Welfare Reform Green Paper

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their remarks and their generally constructive comments and questions. Obviously, the intention is to bring legislation to Parliament, one hopes in the summer, because we need to get on with the legislation if the new IB scheme is to be ready to roll from 2008. so I look forward to what I am sure will be some very interesting debates in the next few months. I will not rise to the rather depressing analysis of the economy made by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale. The economy remains one of the strongest labour markets in the world, and 10,000 new vacancies are notified to Jobcentre Plus every working day. The experience of Pathways to Work shows that even where people may have been disabled severely or where they have suffered considerable illness they have been able to get back to work with the kind of support that was given in the pathways pilots. That fills me with confidence about the route that we are going down. This is not a shot in the dark; we are building on the work that my noble friend Lady Hollis had a great deal to do with in previous years. We can see already what kind of intervention works. Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, is right to say that some people will not be in a position to work, certainly in the short to medium term, and that is recognised in the Green Paper. However, we should not write off anyone’s chances completely. We need to have a flexible system that ensures that people’s capability is considered from time to time. One of the great problems of incapacity benefit has been that once people have been on it they have tended to be left on it without the intervention and support that is so clearly required. The thrust of the early remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, was that we should be much more concerned about encouraging and supporting rather than conditionality and sanctions. This programme is going to work because it gives encouragement and support. The noble Lord mentioned people who had been on incapacity benefit for some time who were nervous about going back to work. I agree that it may be for many of those people that the health problem is no longer the key issue about going back to work; it may be that they lack the confidence or the motivation. That is surely where some form of conditionality comes in and some ability in relation to sanctions to encourage people to seriously consider work and the availability of support for going back to work. There is no question that the experience of Pathways to Work suggests that, even for people who had been on incapacity benefit who volunteered to come into the programme as existing claimants, the personal advice and support has been a great morale booster. The most heartening thing about Pathways to Work has been the more than 10,000 people who were already on incapacity benefit who volunteered to go on to the pathways programme to receive support. I am meeting some of those people who have now gone into work, and one can see, through the personal advice and the individual service tailored to them, how effective it can be. The noble Lords, Lord Skelmersdale and Lord Addington, referred to GPs and health, and I very much agree with them. We are keen to work with the health service and with general practitioners. It is not the role of the DWP to come between the GP and the patient, but there is no question that we need a culture change not just among GPs but among employers and employees. There has been a stock reaction that says, ““You are ill; therefore work is not good for you””. We need to change that, because clearly for many people being stuck on benefits for many years has had adverse consequences for their long term health and for general outcomes in terms of finance and family support. If we can encourage GPs and work with them to encourage patients to consider work as a good outcome that would be helpful, and it goes alongside the efforts that GPs are now making to be much more preventive in their approach. We support them in that. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked me about the degree of co-operation between the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions, and about the kind of support and training that will be available for GPs. He is right to emphasise that as important. The strategy that we launched in the autumn about healthy workplaces was a joint strategy between my department and the Department of Health. I regard that as a significant event. The more that my department and the health department can work together nationally, and the more that Jobcentre Plus and DWP officials and primary care trusts can work together locally, the more likely we are to have a holistic and supportive approach in which GPs can respond to the full. Any noble Lord who has visited a Pathways to Work scheme will find that, locally, primary care trusts have had an important and positive role to play. I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Addington, when he referred to the specific support in relation to mental health. He talked about the benefit of quick access to physiotherapy. The earlier the access, the more chance you have of nipping a problem in the bud. That must be the same with mental health. We are working with the Department of Health. Some pilots are going to start that look very much at that kind of early intervention. I am hopeful that that will create a pathway for the future. I also agree with him generally about training for medics and GPs. My right honourable friend Mrs Margaret Hodge and I met leaders of the medical profession this morning to discuss those issues, and were encouraged by the response. We will take forward work to develop training in the way that the noble Lord suggested. I am happy to discuss with him in further detail some of the proposals that we have in mind. The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, asked me about the average length of time. I shall try to find out the figures if they are available. I agree with him that, whatever the figures are, the time is too long. IB has been too passive. This has to be a much more active approach. It is a supportive approach, and we know from Pathways to Work that a supportive approach works. It is an individually based approach, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said. I am confident that we can develop capacity in my department. We will look to the private and voluntary sectors to help us with that, but I again pay tribute to the people in my department and the contractors on Pathways to Work, who have done a marvellous job. They have shown how an individually based approach can work, and that certainly is the model for us to build on in future.