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Welfare Reform and Incapacity Benefit

I hope that the hon. Lady will forgive me; I must reply to some of the points made. The hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) referred to pensions. We did not hear a word on pensions from the Secretary of State, although pensions form part of both the motion and the Government’s amendment. Of course the truth about pensions is that the halving of the savings ratio under the Government has dealt a body blow to the entire concept of private sector provision. The reason for that goes back, again, eight years to 1997, when in almost the Government’s first fiscal action, they removed dividend tax credits from private pension funds. The Government’s siphoning of money from the private sector pensions into the Treasury has gone on year after year. If the Prime Minister wants to pick a fight with a Department, I suggest that he should do so not with the Department for Work and Pensions, but with the Treasury and the Chancellor, because that is where the damage to pensions has been done. In 1997, our pensions system was an acknowledged international success. We had more private sector pensions under management than the rest of Europe put together. That fact has been alluded many times by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) and other hon. Members of all parties. That policy is now in ruins. Instead, the Chancellor’s contribution to welfare reform—and his main legacy from the Treasury—will be a vast extension of means testing. Again, that has been alluded to in the debate. Almost half of all pensioners are now subject to means testing and the proportion is increasing. So the Treasury is responsible for not only the policy, but the shambolic administration of child and pension credits, as we know from our surgeries and advice centres, and the developing, unresolved mess that that is producing. In the debate, we have seen again the wide and growing gap between Labour’s words and deeds. Despite repeated promises of reform, the welfare system is complex, badly targeted and sets up perverse incentives. It is prone to error, fraud and abuse. It lets down the taxpayer and those whom it is supposed to help. We should be having an open debate on how to change the system, instead of which it is a subject of repeated wrangles and leaked memos between No. 10 and the Department. It is time that the House expressed its displeasure and dismay about this continuing state of affairs, and I urge all my hon. Friends to vote for the motion.