Mr. R?n?n Hession:

In the order of priority it is probably behind pay-related benefit in terms of the next phase of work. It will be the working family payment with two new categories for childless couples and single people. This is the idea that would be used to model it so that there would be a percentage difference to earnings. There are a couple of other tricky elements in there. At present people on the working family payment stay on the rate for a year unless they ask for it to be changed. A part-time worker's hours might go up and down all the time. We get a snapshot at a point in time. Unless people tell us their situation has changed we assume it stays that way. This is to the benefit of the customer - or recipient or whatever word we want to use - in the sense that if it turns out they do more hours we do not reduce the working family payment. If they do fewer hours and tell us then we will increase the working family payment. We can do this. For the working age payment to work it would need to be more real-time. We have much better information now but we must consider how real-time it would be. For pay-related benefit we will look back couple of months. We know we can do this from the pandemic unemployment payment. There are some complex scenarios, for example people who combine employment and self-employment.