Welfare Reform Bill

I welcome and support this Welfare Reform Bill. The Government have shown conclusively that the choice between helping the poor or reforming welfare was a false choice—it was not a case of having one or the other. Radical welfare reform goes hand in hand with the support of other policies such as tax credits and the national minimum wage. In knowing what works to help people back to work, the Government must go further to tackle the great inequalities that still exist. Those inequalities hold people back, excluding them from the labour market and disadvantaging them and their communities at the same time. For many in my constituency, there has been a clear recognition over recent years through the new deal that paid work is the best route out of poverty. At the same time, however, too many people believe that there is a right to a life on benefits. I shudder to think how much talent is being wasted in our communities because of the belief that benefits will see people through life. During the'80s and early'90s, I was employed in the manufacturing sector. The company that employed me with was like many others and there came periods when it had to downsize. Of course, one of the first groups to be approached was those over the age of 50. An offer of early retirement along with an enhanced severance package was the order of the day. Many people seized that opportunity, but I was disappointed by the fact that when I bumped into many of those ex-colleagues not many weeks or months afterwards they told me that they had quickly moved on to incapacity benefit. They were fit, healthy individuals, albeit that they were in their early to mid-50s, but suddenly they had become unfit for work and were on incapacity benefit. That trend went on for far too long. I also recognise that there are those who, for one reason or another, find themselves unable to continue in employment, more often than not because of a medical condition. Changes that we have made to replace incapacity benefit with employment and support allowance for new claimants is the way to ensure that those individuals get the opportunity to develop their talents and use their skills by returning to the workplace, albeit perhaps in an entirely new and different role. However, it is important that in accordance with the Gregg review model we do not force those who are on employment and support allowance, and attending interviews with pathways to work providers and developing a personalised plan to get back to health and into work, to apply for or take any specific jobs. I want to consider the issue of drugs, which has been mentioned, and of those who are hooked on drugs. Drugs are undoubtedly a scourge of modern society, I suspect in each and every community represented in this House. I welcome the new system for drug users on benefits, with the provision of tailored support to help them get off drugs and to move into work. I do not underestimate the challenge. Drug users will have the chance to turn their lives around, and in return they will be expected to take up that support so that the benefits help them overcome the problem rather than finding their way into the pockets of drug dealers. I suspect that that system might well come with significant costs. Part 3 of the Bill deals with child maintenance, and Members from all parties will at some time have dealt with extremely difficult child support cases and individuals in arrears, as I mentioned in my intervention on the hon. Member for Northavon (Steve Webb). It became frustrating to me very early on in my present role to see individuals in arrears who were living way beyond their means, running not just one or two cars but sometimes three or four and having numerous holidays throughout the year. Something was seriously wrong. I understand that, as one of my constituents suggested to me, there will be anxiety that authority is being taken away from the courts and placed in the hands of civil servants, although we all recognise that the courts process has held things up and has not helped. I would even go so far as to say that had the court system worked, we would never have had a Child Support Agency. The CSA would never have existed if the courts had been fair and equitable in each and every case they handled. If there were two identical cases, one in Dover and one in Dundee, how could the courts have come up with totally different results? The CSA exists, in my view, simply because the courts never worked properly in the first place. These have been called difficult and unprecedented economic times. We have heard from the hon. Member for Glasgow, East (John Mason) about the meeting with the Scottish colleges that he and I attended yesterday along with other colleagues. Further education colleges are potentially the one growth area as people will be looking to upskill and retrain and to seek other varieties of support, but the 16-hour rule could drive people away from colleges. I hope that that can be considered in Committee, if possible. I want to mention another matter that has been mentioned this afternoon, which is not in the Bill. It was raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), who asked the Secretary of State about those who are partially sighted or blind. They have fought shoulder to shoulder with the Royal National Institute of Blind People for a higher rate mobility component of disability living allowance. I took a small delegation of Back-Bench Labour colleagues to meet the Secretary of State and my right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs. McGuire) when she was the Minister with responsibility for disabled people. It is a matter of equality, social inclusion, employment and independence in family life. In the limited time that I have left, I want to give an example of that equality. It involves a lady called Jenny, who was 52, visually impaired and a volunteer worker for a disability support group made up of people with physical disabilities. Jenny could not get to work without a lift from a colleague with physical disabilities who drove his own car. She says:"““None of my colleagues at the disability support group were visually impaired, they all had physical disabilities. Most of them drove cars. I depended on a colleague with physical disabilities, who drove a car to give me a lift to work—otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get there. I considered myself then, and still consider myself now as having far greater mobility problems than most people with physical disabilities who can drive a car—but I receive less benefit. It's unfair and unjust.””" In discussions with Ministers and officials at the Department for Work and Pensions, representatives of the Royal National Institute of Blind People and other colleagues have agreed that the principle that we must do something to help people like Jenny is right. The Bill is about getting disabled people and people who are partially sighted and blind into employment, and I hope that the Minister can find some clause to which measures to help such people can be attached. When he winds up, I hope that he can give us a glimmer of hope that the Bill can be used to make what would be a vast difference to so many people.