HC Deb 21 March 2001 vol 365 cc266-7W
Mr. Alexander

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on the measures in his welfare reform programme which will assist disabled people to take up work. [154280]

Mr. Bayley

We have put a number of measures in place to remove barriers to work for disabled people. These include higher earnings disregards in the Independent Living Funds and improvements to the linking and therapeutic earnings rules in Incapacity Benefit. We are also piloting Capability Reports as part of the Personal Capability Assessment, which we introduced in April 2000.

We have introduced the Disabled Person's Tax Credit (DPTC) to help make work pay. In the Budget my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced an increase in DPTC from June and this, combined with increases in the National Minimum Wage in October, will raise the guaranteed minimum income for a disabled person moving into work of 35 hours per week or more to £170 a week for a single person, and £257 a week for a couple with one child.

Furthermore, we are extending the New Deal for Disabled People across Great Britain. From July 2001 a national network of Job Brokers will be set up jointly by the Department of Social Security and the Department for Education and Employment to offer people receiving incapacity benefits the support, guidance and preparation they need to find paid work and move off benefit dependence, continuing to test and assess what works best.

Alongside the national extension, in early 2002 we will be starting New Deal for Disabled People Job Retention and Rehabilitation Pilots jointly with the Department for Education and Employment and the Department of Health. These pilots will test the relative effectiveness of different employment and health interventions in reducing the number of people forced to give up work through prolonged illness or disability.

The national extension and Job Retention and Rehabilitation pilots draw on lessons learnt from the pilot phase of the New Deal for Disabled People which, by the end of January 2001, has helped over 6,500 people into work.