Benefits shake-up suffers another defeat in Lords

The House of Lords dealt the government’s welfare reforms another major blow last night as it threw out plans to charge single parents for using the Child Support Agency.

In the sixth Lords defeat for Iain Duncan Smith’s benefits shake-up, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats joined Labour peers to vote by a majority of 142 against the move.

The Department for Work and Pensions said it would seek to overturn the amendment to the Welfare Reform Bill when it returned to the Commons.

The rebellion, on the final day of the bill’s stormy report stage in the Lords, was led by Tory former lord chancellor Lord Mackay of Clashfern.

Lord Mackay said the government’s plans could put single mothers off seeking the financial support they were entitled to.

He said: “The motivation for these charges is said by the government to be to bring people to voluntary agreement.

“I am entirely in favour of that, but if that proves impossible where the woman is at the stage where there is nothing more she can do, the only thing she can do is pay.”

Downing Street insisted today that the reforms had public support. A spokeswoman said: “These are the changes that people want, to make our welfare fairer.”