---

Welfare Reform and Incapacity Benefit

That is strangely perceptive of the hon. Gentleman. We are the Government, and we have won three successive general elections partly on the basis of our manifesto in this area, but more widely too. The right hon. and learned Gentleman suffers from one significant problem, which was clear to all of us on the Labour Benches: not only has he no policy—let us leave that on one side; that is a big enough impediment for him—but I am afraid that no one believes a word that he has to say about welfare reform. The public are right not to do so. We remember his record and that of his right hon. and hon. Friends in government for 18 years. He said virtually nothing about that record during his speech. I intend to refresh his memory and that of all my hon. Friends. I pay tribute to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), and I appreciate what the right hon. and learned Gentleman had to say about him. I hope that Members on both sides of the House will join me in recognising my right hon. Friend’s passionate commitment to tackling inequality and to helping some of the most disadvantaged members of our community. I am sure that he will continue to make a major contribution to our debates on these and other issues both in the House and outside it. There are without doubt a number of very demanding challenges that face me as a new Secretary of State, but defending this Government’s record on welfare reform from criticism by Conservative Members is not one of them. The right hon. and learned Gentleman’s main criticism today is that our approach to welfare reform is incoherent. I totally disagree with that analysis. Since 1997, we have taken forward a programme of radical reform of our welfare state. First and foremost, we have provided much more effective help for people looking for work through the new deal. We have taken action to ensure that work pays. The national minimum wage and tax credits have helped to make the transition from welfare to work possible for hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens. We have made genuine inroads into the scandalous levels of poverty among pensioners and young families that we inherited when we came to office.