Welfare Reform Bill

In his usual balanced and fair way, the hon. Gentleman puts his finger on the dilemma. Of course, that is a danger, but it is outweighed by the points that he made earlier. We must be mindful of the way in which people approach such things. The medical assessment and the work-focused health-related assessment are very different things in the minds of the people who undergo them. The first involves getting over a particular hurdle or being seen in a particular context, but the second is a much more refining process. The Disability Benefits Consortium says:"““Asking people to make such a shift in their thinking will almost certainly lead to a high number of incorrect decisions and assessments being made.””" The two-week period to which amendment No. 116 refers was suggested by NACAB. It is not set in stone—it is an issue for discussion—but I urge the Government to reconsider the principle of separating those two interviews. Turning briefly to new clause 7 and amendment No. 87, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry), there were strong disagreements about the obligations on members of the support group. There is broader issue at stake, and it is captured better by the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend than by new clause 7. It is an issue not just for members of the support group but for people who have been on incapacity benefit for a long time and wish to participate in such a process. I am passionate about the matter, and I was naturally interested in the exchange about whose constituency had the most IB claimants. The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) referred to seaside towns, and my Blackpool constituency has the 15th highest number of IB claimants. People scratch their heads and wonder why that should be the case, but in Blackpool many claimants with medical conditions imported their IB eligibility from former industrial areas. Many claimants in my constituency worked in the mining industry, and came to Blackpool in the 1980s and 1990s, so they have been on IB for 10 or 15 years. The philosophy of the Government’s reforms is to give a sense of empowerment and openness to such people. I strongly urge the Minister to make more explicit in the Bill the fact that they should be given priority if they wish to opt in. They should not be excluded. I accept that if we wish to achieve quicker results that group will be more difficult to deal with, but it is important, not simply because of my constituents’ personal circumstances but because a broader issue is at stake, that they should be kept in the frame.