Social Security

I am grateful, I think, for that intervention. If the hon. Gentleman had been paying closer attention a couple of minutes ago, he would have heard me make exactly that point. Perhaps he was too busy re-reading his own speech to listen to mine. On benefit sanctions and conditionality, I am concerned that the Government have so far been unwilling to make public detailed clear evidence of the success of such sanctions in encouraging people off benefit and back into work. I have asked the Minister on a number of occasions to provide the body of evidence to which he referred in support of the Government’s claim, but so far he has been unable to do so. According to the Green Paper, they"““do not intend to make changes to Disability Living Allowance as part of these reforms””." That is a great disappointment, because the benefits paid to disabled people that are covered by this order—disability living allowance, incapacity benefit and so on—need to be reviewed in the round if we are to establish an effective overall structure that targets resources to need. The Government’s own research—the Department for Work and Pensions working paper No. 21—suggests that the disability living allowance as currently structured is not sufficient to meet the extra costs faced by people with disabilities. What are the Government doing about that issue? They have missed an important opportunity to consult on it. Indeed, they dodged giving a straight answer to a written question on it just a few days ago. Will the Minister explain clearly how the Government intend to respond to this finding, rather than following the example of the parliamentary written answer that I received and simply restating the research’s conclusions?