§ 1. Mr. BakerTo ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans she has to improve her Department's monitoring of the take-up of benefits. [875]
§ The Minister for Welfare Reform (Mr. Frank Field)The Government are anxious that those who are eligible for benefits claim those benefits. Necessarily, much of our attention will go to those who are retired, for it is among the retired that large amounts of unclaimed benefit exist. That, however, will not be an exclusive policy. Members may have noticed in the Sunday press two weeks ago that the Department advertised an increase in eligibility for industrial injury benefit for those underground miners who may be eligible for benefit due to their chronic bronchitis or emphysema.
§ Mr. BakerI welcome the Minister to his new post. I welcome also his response in recognising that there is 2 a need to increase the take-up of benefits. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, for many people, Government benefits forms present a real challenge, and that that acts as a discouragement for those who seek to take up benefit and are entitled to do so? Will the Minister undertake to review all Government forms to ensure that, in future, those who are eligible for benefit are not discouraged from receiving it?
§ Mr. FieldIn the Government's total review of welfare, we shall ensure that we review the eligibility form.
§ Mr. LilleyI welcome the Minister to his post and congratulate the Secretary of State for Social Security and Minister for Women, the right hon. Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), and her entire ministerial team, on taking responsibility for the largest and most sensitive Department in government, which has a splendid team of civil servants, as the right hon. Lady and her ministerial colleagues will discover. I wish them well.
The Prime Minister is even now recycling an Opposition speech elsewhere on the take-up of benefits by lone parents. Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that Labour intends to pay new lone parents higher rates of benefit than those paid to married couples in equivalent circumstances from next April rather than equalising them as we, the previous Government, had proposed? Will he confirm also that this will cost the taxpayer ultimately an extra half a billion pounds a year?
§ Mr. FieldI thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind comments. I welcome him to his new position.
As the right hon. Gentleman, but perhaps not all of those who sit behind me, will know, the previous Government left about 20 cuts for the present Government to consider. When we have considered all the work that they did not do but built into their expenditure plan, we shall make an announcement to the House.