---

 
11 Oct 2004 : Column 1
 

THE PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES

OFFICIAL REPORT

IN THE THIRD SESSION OF THE FIFTY–THIRD PARLIAMENT OF THE

UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND

[WHICH OPENED 13 JUNE 2001]

FIFTY–THIRD YEAR OF THE REIGN OF

HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II

SIXTH SERIES

VOLUME 425

ELEVENTH VOLUME OF SESSION 2003–2004

 
11 Oct 2004 : Column 1
 

House of Commons

Monday 11 October 2004

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

WORK AND PENSIONS

Incapacity Benefit

1. Mr. Harold Best (Leeds, North-West) (Lab): If he will make a statement on plans for incapacity benefit. [190389]

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Alan Johnson): Most people who claim incapacity benefit want to work and we are determined to do more to address the challenge of inactivity and ensure that those who can return to work are given the right medical and employment support to do so. We are offering that support through our flagship reform programme, pathways to work. I can announce today that there are already extremely encouraging signs of success, with pathways areas showing twice the improvement in job entries of that in the rest of the country.

As we go forward, we shall continue to work with the health service, the voluntary sector and employers to help more people to return to and remain in work and to deliver our commitment of work for those who can and security for those who cannot.
 
11 Oct 2004 : Column 2
 

Mr. Best: I am sure that my right hon. Friend agrees that the introduction of incapacity benefit brought much relief to people who had hitherto suffered unnecessarily. Can he give those same good people an assurance that the Government have no plans to introduce a cut to either their incapacity benefit or their rights to it?

Alan Johnson: I assure my hon. Friend that we have no such plans. Indeed, the purpose of the pathways to work experiment is to concentrate on giving help and assistance that people on incapacity benefit have not previously received. They have previously been considered to be passive recipients of benefits and expected to go away and not come back. In pathways to work, we have found that, if they get help through rehabilitation and help into work, they take the opportunities. That is why the early signs from the pathways experiment are so encouraging.

Sir Archy Kirkwood (Roxburgh and Berwickshire) (LD): In welcoming the Secretary of State to his new position, I am sure that I reflect opinion from all parties when I acknowledge his predecessor's work. We are grateful for that and wish him well.

I am pleased that the Secretary of State mentioned rehabilitation because 50 per cent. of the stock of people on incapacity benefit are over 50. It seems to me—international experience confirms it—that a reinvigorated, activated rehabilitation service can help many of those people back to work and provide a direction that they want to take.

Alan Johnson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments and associate myself with his remarks. My right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith) was a first-class, splendid Secretary of State and I am proud to be able to pick up some of the work that he set in train.
 
11 Oct 2004 : Column 3
 

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would be interested in another statistic from the early days of the pathway. Although the experiment is for those in their first year on incapacity benefit, we have found many people who have been on incapacity benefit for longer than a year—and therefore have no obligation to become involved—knocking on the door of Jobcentre Plus to become involved. That demonstrates and underlines his point.

Mr. Andrew Smith (Oxford, East) (Lab): I thank my right hon. Friend and other hon. Members for their kind remarks. I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend on his appointment and wish him every success as Secretary of State. Does he agree that the early success of the pathways to work pilots owes a great deal to the path-breaking close collaboration between Jobcentre Plus, the national health service, the voluntary sector and the new deal for disabled people? Does he also agree that the pilots point the way forward in the direction of further reform?

Alan Johnson: I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend. Indeed, I believe that the programme will be known as the Andrew Smith pathways to work scheme. When we consider the exciting prospects, the co-operation between the health service and the excellent personal advisers, who are well trained to do the job, gives the scheme a new dimension. I saw the programme in action in Gateshead. Those developments and initiatives would be under threat if we privatised the whole Jobcentre Plus service. The staff should be congratulated and I associate myself with my right hon. Friend's remarks.

Mr. Paul Goodman (Wycombe) (Con): To follow the question of the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Mr. Best), it has been reported that the Government have a

"four year plan to put strict time limits on incapacity benefit".

Can the Secretary of State rule out putting time limits on present or future payments of incapacity benefit or other related benefits?

Alan Johnson: I saw some of those press reports on the first weekend that I took on the job. None of them is based on fact. I am not in the business of ruling anything in or out. I am four weeks into the job and carefully considering how we take the matter forward. However, I stress that any longer-term reform to incapacity benefit has to build on our existing approach in pathways to work and ensure that those who are most seriously sick and disabled receive the security to which they have a right and that they deserve.

Mr. Tom Harris (Glasgow, Cathcart) (Lab): My right hon. Friend will know that, in Glasgow, there are more than 60,000 incapacity benefit claimants, which means that, among people of working age, the ratio of those working to those out of work is less than 2:1. Does he agree that that situation is unacceptable and that, to ensure the future prosperity of Glasgow, it is essential that we reduce the total number of people on incapacity benefits?
 
11 Oct 2004 : Column 4
 

Alan Johnson: I agree with my hon. Friend. That group of people, not very charmingly called "the stock", were just left. There was a lot of attention on the flow of people coming on to incapacity benefit, but not much was paid to giving those people the help that they needed and asked for—nine out of 10 say that they want to get back into work. It is a stunning fact that, if someone is on incapacity benefit for a year, they will be on it for eight years. If they are on it for two years, they will die or retire on it. We must work harder to change that situation, which is why the pathways to work experiment is vital to the future of this important issue.

Mr. Steve Webb (Northavon) (LD): I too welcome the Secretary of State to his new role and wish him well. This morning, the Prime Minister referred to 1 million people being on incapacity benefit wanting to work. Can the Secretary of State confirm that that is the same 1 million people whom the Department that he leads was talking about six years ago? Does not that show how little progress has been made? Will he condemn any rhetoric that implies that the majority of people on incapacity benefit are skivers or malingerers? Actually, most of them want to work. Will he ensure that that rhetoric is not used? Will he look at the demand side? Too often, in many places, it is not that people do not want to work but that employers do not want to take them on. What is he doing to encourage employers to take on people on incapacity benefit?

Alan Johnson: I do not know of anyone on the Labour Benches ever using the kind of terms that the hon. Gentleman mentioned and I am not about to refute comments that I have not made. I said in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West (Mr. Best) that nine out of 10 people on incapacity benefit want to work. All the evidence from the pathways to work experiment reinforces that message.

The hon. Gentleman raised an important point about those coming on to incapacity benefit directly from the workplace—a third of incapacity benefit recipients come straight from work. I think, and the Health and Safety Executive agrees, that there is more that we could do in that regard, but all our efforts must be put into helping those who are on incapacity benefit. They sometimes feel, as one person to whom I spoke who was severely disabled eloquently put it, that they are left lying in a ditch and after a while the ditch becomes very comfortable. That is an issue that we must help them with. I do not know what petty political point the hon. Gentleman was trying to make but I certainly will not be involved in any attempts to stigmatise people on incapacity benefit.

Mr. Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab): I too welcome the Secretary of State to his position. Has he had time yet to look at the incapacity benefit figures for Birkenhead? Is he aware that the vast majority of people who claim incapacity benefit in the town joined the ranks of claimants from industrial injury, which then became a disability and many of them now have a mental disability? Does not that underscore the importance of joined-up government, so that the national health service responds quickly to people who have injuries before they get down that track? Does he accept that, as we begin to debate pension reform, and
 
11 Oct 2004 : Column 5
 
if the Government are thinking in the longer term of raising the retirement age, many of our constituents will never reach that age, as they will simply be worn out at work? For them, we must have a new robust incapacity benefit paid at a generous level.

Alan Johnson: I assure my right hon. Friend that I have looked at everything to do with the constituency of Birkenhead since I got this job. I cannot say that I have committed all the figures to memory yet. He makes an important point, which is at the heart of the debate: how do we ensure that we provide assistance, in the new world we are in, to those people, many of whom went on to incapacity benefit during the dark years of the 1980s and early 1990s, when the number of people on the benefit trebled from 700,000 to 2.6 million? Those people were used conveniently to try to keep the unemployment figures down. We now have high employment and low unemployment, which is why we need to turn our attention to this group of people. We need to join up government and to join up the issues affecting incapacity benefit and pensions. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right in his remarks.

---