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Welfare Reform Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning). I congratulate her on her speech, and I am sure many other hon. Members agree with what she has said. I shall speak only to part 1, on the employment and support allowance and related matters. I congratulate Ministers on the consultation that has taken place in getting this far—I might be slightly more critical than that in a moment, but just let me get that in first. We had about a year’s consultation before the Green Paper. We had a proper Green Paper exercise and submissions where made to the Secretary of State. We now have a Bill. It has been a long process; it has not been a rushed process, with a Bill emerging from the clear blue sky. I congratulate my colleagues on the fact that we have had plenty of time to discuss these issues before debating the Bill on Second Reading. My hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) made a comment about previous debates on incapacity benefit being toxic. My hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley), who is no longer present, referred to the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999. As someone who is prone not to scratch old sores, I will not go in that direction, but my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North suggested that there appeared to be a degree of welcome consensus on where we go from here. That is true, and it is not something that could have been said five or six years ago. The truth is that, because of events five or six years ago, many people in receipt of incapacity benefit and those who might receive it have become quite concerned about any new proposal and any change. They fear—dare I say it?—another cut in benefit, as under the previous Government and, sadly, as in 1999. Therefore, I start by praising the Bill, because of the clear assurance that it is not about cuts: it is about enabling disabled people and people with long-term sickness either to retain employment or to get back to work. The problem with the number of people in receipt of incapacity benefit has never been one of fraud—it is about the most fraud-free benefit that we have—and it has never been about the benefit being generous. It is far from generous. People on incapacity benefit are usually living in deep poverty. Those two things have never been the problem. The problem is that we need to remove the barriers that prevent a very large number of people in receipt of incapacity benefit who want to get back to work from doing so. The Green Paper’s sub-title, ““Empowering people to work””, is precisely what part 1 is about and precisely why we should congratulate the Government on introducing it. We should never forget some of the basic facts that we are addressing. According to the Disability Rights Commission 48 per cent. of disabled people are out of work—virtually one in two. That increases to 79 per cent. for people with mental health problems, and it is 84 per cent. for people with learning disabilities. Those figures are shocking. They suggest that we must all address the current problems if we are serious about securing full employment for all. The link between being out of work and being in poverty is stark and obvious, and the House does not need me to repeat the facts at length. Let me simply say that, in relation to the Government’s laudable policy and success in taking children out of poverty, 40 per cent. of children with a disabled parent today live below the poverty line. Almost one in two children of a disabled parent are in poverty. Yes, we must talk the language of the right to work; we must also talk the language of taking children and their families out of poverty. Therefore, the emphasis must be both on ensuring that people who want to work and can work receive the support to secure fulfilling employment and on ensuring that people who cannot work get a decent benefit. Those two approaches are essential if we are to make progress. The implication is that more support must be provided for disabled people in those two ways. Let me talk about securing employment. The Green Paper was a bit vague. The direction was absolutely right, but it was difficult to pin down one or two issues. The Bill is only marginally less vague than the Green Paper. If we are honest about it, that is the truth. I am not being critical; I am simply saying that that is the situation. The Government have rightly promised that draft regulations will be produced as soon as possible. To back up comments made by other Members—and because I feel strongly about this myself—I would be grateful if the Minister could say when draft regulations are to be made available. I hope that that will not be only for the first Committee sitting; a summer recess is coming up, during which we will all be busy working, and it would be good if we could have the draft regulations earlier rather than later. On which provisions will those drafts focus? I was talking to a specialist the other day, and she assured me that the Bill gives the Secretary of State—or all the Ministers in the Department—400 or so separate powers. [Interruption.] No, exactly. Another specialist told me the next day, ““No, there are 600 powers.”” I know not whether there are 400, 600 or 800 regulation-making powers in the Bill, but I know that there are a lot; there have to be a lot because the Bill is fairly vague. Can we have an assurance that these regulation-making powers will be published in draft form as soon as possible? When will that be, and which are the key areas that will be covered? We need to know fairly soon what are the criteria for determining into which category of employment and support allowance a recipient might fall. How do we distinguish between those two groups? I cannot answer that question. We need to have some information on benefits, in order to make sure that people will be better off and not worse off. We also need to know more about how conditionality will work. Who will make the decisions? How will the appeals process work? In respect of a Bill of this kind, it is understandable that we do not have such details before us today, but I urge Ministers to make them available as quickly as possible. On funding, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton is absolutely right that in some circumstances supporting some disabled people back to work—or supporting them in retaining employment—might not be expensive but in other circumstances that can be quite expensive. If this job is to be done properly, the resources have to be found. I recall the Secretary of State saying at the time of the Green Paper that getting 1 million people back to work would save £7 billion for the Exchequer. I join the plea made by my hon. Friend the Member for City of York that a bit of recycling is a good idea. As people go back to work—