Budgets and Autumn Statements since the election. These distributional analyses were never published by previous Governments. They are all laid out. If one looks at the cumulative impact on households of tax, tax credit and benefit reforms introduced up to the Autumn Statement, and including the previous fiscal events, the critical thing is that the top income decile sees the largest reduction in income, both in cash terms and as a percentage of net income. In cash terms, the top income decile sees losses 9.8 times that of the bottom decile. The cash losses of the bottom expenditure decile are less than one-tenth—in fact, 6 per cent—of that for the top expenditure decile. The Government have been concerned to make absolutely sure that the distributional effects of the measures taken as a whole are progressive and that the top 20 per cent of households will make the greatest contribution to what is a challenging deficit reduction.