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Work Programme (Wales)

I shall be extremely brief and speak fast to allow my colleague the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd to speak. The hon. Member for Arfon mentioned the Sheffield Hallam report published this summer, which looked at the Government’s welfare changes. It forecast that 60,000 people in Wales would be moving off incapacity benefit, with half of them—30,000 people—leaving the benefits system with no work to go to. The long-term solution is obviously the revival of the Welsh economy, but with no plans for jobs and growth, Wales faces a real crisis because of how welfare is being reformed. Last week the Wales Audit Office forecast that 21,000 jobs could be lost in the public sector over four years, a year after the Chancellor’s budget cuts announced in the spending review. The Auditor General used a formula from the Treasury’s Office of Budget Responsibility to estimate 3,000 public sector job losses this financial year, rising to 20,000 by 2014-15. A report last week from the Federation of Small Businesses, ““the Voice of Small Business””, said that far from expanding to fill the gap left by deep cuts in public sector jobs, many businesses are expecting to lay off staff in the next few months. Today, the PricewaterhouseCoopers report says the same. It says that public sector job losses now outnumber private sector job gains and it warns that the private sector cannot compensate for cuts. None of us wants to see people trapped on benefits. We all want to fight poverty, support vulnerable people and break the cycle of benefit dependency, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd asked earlier, where will the jobs come from? The Prime Minister has boasted that the Work programme is the biggest back-to-work scheme in the country’s history, but the Social Market Foundation has estimated that three quarters of those picked up by the Work programme will simply flow through it and back on to the dole. I apologise for repeating this today, but it is all programme and no work. One of the biggest problems for this Government will be working with the large number of people who have been on incapacity benefit who will make up one of the most challenging and significant groups coming on to the Work programme. Reassessments started in April and the process is to end in 2013-14. There are undoubtedly people on incapacity benefit who could work, but there are also some genuine cases. I appeal the Secretary of State: I cannot be alone in seeing harrowing constituency cases of people with mental illnesses and with progressive conditions who have been declared fit for work. The anxiety of the members of the Newport Multiple Sclerosis group I met recently is palpable. People are truly terrified. They live with pain, fatigue and cognitive problems; they may cope one day, but not another; they may be able to walk the 50 metres required, but may be in huge pain afterwards. Last week a man came to see me who suffered from deep vein thrombosis. He desperately wanted to work but was no longer allowed to drive, which used to be his job, because of his condition. He was now looking in supermarkets but was failing to find work. That issue was highlighted very well by ““Week In Week Out”” this week, where a man declared fit for work described how he was repeatedly turned down by employers because of his ill health. I urge the Secretary of State to watch that programme. Finally, as one member of the MS group told me, ““We are guilty until proven innocent””. That is because the appeals take so long—six months on average, and it can be up to a year. That is stressful for the claimants and a huge waste of resources for the Government. Last week, the New Statesman reported that the Minister for Employment had suggested that ESA could be withdrawn from claimants as they appeal decisions. With the huge backlog, the suggestion was that receipt of the benefit could be seen as acting almost as an incentive to appeal. I hope the Secretary of State can tell us that that is wrong because it is a lifeline for many people. When he launched the Work programme, the Minister of State told the media that he was keeping his fingers crossed. I hope that the Government are willing to do a little bit more than keep their fingers crossed for the benefit of my constituents. If not, what do the Government plan to do instead?