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Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have allowed the Secretary of State to go on a little, but I remind him that there is very little time and that the amendment is specifically about incapacity benefit.
Mr. Darling: I fully accept that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. However, although I appreciate everything that you say, I am entitled to take account of what I anticipate will be said about the Bill.
The amendments on incapacity benefit that we introduced last week are, I believe, fully justified. They showed that the Government have listened and made changes. There are no more changes to come. The Bill as a whole is a major step forward; it provides far greater opportunity and fairness than ever before. On that basis, I ask the House to support us in getting the Bill on to the statute book.
Mr. David Willetts (Havant):
There is no point in the Secretary of State getting quite so het up, and certainly not at such length. I will try to speak briefly so that the many right hon. and hon. Members who have already participated in the debate can, I hope, speak again.
The Secretary of State referred to the Government's increased support in the House of Lords. Before we get carried away, I remind him that the Contents--that is, those who voted for the amendment and therefore opposed the Government--were 260, and the Not Contents were 127. That hardly counts as a massive surge of support for the Government. Of course, the vote would have been lost on a vote of life peers alone--it had nothing to do with hereditary peers.
The fact is that the Bill is a muddle. While it professes to encourage people to save, this provision will penalise people for saving. While it claims to reinforcethe contributory principle, this provision attacks the contributory principle. I am afraid that although the Secretary of State may well be proud of parts of the Bill, I very much doubt that he is proud of the measure that he is trying to push through the House tonight. There is no argument for penalising disabled people simply because they have had the prudence to take out an occupational pension. There is no reason why they should face a marginal tax and benefit withdrawal rate of 73 per cent. There is no argument for the weakening of the national insurance contributory principle, which is contained in these proposals.
The only reason the House is still wrestling with the amendment at this late stage is because of the Secretary of State's catalogue of misjudgments. There was no reason for us to have got into these arguments; it was perfectly obvious from the beginning that compromise was necessary on this issue. The Secretary of State was more preoccupied with his macho image than with good social security policy. That is why we shall be opposing the motion.
Mr. Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton):
My right hon. Friend said in moving the motion that there were two issues before the House--the amendment and the Bill. There is also a third issue--the relationship of the House of Commons to the House of Lords. After three considerations of the Bill, anybody who votes against the Government tonight is voting for the House to Lords to prevail over the House of Commons. That is what this is about.
The Bill has come back to the House of Commons twice, and all hon. Members have had the right to vote on it. But this is the end of a parliamentary Session, and we had better be clear that the Labour party believes that the House of Commons shall have primacy over the House of Lords. Anybody who votes to scupper this measure will be voting for the House of Lords to prevail over the House of Commons. I go further: anybody who votes for this amendment will be voting on the same side as two dukes, 28 earls, 22 viscounts and Andrew Lloyd-Webber. Not only will they be voting for the last hurrah of the hereditaries, but they are asserting, if the House of Lords is allowed to have primacy over the House of Commons, that a reformed House of Lords, which is sure to be more democratic than the current one, will have an even greater claim to primacy over the House of Commons.
Audrey Wise (Preston):
Will my right hon. Friend acknowledge that it is possible that we will vote on the merits of the case?
Mr. Kaufman:
My hon. Friend may do that, but she has been elected to reform the House of Lords--[Interruption.] Oh yes, the wording of the motion is that this House insists. Anybody voting against the Government on this motion will be voting for the supremacy of the House of Lords. A reformed House of Lords will say that if the House of Commons was ready to cave in to the hereditaries, we, who are much more democratic, can have our way. My hon. Friend, who has an honourable and consistent record of voting against Labour Governments throughout her years in the House
Mr. Webb:
If I followed the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) correctly, he said that if the House voted in favour of the Ashley amendment--the less severe means test--we would, although that would be the will of the House, be being subservient to the House of Lords. We would not; we would be expressing the will of the House of Commons.
The two key issues before us are the threshold and the rate at which the means test tapers in. The Secretary of State has given no concession whatever on the taper. It was 50 per cent. on the day that he drafted the Bill, and it is 50 per cent. now. This is our first chance to vote in favour of a 23 per cent. taper.
Mr. Tom Levitt (High Peak):
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Webb:
There are only eight minutes left for other speeches so I shall not.
The second issue is the threshold. The amendment ties the threshold to the disability income guarantee, which has the huge advantage that it is indexed every year. The Secretary of State and the Minister of State were evasive last week on indexation. The sum of £85 has been specified in the Bill, but it could quickly be eroded. Linking the sum to the disability income guarantee would ensure indexation, providing safety for the future. That is why the Liberal Democrats will oppose the Government.
Mr. Roger Berry (Kingswood):
I support the Lords amendment tabled by Lord Ashley, principally because the Government's proposals would leave 310,000 disabled people who are unable to work without incapacity benefit or with reduced benefit. The vast majority of those people are already on low incomes. They do not slip on to incapacity benefit. They are judged unfit for work following a medical test set out by the Government of the day.
Like many others, I have long argued for a compromise that would protect disabled people who are unable to work and on the lowest incomes. A threshold fixed at the disability income guarantee of £128 would be fairer. A taper not of 50 per cent. but at the rate of the standard rate of income tax--23 per cent.--would be fairer.
Finally, I am not opposed to welfare reform. I am a strong supporter of it, and have been for a long time. I can even offer documentary evidence to prove that. Let me end with the words of Baroness Kennedy, who said yesterday in the other place:
Mr. Tony McWalter (Hemel Hempstead):
What is this debate all about? Incapacity benefit, people tell me. But incapacity benefit is basically ensconced in a Bill that tries to provide work for those who can and help for those who cannot. I have not found a single Member on the Labour Benches, and none too many on the Opposition Benches either, who disagrees with that principle.
The initial problem with the Bill was that a group of people fell into the middle--it was not clear whether they could work or needed our help. Trying to determine into which category people fall has been difficult. I did not support the Bill the last time it came before us because I did not believe that the Secretary of State and his Ministers had properly worked through that difficulty. However, over six months, case after case in the middle band has been produced--some people have rheumatoid arthritis, or myalgic encephalomyelitis. The Bill has been adjusted to meet many difficult conditions.
One difficult case remains--that of people who have taken early retirement and who have an occupational pension. Each of us has constituents in that category. For example, a teacher, after years of teaching, may be unable to bear going into a classroom to face the kids; or an air traffic controller may see a screen no longer filled with different planes, but with a jumble. Those people may retire from their jobs.
The Conservatives reacted to such people by saying that if they could do their own jobs, they could take incapacity benefit for the short term. The Tories had a problem with employing those people ever again and were damn well never going to give them any help, so people were left to rot. The Labour Government say that such people may no longer be able to teach, but they can still do something. We will help them to find those jobs and to get benefits.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Mr. Berry), whom I greatly respect, has referred to that idea as invalidity benefit. It is not so. The benefit is given to people who are told that they can do no work at all. If that is true, the people involved are invalids, and a whole host of things will be done to help, support and protect--
It being one hour after the commencement of proceedings, Mr. Deputy Speaker put the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to the Order.
Question put, That this House insists on its amendment No. 42A to the words restored to the Bill and disagrees with the Lords in their amendment No. 42D in lieu:--
"I believe in welfare reform, but I also believe in welfare."--[Official Report, House of Lords, 8 November 1999; Vol. 606, c. 1196.]
Miss Anne McIntosh (Vale of York):
The Secretary of State urged us to take a counter-view where appropriate. The Opposition have struck a chord with the country at large, which is why I support the Ashley amendment. A Joseph Rowntree Foundation study highlights determined accusations that the Secretary of
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