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Welfare Reform Bill

This has been a constructive debate marked by good intentions from all parts of the House. Members of my party believe that those who can work should have the barriers in their way removed. Getting out of dependency and leading a more fulfilling life is what many of the 2.7 million people who are on incapacity benefits desperately wish to do. That is why we believe in active labour market policies. However, we also believe that security must be guaranteed for those whose level of disability is so great that they cannot work; that is one of the hallmarks of the civilised society in which we all wish to live. We have also agreed in our debate about regulations. In the Bill’s 76 pages, there are more than 240 references to regulations. That is part of a trend over the past nine years: some Ministers have sought to make major policy changes via statutory instruments, which are not amendable. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will agree tonight with his hon. Friends the hon. Members for Kingswood (Roger Berry) and for Burton (Mrs. Dean) that the draft regulations should be published well before the Committee stage. Will the Minister tell us tonight what the draft regulations will be and when we can expect to see them, in the interests of having a grown-up and mature debate? The Bill is in the form that it is in, and is being somewhat rushed through this House, because of earlier delays. Before the last election, we were promised a Green Paper sometime in the summer of 2005, but it did not see the light of day until January 2006. That probably had something to do with the No. 10 policy unit sticking its oar in and pushing for welfare changes that were so draconian that not even the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), approved of them. An e-mail of last October from the Prime Minister to the then Secretary of State infamously demanded more means-testing for all incapacity benefit recipients, the time-limiting of incapacity benefit, naming and shaming GPs who allegedly signed off too many sick notes, and commuting a portion of the incapacity benefit amount into a non-cashable voucher with which claimants would have to buy rehabilitative care. Thankfully, none of that saw the light of day, but what we do have today is a Bill whose level of generality raises many questions, many of which have been posed in our debate. First, we must be clear about the Government’s target of removing 1 million people from incapacity benefit by 2016. On March 6, the Secretary of State said:"““we are starting from 2.7-2.72 million. By 2015/2016 I would like to see that figure down to 1.72 million, so it is a net figure. We are not trying to do any clever statistical sleight of hand on this.””" But in a parliamentary written answer to me on 16 June, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs. McGuire) published figures—she should listen because she probably does not remember what she put in Hansard—showing that if there were no changes at all, in 10 years’ time there would be only 2.36 million incapacity claimants anyway. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State says, ““Is this a serious debate?”” It certainly is, because the point that we are making—my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) made it earlier—is that the Government will have to assist only 640,000 people, not the 1 million whom the Secretary of State said he would help. [Interruption.] That is a serious point, and if the Secretary of State does not think so, it is him who should grow up. Secondly, this Bill gives insufficient help to existing claimants, half of whom have been trapped on IB for more than five years. They risk being left out in the cold.