§ 18. Mr. Andrew George (St. Ives)What assessment he has made of the effect of disability benefit withdrawal from people seeking jobs. [141819]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Hugh Bayley)It is important not to penalise anyone who is seeking work. Disability living allowance is based on a person's care and mobility needs, and is paid irrespective of whether they are working, not working or seeking work.
§ Mr. GeorgeI am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Does he accept that many disabled people face, in effect, a precipice of benefit withdrawal as they enter work and come off benefit? That applies not only to the independent living fund but to many other forms of benefit. What action will the Minister and the Department 19 take to ensure that disabled people who are rightly seeking to enter the job market—many thousands of them are—can do so with confidence of future security?
§ Mr. BayleyWe are putting in train a number of changes to the benefit system to remove disincentives to work for those people who are disabled, who want to work and who are able to secure a job. For instance, we extended the linking rule in incapacity benefit from eight weeks, when we took office, to 52 weeks. For those who benefit from the disabled person's tax credit, we stretched the linking rule further from eight weeks to two years. We have made changes to the rules of the independent living fund, so that ILF customers who are able to work can keep a greater proportion of their income.
Through the new deal for disabled people, we continue to make it possible for more disabled people who want to work to do so. According to the Government's labour force survey, more than 1 million disabled people are on incapacity benefits and they say that they would like to work. Our policies—the changes to the benefit system and the new deal—are making it possible for more disabled people to achieve their ambition to get a job.
§ Mr. Tim Boswell (Daventry)As the Minister mentioned disincentives, does he accept that they are a factor in the considerations of disabled people who want to return to the labour force? Will he continue to press the matter, with particular reference to the independent living fund? The package that he announced, on its own and unsupported, is by no means adequate to get people back to work at a reasonable level of income, and the perverse disincentive has not been eliminated. What other action does he plan to reduce the elements of disincentive that remain in a system in which the Government pile on further means tests and, by implication, further disincentives to honest employment, when all that those people want is honest employment?
§ Mr. BayleyI know that the hon. Gentleman means well, but the very tight means test on the independent living fund was introduced by his party. We relaxed it to enable those ILF customers who work to keep a larger proportion of their earnings. We made that change to provide the sort of incentive to work that the hon. Gentleman suggests ought to be provided. I agree that it ought to be provided. It is just a shame that it was not provided by his party when it was in government.