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Welfare Reform Bill

I welcome my noble friend’s comments about, in due course, a mandatory transfer of people on existing IB over to the new employment and support allowance. Will that also apply to the regime previous to incapacity benefit; that is, invalidity benefit? We now have almost an archaeology of disability benefits, and because some of the older ones, particularly invalidity benefit, were sometimes more generous and certainly gave greater security, there is a real reluctance among the holders of those benefits to risk exposure to the labour market, or to anything that seems to suggest that they may not be able to return to their incapacity or invalidity benefit. Instead of seeking to re-enter work, they seek instead to retain their benefit. I very much welcome my noble friend’s proposals to move all on to the new benefit—that is the only way we will be able to extend the opportunities for supported work and re-entry into the labour market for people who may have been on these benefits for five, seven or even 10 years—but will they also apply to the old invalidity benefit, given that when we introduced incapacity benefit we did not then make any arrangements for moving people across from one to the other?