Disabled People (Hansard, 16 November 1998)

§ 5. Mrs. Joan Humble (Blackpool, North and Fleetwood)
What proposals he has to improve work opportunities for disabled people. [58370]

§ 8. Mr. Terry Rooney (Bradford, North)
What assessment he has made of the willingness of disabled people to move from welfare into work. [58373]

§ The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Alistair Darling)
We know that more than 1 million disabled people receiving state benefits want to work. Together with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, we have introduced the new deal for disabled people and proposals for a single gateway. I have also proposed reform of the all-work test. These and other measures will greatly improve opportunities for disabled people.

§ Mrs. Humble
One of the main problems facing disabled people seeking work is that they fear that they may lose benefits if the job does not work out. Can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that the Government are taking action to make sure that the protection offered by the benefit system is not withdrawn as soon as a disabled person takes the risk and goes into work?

§ Mr. Darling
My hon. Friend raises an important point. Disabled people especially may be afraid to change their circumstances because in the past they believed that that would be to their disadvantage. Not only do we have advisers under the new deal who will give advice, but the 12-month linking rule will ensure that someone coming off benefit and going into work will be protected. However, I notice with deep regret that the Conservative party is opposing that rule. The disabled persons tax credit will also provide a guaranteed minimum income, in the same way as the working families tax credit. The Conservatives are against that as well. We are introducing other practical measures that will help to reduce the barriers that face many disabled people going into work. Our objective is to ensure that as many people who are disabled and who want to work can do so.

§ Mr. Rooney
The Secretary of State will be aware that many Labour Members have campaigned for many years for the right of disabled people to work. Will he confirm the amount of money that will be available under the new deal for people with disabilities, and how many people he expects to be placed in work through it?

§ Mr. Darling
My hon. Friend will know that £195 million is being spent on the new deal. The disabled persons tax credit, as I explained earlier, will mean that many disabled people will be substantially better off in work. That will operate together with other practical forms of help, some of which were announced a couple of weeks ago, such as the job introduction scheme, the disability rights commission and the supported employment programme.
Right across the board, we are doing everything that we can to make it easier for people with a disability to get into work and to stay in work. We are also, of course, encouraging employers to do everything that they can to keep people in work, rather than letting them go when a problem arises. The Government are committed to improving the situation that faces disabled people, and it is a matter of deep regret that many of the practical measures that we are introducing are bitterly opposed by the Conservative party.

§ Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle)
Everyone will support and encourage schemes for getting disabled people who are able to work back into work. However, like the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy 595 (Mr. Llwyd), I have encountered in my constituency recently a number of cases of people who have been on disability living allowance for a considerable time, from whom that has been withdrawn under the new criteria, and who have been told that they are fit to go back to work. I interviewed them myself as a layman, and it is obvious to me that they are not fit to go back to work. Will the right hon. Gentleman look at the criteria again and make sure that they are not too harsh?

§ Mr. Darling
I shall try to deal with the points that the hon. Gentleman makes. First, disability living allowance is not an out-of-work benefit. It is designed to provide help with extra costs, whether someone is working or not. Secondly, no new criteria have been introduced. The benefit integrity project, which the hon. Gentleman will no doubt recall was introduced in the dying days of the previous Government, resulted in a number of people being excluded from benefit who probably should not have been excluded. That is why I want to replace that scheme with a fairer and better scheme that ensures that we get benefit right first time and avoid the situation that we inherited, where a third of people receiving DLA have no medical evidence to back up that award. The benefits system that we inherited, as the hon. Gentleman should know, left an awful lot to be desired. Our objective is to improve it.
Finally, the hon. Gentleman says that everybody would support measures to help people to get back into work. He had better have a word with those on his Front Bench, who are opposing measures that will come before the House tomorrow to institute the 12-month linking rule, which will be of great advantage to people with disabilities.

§ Mr. Mark Oaten (Winchester)
Can the Secretary of State tell the House how many jobs he believes will be created from the £195 million under the pilot scheme for the new deal? Has the Department thought beyond that and recognised that billions, not millions, of pounds will be needed to tackle the 1 million disabled people who are able and want to get back to work?

§ Mr. Darling
The hon. Gentleman misses the point. The new deal is not a job creation programme of the sort that we have seen in the past. Its object is to ensure that people are equipped and have the skills to get work. Many disabled people face additional barriers that others do not face. The point of the new deal and the other measures that we are introducing is to ensure that the disadvantages that have been visited upon disabled people are removed. I should have thought that he would do better supporting that proposition, rather than carping at its objectives.

§ Mr. Malcolm Wicks (Croydon, North)
Given that people with very serious physical disabilities and learning difficulties are enabled to find employment through supportive employment projects, will my right hon. Friend comment on the fact that there are not enough places and resources for such projects and, therefore, resources are spent on social security for people with disabilities who want to be in work? Is there scope for usefully transferring resources from my right hon. Friend's Department to the Department of Education and Employment so that we can have sensible social policy in this area?

§ Mr. Darling
My hon. Friend will know that both I and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for 596 Education and Employment are constantly examining ways in which we can ensure that people are in work and not on benefit. Our objective is to ensure that the bills that we have to meet because people are out of work who could be in work are reduced. We have taken considerable steps so far and we shall have further announcements to make. The supportive employment programme is primarily a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment rather than for my Department.

§ Mrs. Theresa May (Maidenhead)
The Secretary of State failed to answer the questions asked by the hon. Members for Bradford, North (Mr. Rooney) and for Winchester (Mr. Oaten). I suggest that they might care to read Hansard, where they will find that although the Government keep quoting that 1 million disabled people want to get into work, the figures for the projects that have been initiated by the Government suggest that the number of disabled people being helped into work by these projects is fewer than 20,000. Meanwhile the Government are changing the rules for incapacity benefit for those out of work because of their disability.
Will the Secretary of State confirm that in a full year 170,000 disabled people who now would qualify for incapacity benefit will, as a result of the Government's changes, be denied that benefit? Is this not just a callous attempt to redefine people off benefit to cover up the fact that the Government have failed to deliver real welfare reform?

§ Mr. Darling
I shall deal with the two points that the hon. Lady makes. First, on incapacity benefit, she must know that during the past 18 years when the Conservative party was in power it cynically used the incapacity benefit system to get people off the official unemployment figures and move them into statistics which received less attention.
The previous Government systematically went about trying to undermine the system that had been in place to ensure that help was there for people who were in work and became disabled. Incapacity benefit was never intended as an early retirement scheme, which is what the previous Government intended for it. If welfare reform means anything it must mean modernising the benefit system to ensure that benefits go to those who are entitled to them and to those for whom they were intended. That certainly did not happen under the previous Government.
Secondly, the hon. Lady asks about the working families tax credit and the new deal. The Conservative party is against both measures. It is against any measures that are designed to help people who have been excluded from the labour market. I remind the hon. Lady that at present there are about 200,000 vacancies notified in job centres and that some disabled people could go into them. The object of our reforms is to ensure that some of these vacancies can be filled by those who have disabilities. Unfortunately all these measures are opposed by the Conservative party.