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Welfare Reform

We continue to be interested in the proposals around a single benefit system. Indeed, we are taking a major step towards that today by abolishing income support on top of the abolition of incapacity benefit. That will lead to a system that is based essentially around two benefits: jobseeker's allowance and the employment support allowance. In the short term, however, going in the direction that my right hon. Friend suggests would involve either spending hundreds of millions of pounds to take the JSA rate up to the ESA rate, or reducing the benefit levels of disabled people on ESA, which is not something that we are prepared to do. We continue to look at proposals for a single benefit system, but I hope that my right hon. Friend will acknowledge that today's proposals represent an important simplification.