---

Welfare Reform Green Paper

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. We should wait to see what the employment advisers can do for patients in primary care trusts. I am confident that they will be able to make a significant difference and provide more choice for people, rather than people being presented just with the unpalatable prospect of being signed off and going on to benefit. We should be able to do more for people in that situation. I hope that the other potential spin-off benefit of putting employment advisers into GP practices will relieve some of the pressure and work load on GPs themselves.