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Welfare Reform and Incapacity Benefit

I was going to comment on the pathways project. The pilot schemes under that project are useful. They are a step in the right direction, but they are only scratching the surface. As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones) knows, they are only pilot schemes and could take years before they make the kind of impact that the Government pledged to make back in 2007. If the House and Labour Members wish to see more rapid progress, they should look much more carefully at the proposals that the Conservative party has made with a great deal of support from the voluntary sector and charitable organisations. They should listen to the views of the Institute for Public Policy Research, which is an organisation to which I would have thought that they would give some credibility—it is not exactly a right-wing think-tank. It said:"““the private and voluntary sectors ought to have a greater role in providing employment support initiatives””." Indeed, the proposals launched by my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts), who is now shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, which were part of our election manifesto, have been well received. For example, the Shaw Trust said:"““We welcome the policy statement””" of the Conservative party. The director of Disability Awareness in Action said:"““The Conservatives are doing . . . good things around benefits.””" The chief executive of Scope said:"““The Tories have recently shown a commitment to supporting disabled people into employment through its potentially radical work on incapacity benefits.””" Our proposals, which are based on using the voluntary, charitable and private sectors, are not just theoretical ideas, because they already exist in a modest way. They have been more successful because they are more flexible and sensitive. They make less use of taxpayers’ funds, and based on the statistics that already exist, the jobs that they find tend to be long-term jobs.