As with clause 11, the Opposition have no objection to what the Government seek to achieve in this clause. On the substance of the amendments put forward by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central, there are a few issues that I hope she will be able to clarify. She will be aware that the general principle is that a benefit is taxable if it is an earnings replacement benefit. As the Treasury’s tax benefit reference manual notes, the reason behind that is to avoid creating an incentive whereby an individual receiving social security benefits is better off than someone on a comparable income whose earnings are liable to tax. What consideration has she given to that potential outcome of her amendments?

My second observation is about the cost of the measure. I am grateful to the House of Commons Library, which has sought to estimate the cost. The cost of exempting all taxable social security benefits from income tax would be around £5.9 billion in 2020-21. Of that amount, 95%, or £5.6 billion, is attributable to the state pension. The Library’s analysis identifies that those in the top decile of income distribution would benefit the most, while those in the lowest would gain the least. I know that the hon. Lady cares very much about those issues, and I would be grateful if she addressed that point, because it strikes me that such an approach would usually be regressive, and I would like to understand a bit more about the assessment of the distributional impact of such a policy.