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Incapacity Benefit
10. Mr. Mark Hoban (Fareham): What targets his Department has for getting people who claim incapacity benefit into work. [36334]
The Minister for Work (Mr. Nicholas Brown): We have no targets for getting people who claim incapacity benefit into work. Where people are capable of returning to work, the Department will give them every assistance to do so.
Our new Jobcentre Plus service ensures that people who make new or repeat claims for incapacity benefit have the opportunity of work-focused advice and support from a personal adviser so that they can be helped to move into work when they are ready to do so.
From this April, we are introducing new, fairer and more flexible permitted work rules. Any incapacity benefit recipient will be able to earn up to £20 per week for an unlimited period or work for less than 16 hours and earn up to £66 a week for 26 weeks. The new rules are more flexible and give all people in receipt of incapacity benefit the chance to get back into work.
Mr. Hoban: I suppose that it is no surprise that the Government have no targets for getting people on incapacity benefit back into work. More than 50 per cent. of those claiming incapacity benefit have been doing so for more than four years. In addition, the ONE interviews for sick and disabled people have been shown by the Department's own research to be failures. When will the Government come forward with effective measures to increase the number of people in work and decrease the number of those claiming benefits?
Mr. Brown: I strongly disagree with the thrust of the hon. Gentleman's question. Incapacity benefit is there for a purpose, because the people claiming it are ill and not able to work. We should not have targets for forcing people to work if they are sick and cannot do so. That would be completely unfair. However, when people can work, the services of the Employment Service, such as Jobcentre Plus, are there to help them back into work. Moreover, when they are capable of doing some work, the new discretionary sums of money are available for them if they are capable of doing only a small amount of work or if it is of therapeutic value. That seems to be the right approach. To suggest that people should be compelled to work, in the circumstances that the hon. Gentleman advocates, is very wrong, and would not, I am sure, be endorsed by his Front-Bench colleagues.
David Winnick (Walsall, North): I wish to refer to those who are disabled and cannot work. I have a constituent who suffers from a form of heart disease for which only a transplant will lead to any recovery. He had his disability living allowance reduced from the higher to the lower rate and when he lodged an appeal, it was taken away altogether. Why should my constituent be treated in such a shabby manner? Obviously I have written to the Secretary of State, the Benefits Agency and the hospital
that is treating him. Surely this is an illustration of the Benefits Agency making decisions that are impossible to understand.
Mr. Brown: I am reluctant to discuss individual constituents' cases on the Floor of the House, and even more reluctant to do so without having the full details of the case. However, I give my hon. Friend this assurance—I will look at the case that he raises and write to him about it.
Mr. Tim Boswell (Daventry): Is not the Minister concerned, as I hope we all are, that about 3,000 people leave the labour force each week for incapacity benefit and only a very small proportion return to work? Was it not entirely predictable that numbers on incapacity benefit are rising again?
Has the Minister read the Department's own research report, No. 127, showing that respondents in the sick or disabled group who had not participated in the
work-focused interviews were more likely to be in work than those who had participated? Has he also noticed the extraordinary situation whereby vocational rehabilitation is his responsibility in this Department while occupational health sits in the Department of Health? Is it not high time for Ministers collectively, in this most sensitive of areas, to put less emphasis on presentation and more on joined-up thinking?
Mr. Brown: Although we have to be adversarial at Question Time, the hon. Gentleman makes two fair points. First, we need to do more on rehabilitation, and he isright that responsibilities are split between the two Departments. That is why Ministers are talking together to see what more can be done, and we ought to explore that. Secondly, he noted the rising number of people coming on to the benefit. I say to him gently that it is possible to overstate the problem because there are demographic factors at work. Nevertheless, I accept that if one wants to try to intervene, by far and away the best thing is to intervene early with a programme of rehabilitation, where that is appropriate.
Points of Order
3.31 pm
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Last Tuesday, the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions said in this House:
- "I was not in a position to block any arrangement about his future employment elsewhere—
- "in the civil service and I accepted that discussions between Sir Richard Mottram and Mr. Sixsmith should continue."—[Official Report, 26 February 2002; Vol. 380, c. 564.]
Mr. Speaker: There has been no approach to me.
Andrew Bennett (Denton and Reddish): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In the Question Time that has just gone, we completed only nine questions. It is not so long ago that, at Social Security questions on a Monday, we often got up to Question 20. Is it not deplorable that only nine substantive questions were dealt with today? Could I suggest that you consider taking some action on this, and that instead of letting the next Social Security questions run for one hour to 3.30 pm, you let it run until Question 20 has been reached so that individual cases, like that of my constituent dealt with in question 18 today, can be reached?
Mr. Speaker: I have no such powers. However, I have said before that there should be brief questions and, of course, brief replies. That will allow us to get down the Order Paper. I am conscious that hon. Members, including the hon. Gentleman, have waited patiently for their particular question to be reached. It is a pity that we are only getting to Question 10.
Hywel Williams (Caernarfon): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Was it in order for the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) to contact the police in south Wales on no fewer than four occasions regarding a case that was under their active consideration? I refer to the case of Mr. German, the sometime head of the Liberal party in Wales and a former Deputy First Minister. Was it in order for the hon. Gentleman to interfere? Have you received a request from him to come to the House to explain himself?
Mr. Speaker: This is a matter that has taken place outside the House and has nothing to do with me.
Orders of the Day
Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill
As amended in the Standing Committee, considered.
3.34 pm
Lembit Öpik (Montgomeryshire): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I do not want to delay the House, but while I understand that amendments were not published until Friday so that as many hon. Members as possible could contribute them, that has made it hard for Opposition parties to prepare our responses. We saw the selection list only after 1 pm today. Will you use your considerable influence, Mr. Speaker, in passing on to the powers that be our request for a little more consideration about the amount of time that we are given to examine complicated Bills such as this one?
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman will remember that I selected the amendments at the Speaker's conference at 12 noon. The Officers of the House disseminated the information as quickly as they could thereafter.
3.35 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Desmond Browne): I beg to move,
- That the Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill, as amended, be considered in the following order, namely, new Clauses relating to Part 1, amendments relating to Clauses 1 and 2, Schedule 1, Clause 3, Schedule 2, Clauses 4 and 5, Schedule 3, Clauses 6 to 11, Schedule 4, Clauses 12 and 13, Schedule 5, Clauses 14 to 20, Schedule 6, Clauses 21 and 22, new Clauses relating to Part 2, amendments relating to Clauses 23 to 29, Schedule 7, Clauses 30 to 44, new Clauses relating to Part 3, amendments relating to Clause 45, Schedule 8, Clauses 46 to 50, Schedule 9, Clauses 51 and 52, new Clauses relating to Part 4, amendments relating to Clauses 53 to 62, Schedule 10, Clause 63, Schedule 11, Clauses 64 and 65, new Clauses relating to Part 5, amendments relating to Clauses 66 to 80, remaining new Clauses, amendments relating to Clauses 81 to 84, Schedule 12, Clause 85, Schedule 13, Clauses 86 to 92, new Schedules and remaining proceedings on consideration.
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