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Welfare Reform and Incapacity Benefit

I am explicitly answering the right hon. and learned Gentleman. The territory that the Green Paper will occupy is that which we mapped out in the manifesto and our five-year plan. We are now experiencing progress in helping people off incapacity benefit, with new cases down by a third since 1997 and, as I said, the first falls in the total count—down by 41,000. However, we have to accept the need to modernise the way in which we deliver our services. That is why we have sought improvements in the service that Jobcentre Plus provides. Jobcentre Plus helps almost 3,000 people into jobs every working day. It does that against a background of a major efficiency exercise. It has reduced its staff from around 86,000 in March 2002 to 74,000 in March 2005 and is on course to reduce the total number of staff employed to 65,650 by March 2008. Ninety-seven per cent. of our customers are now being paid their entitlement by direct debit. That move to direct payment will save the taxpayer more than £1 billion over the next five years. Centralised pensions centres provide a new telephone-based service, which is designed around the needs of today’s 11 million pensioners. One year ahead of schedule, the Pension Service has already achieved the target of 2.1 million pensioners in receipt of the guarantee element of pension credit by 2006. Taken with our other measures to help pensioners, including winter fuel payments, free TV licences for the over-75s and the pension credit—all of which Opposition Members opposed—the average pensioner household is now £1,400 a year better off compared with the 1997 system, with the poorest third on average £1,900 better off. The right hon. and learned Gentleman made several references to the lack of progress on welfare reform. The evidence contradicts his assertions. We stated in our manifesto that we would move further on the welfare reform agenda because we know that the challenges that confront our country and our people will accelerate. We are preparing the ground for that now.