The Local Housing Allowance method of assessing benefit will be applied across the de-regulated private rented sector nationwide.

One of the stated motivations for this change is that it will give tenants an appreciation of the sums involved in their benefit claims and this will foster greater social responsibility.

Critics are broadly in agreement that employers remain very wary of taking on disabled or mentally ill people and much more needs to be done to change this.

The stated aims of the legislation were to increase the numbers of older people (50+) and single mothers in employment - two groups that face particular difficulties in returning to work.

They are carefully laid out in the following manner; they are firstly ordered chronologically and then bulleted according to document type: