Welfare Reform Bill

The hon. Gentleman rightly refers to problems that have been identified in the existing system. In fairness to the DWP, I should say that its work, particularly in relation to some of those mental health and neurological issues, has made progress in terms of how fine-grained the assessment is capable of being. Nevertheless, while it is all very well for us to look at the words in the draft regulations—the 45 descriptors and so on—unless there has been proper and rigorous testing it will be impossible to know whether the new arrangement will work better or less well in practice than the current system, and that is the burden of the new clause. Let me return briefly to the question of the dummy runs that have been carried out so far. It would be useful if the Minister could give further details of the outcomes. I understand that while the new assessment would have given more claimants with mental health problems entitlement to benefit, on the basis of the dummy runs it would also have meant that many of those currently entitled to benefit owing to physical disabilities would no longer have been entitled to it.