---

Welfare Reform and Incapacity Benefit

I can understand the hon. Gentleman’s nervousness. On Monday 10 October, ““Channel 4 News”” reported:"““We understand the Prime Minister wrote to Mr. Blunkett over the weekend asking for cuts to the planned levels of Incapacity Benefit . . . The Prime Minister’s proposals would mean””—" apparently, Channel 4 had seen a copy of the letter—that"““average Incapacity Benefit claimants would be ten pounds a week worse off than under””" the Secretary of State’s own"““plans. Many could be thirty to forty pounds a week worse off.””" It was said that the Prime Minister was"““suggesting the benefits should be time limited””" and"““people could not claim it after two years and would move on to other benefits or no benefits.””" On Sunday 30 October, it was reported that, following a further memo from the Prime Minister—or it may have been the same memo—the previous Secretary of State had written to the Prime Minister saying that he could not accept the last-minute, hard-line changes to incapacity benefit that were being demanded by Downing street. Apparently, the demands in the Prime Minister’s own memo to the Secretary of State included replacing part of the £76 per week given to incapacity benefit claimants with tokens that could only be spent on job training courses, and that incapacity benefit would be paid at jobseeker’s allowance rates, which are, of course, far less than long-term incapacity benefit. We will expect the new Secretary of State to indicate what truth there is in those reports. Indeed, I am happy to give way to him now. Is he willing a this very moment to come to the Dispatch Box to say that neither he nor his predecessor has received representations from the Prime Minister or from No. 10 Downing street asking for the Green Paper to be changed to become more harsh with regard to incapacity benefit? Would he care to deny that those reports are true?