There may some ingenious halfway house solution. But it is hard to say how extending it for another year can be avoided.
Until Ministers have a clear direction in which to steer the ship of anti-poverty policy, they will be at the mercy of the passengers.
We are allowing others to create a narrative for us, and in the absence of an agreed poverty measure and subsequent strategy, we always will.
The first report of a new commission finds that disparities are just as apparent within regions, cities and towns as they are between them.
The next step is for a commission to be established that can develop solutions to the current inequalities we have seen.
Ministers have protected some of the most vulnerable people in society, during some of the most challenging times the country has faced. They should now adapt the Social Metric Commission’s measure of poverty as a national statistic.