Social Security

If the hon. Lady looks at Hansard tomorrow, she will see that I referred to ““mass means-testing””. Of course, any welfare system will require an element of means-testing—[Hon. Members: ““Ah!””] That is self-evident. Our point is that means-testing is growing and spreading to become mass means-testing. It is going up and up, and the Minister knows exactly why that is happening. It is because of the endless fiddling by Complexity Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The question that the Secretary of State must answer is whether he is going to engage with us in this process of reform. He hit the heights of uncharity when, on 9 January, he said that he did not believe that we had anything to contribute to the debate on incapacity benefit and welfare reform. Well, we do, and we are going to scrutinise his proposals. In this debate on social security uprating, delivering more support and help to those in need, and giving support to those who want to work but are being prevented from doing so, it would be appropriate to remind ourselves that the Green Paper on incapacity benefit reform—which, we hear, is to become a flagship welfare reform Bill in this Session—comes from a long line of well-meaning attempts from the Government. I counted them up; since 1997, we have had six Secretaries of State and 28 White or Green Papers. On close examination, the Green Paper announced in January was found to contain vagaries and obfuscations that give cause for concern, even for a Green Paper. First, existing benefit claimants will not get the help that they need, because the new measures announced in the Green Paper—the proposed work-focused interviews, for example, and the greater frequency of medical assessments—are not obviously going to be applied to—