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Welfare Reform and Incapacity Benefit

I did not say that there is no case for reform. Of course there is, as there would be for any other major innovation. I am saying that the Government have completely failed to meet that case; they have completely failed to deliver the policy that is required. At the beginning of the year the Government announced a major new strategy, launched by the right hon. Gentleman who is now Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. That was two Secretaries of State ago; it is difficult to keep up, as the current Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will appreciate. On 2 February, when the Department of Work and Pensions five-year strategy was launched, the Government announced, with the hype typical of them, that they were launching the"““biggest change in incapacity benefits since they were created””." That sounds pretty impressive, as though the Government were at long last getting to grips with the problem, yet when we looked at what it meant in practice we found three things. First, we found that all that the Government proposed to do was to publish a Green Paper—not a White Paper. One might have thought that if they had already worked out how to implement the greatest reform in incapacity benefit it would have been followed by a White Paper, which could have gone out for consultation. But no, we were promised only a Green Paper. Secondly, the new policy would be implemented—if it ever was—not in 2005, or even 2006 or 2007, but in 2008, three years from now. Thirdly, the most extraordinary part of the announcement, which is, I think, still Government policy, is that all the marvellous new benefits would not apply to a single one of the 2.7 million existing IB claimants but only to new claimants. In their announcement the Government said:"““The reformed benefit will provide enhanced financial security for the most severely sick and disabled””" Very good. None the less, not one severely disabled person currently receiving the benefit will have the ghost of an opportunity to enjoy any of the new benefits. The same announcement stated that there would be"““more money than now for all those claimants who take part in work focused activity””." More money than now, but not for anybody receiving the benefit now. For some reason best known to the Government, no advantage will be obtained by the 2.7 million people currently in receipt of IB.