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Kali Mountford: I rise in pride to support and sustain the Government. I was one of those who spent 65 hours in Committee, not as a nodding donkey, as some Opposition Members have said, but taking a full part in the debate. Conservative Members who served with me in Committee could assure the House that that is true. I am proud of the fact that we worked on the Bill, in its entirety, including clauses 53 and 54.
The Bill hangs together extremely well. It is cogent. It makes sense of national insurance contributions and of how we pay benefit and deal with people in extreme poverty. It tackles some of the inequities in the current system. Both Government and Opposition Members have spoken of problems that we have had in the past that have nothing to do with the Bill and have already been dealt with. I agree entirely that the benefit integrity project caused incredible pain and harm and I am glad that our Ministers abolished it; we should be proud of that. The House should be aware, though, that it is no longer a problem.
If people want to look for a problem to deal with, let it be the Benefits Agency medical service. I have been aware of that problem for some time, but we should recognise that it has nothing to do with the Bill, and that the Government are considering doctors' qualifications and the criteria to which they will have to work to ensure that the system works better than it has in the past.
The all-work test was an abomination, but if hon. Members are concerned about what new regulations are to take its place, let them lobby on that issue in the right place. Clauses 53 and 54 contain no reference to the all-work test. This is the wrong place and the wrong time to raise those objections. I am sure that the Government's plans for checking the gateway into benefits are the right way of dealing with the problem. It is right to consider what people's abilities--rather than disabilities--are now and will be in the future.
It has been mentioned that the Bill does not address the fact that the previous Government took people off unemployment benefit and put them on incapacity benefit. That is entirely true, but it is not the point of what I want to say. I was a member of the Employment Service when there were loads of changes to forms and regulations, taking people off unemployment benefit and putting them on to a range of other benefits, including invalidity benefit and then incapacity benefit.
Civil servants were told that if the questions about people's health and capabilities were answered in a certain way, they should advise the claimant to go elsewhere and claim a different benefit. The effect of that is important in the context of clauses 53 and 54. Anyone who knows about the psychological effects of unemployment and what happens to people who spend a long time without work will know that despair begins to set in after about two years.
People on incapacity benefit are very likely to remain on it for at least that long, away from the workplace and with no future opportunity to reintroduce themselves to the labour market, simply by virtue of the fact that they have been away from it for far too long. Confidence is sapped and they become dependent on the benefit, because all other opportunities seem closed. I do not want people to live that life. A life on benefits is no joke; it is no fun. People on benefits are not well off.
We have a duty to consider whether the qualification for incapacity benefit makes sense. It is an income-related benefit, designed to replace the income that people had when they were fit for employment. It seems sensible to ask what is the link between the period of employment and the period of receipt of benefit.
It certainly is not a mean proposal, if we consider it in the context of other benefits to which people are entitled. I am most concerned about those entitled to income support, and the Bill will add £5.70 to the premium for disability paid to those claiming income support. That is a generous increase and takes account of the fact that people who are likely to suffer ill health for some time face extra costs. However, it does not make sense to argue that those costs should be covered by a national insurance contributory benefit. It is right not to leave people floating on a sea of despair, and I would not support any measure that did so. However, the Bill would introduce stability into the system and people would know exactly where they stood in relation to work and their incapacity.
The impression has been given this afternoon that people on incapacity benefit are permanently disabled. That is not always the case and some people will improve. It would be wrong for the House to leave the impression that we have been talking about all disabled people in all circumstances, because that is not the case.
I have been concerned to hear people talking about income support in the way that it has been talked about in the past, which--when I worked in the benefits system and for a welfare rights organisation--caused me great despair. Income support is sometimes stigmatised, but that does a great disservice to all recipients of income support. All people should be treated with dignity, including those who have to claim income support.
Income support is claimed because an individual has no other income. That is the whole point. When I considered the issues before the House today, I looked at their impact on the very worst off, but the amendments do not address that issue. Nothing in the amendments would redistribute funds to the worst-off. The only redistribution would be the redistribution of the £5.70 increase in the disabled premium on income support.
I started my speech by saying that I was proud to have supported the Government on the Bill. My view has not changed during the debate, although I have listened with interest to the various contributions. I urge those hon. Members to reconsider their remarks in the light of the totality of the Bill and all that it can achieve. It would be easy to support all the wonderful measures that have been discussed this afternoon, but hon. Members have been cherry-picking with gay abandon. They have walked through the cherry orchard with their baskets and enjoyed every minute. However, the baskets need to be filled by the Bill and all its clauses.
Mr. Howard Flight (Arundel and South Downs):
The hon. Member for Kingswood (Mr. Berry) presented an argument that all fair-minded hon. Members must surely accept. The arrangements proposed in clauses 53 and 54 would not just means-test the benefit against pensions but would affect whether someone could take a pension early. If people can take their pensions early, they would be disqualified from incapacity benefit. That is morally wrong. If people take their pensions--for which they have saved during their lives--early, the price they pay is a substantially lower pension for the rest of their lives. Under the Bill, if people choose not to take their pensions early so that they can look after themselves in old age, they will not be entitled to incapacity benefit. That is unacceptable, even for those who can stomach the concept of means-testing pensions per se.
Other hon. Members have drawn attention to the fact that the changes in the national insurance contribution rules will have perverse effects. The changes are likely to hit people who have debilitating diseases, and spouses--both male and female--who stop work, whether to care for children or an ill spouse. The changes will encourage anyone who may be vulnerable to leave work and get the benefit before they are at risk. The proposals would not even achieve the objective that the Government claim they are seeking to achieve.
I attended Prime Minister's Question Time on Wednesday and the Prime Minister made the point that it was outrageous that one in four retired men draws incapacity benefit. He made the party political point about unemployment benefit versus incapacity benefit, but he also suggested that the system of medical examination could not be working if it delivered that figure. If the Government's primary objective is to stop wrong assessments or people milking the system, the proposals would not achieve that. They will create a different regime for the future, but they will not tidy up what is wrong today. To justify clauses 53 and 54 on those grounds is a travesty of the argument.
It is not acceptable for anyone who seeks to take a fair approach to camouflage what is a cut of £570 million--which will be achieved by imposing harsh and probably perverse tests on qualifying for incapacity benefit--with all the other arguments. I cannot see how Labour Members can support this measure, given the commitments they made when the Conservative party made certain mistakes on the issue of means-testing.
Audrey Wise (Preston):
The social security system has three components which are contributory benefits, such as pensions; non-contributory benefits, which are paid for a particular circumstance, such as child benefit or, at the moment, severe disablement allowance; and means-tested
The current proposals to which we object would materially alter the balance between the three components. We have been told that clause 53, which reduces eligibility for incapacity benefit by changing contribution record rules, is being introduced because people should be recently in touch with the labour market. However, contributions records are a poor guide to whether people are in touch with the labour market, or even in it at all. Many people, particularly women, work part-time below the contributions threshold. There are many reasons for part-time work. Women may take it because of child care or it may be all that they can get. They be unwell but want to keep on working as much as they can.
Although those people are below the contributions threshold, they are in the labour market. However, the Bill rules them out. Some 180,000 women have two part-time jobs, both of which fall beneath the contributions threshold. Are we telling them that they are ineligible because they are not in touch with the labour market? Can they have two jobs and still not qualify? Contributions records are a poor guide.
Why should a recent record be required in any case? Someone may have paid for 20 years and still be rendered ineligible by clause 54. Someone else may have paid only one year's contributions, but still be eligible. Where is the fairness in that? Where is the relationship between benefits and contributions? The clause makes nonsense of the contributory principle.
Some people may be unwell, but continue to work to the best of their ability. What advice should we give to constituents in that case? If the clause is enacted, we should benefit them by suggesting that it would be safer to cease work while they qualify. I do not want to give people that advice. I do not have to do so now. I can tell people to keep on working, and I believe that it is best for people to work if they can.
We have heard some extraordinary statements about incapacity benefit, implying that loads of people are on it just because they decided that it would be nice. We are told that people take early retirement and go on incapacity benefit. We are told that there are so many people on the benefit because it is a substitute for unemployment benefit.
In fact, the big problem of social security is how complicated it is. There are many different benefits and qualifications, and names of benefits change. It is true that the Tories tried to get people off the unemployment register and on to sick benefits, but incapacity benefit did not then exist. Invalidity benefit was created for that purpose.
Incapacity benefit came into being in 1995 because the Tories wanted to reverse the position. We opposed it vigorously in 1995, deploring the fact that many people who qualified for sick pay would no longer qualify. In a Labour party briefing we said:
Now, we are told that people are on incapacity benefit because they have taken early retirement. In 1995,we said:
"There will be a new and more stringent functional test of incapacity under which many people will lose entitlement to benefit."
We did not say that people could go on to the benefit just because they fancied it or wanted to retire early. We said that a new and harsh rule was being introduced by the
Conservatives. It was not me who said so, but a brief from Labour's economic secretariat, red rose and all. Labour Members were all encouraged to think those things, because they were true.
"There is growing evidence that concerns about the new benefit will mean that many people will choose to take out private insurance, at considerable personal expense, rather than risk the uncertainties attached to the new eligibility test."
We were saying that incapacity benefit would force people to take out private occupational insurance to gain themselves a pension because they would be deprived of benefits.
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