Welfare Reform Green Paper

May I start by welcoming the hon. Gentleman’s commitment to work with the Government to bring about these important reforms? I welcome his support and his recognition that incapacity benefit has failed millions of people. Most Labour Members would probably prefer the Conservatives to have done something about it when they had 18 years in government. [Interruption.] As many of us can testify, no such measures were taken. The hon. Gentleman referred to the record of the present Government, and his hon. Friends have been shouting rudely about it. Incapacity benefit numbers fell last year for the first time ever in the history of incapacity benefit. The numbers coming on to incapacity benefit are down by a third, so the argument that no progress has been made is totally untrue. We are making progress. The reforms will allow us to make further progress still. The hon. Gentleman spoke about the position in the labour market. I remind him that we have in the UK now the highest employment rate of all the countries in the G8, something never achieved under the Conservative Government. We remember their record on unemployment. I do not want to say any more about that. The hon. Gentleman asked me how the personal capabilities assessment will be reformed. We say in the Green Paper, and I am sorry if I did not make it clear today, that we will be convening an expert group to work with the Department to undertake that reform of the medical procedures. It is important that we do that. We want to build consensus around the new system. That is very important for the success of the reforms, for various reasons. People must have confidence that the assessments are right, and we will work with the disability movement to make sure that that is true. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that prevention is the best tactic that we should deploy to prevent people from coming on to benefits in the first place. The Green Paper contains a series of measures—I did not go through all of them this afternoon—which will make a significant difference, including supporting greater investment in occupational health. I hope the hon. Gentleman will welcome that. Where will the health care providers come from? They will come from the NHS and some will come from the private sector. I was in Derby recently and saw at first hand a hugely successful strategy of involving cognitive behavioural therapists employed from the private sector to provide services for people on incapacity benefit. I can confirm that existing incapacity benefit claimants will have access to the pathways to work extensions. The hon. Gentleman asked about the work that we were doing with existing IB claimants and said that the focus should be on them. Of course, all the work that we do between now and 2008—I think it will be 2008 when we have legislated for the new benefit and got the system in place—will, by definition, have to be with existing claimants under the existing IB system. There is no one else to focus on, so they will have plenty of opportunity to work with us and get back into work. On the hon. Gentleman’s point about vacancies, I saw his figures, as have hon. Members on both sides of the House. I make two comments about his figures and his analysis. First, Jobcentre Plus holds only about a third of the total number of vacancies in the country at any one moment in time. His figures were based on Jobcentre Plus vacancies. We need to bear that in mind. Secondly, as we all know, some of our constituents work in other constituencies where there might be more vacancies. It is true that that happens, but I do not think that the hon. Gentleman recognised that. We envisage the private and voluntary sectors being very much involved in the pathways to work projects across the country, because we know that if we get the contractual frameworks right and choose our partners correctly, the voluntary sector will be able to make a hugely important contribution to improving the service that we offer. It is true that these reforms will require significant investment. It is equally true to say that we are the first Government ever who have been prepared to stand here and say that we will make that investment to get people with a disability back into work. The hon. Gentleman’s final question was about whether we would count people on the new employment and support allowance as unemployed. No, we will not, for one very obvious reason, which I am surprised that he did not recognise. To count as being unemployed, a person has to be available immediately to take up employment. The very notion here is that we are dealing with people with a measure of illness and incapacity, and we will work with them. We are not going to apply the full jobseeker’s allowance conditionality regime to people on incapacity benefit; it would be wrong to do so. The hon. Gentleman said that I had been in my post for four months. In fact, it is two months; it just feels like four months.