Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I shall speak very briefly in support of my noble friend’s amendment for two reasons. First, I was rather appalled by statements from the Prime Minister that the Government were for the first time tackling the issue of people who should be, but currently were not, in work. Really, that comes into the category of Boris-type statements, which are an imaginative reconstruction of events that did not occur. All parties—I am sure that I also speak for the Cross Benches on this—agree that we want to seek to help people into work, and we have been doing it. When we came into Government in 1997, we had found that, particularly during the 1980s, thousands of people with some mild disability had been moved off unemployment benefit into what was then invalidity benefit. the precursor for incapacity benefit, in order to massage the unemployment figures. On behalf of the previous Government I took Bills to your Lordships’ house that brought in proposals for the New Deal for all sorts of claimant groups. It was never a problem, as it never been a problem of trying to help the unemployed into work. They are always anxious and keen to do so. The problem has always been those who, for too long, have been economically inactive and marginalised from the labour market. It is for that reason that I and my noble friend Lord McKenzie continued to follow these policies when he came into the department: to ensure that new deals into work for disabled people, lone parents and for the over-50s were brought in to help people who for some time had been at some distance from the labour market. I am delighted that, insofar as the decent supportive activity of the previous Government may be pursued by the current Administration, we should welcome it. Some horror stories are now coming through about Atos, and we should be joining our disabled colleagues in protesting about that deforming of what should be a decent policy. Secondly, my noble friend’s amendment says that it is about supporting work for those who can provide security for those who cannot. I would like to spend a second to almost verbally amend it. Help into work those who can, provide security for those who cannot and support those who care; because those who care left out of the equation. I do not doubt that the Minister’s intentions are as decent as those of any Member around the table in the Committee. However, one of our concerns is that of the 6 million carers, about 400,000 to 500,000 receive carers allowance, which is a passported benefit from what is currently the disability living allowance based on hours worked and the level of care needed. We are still awaiting what will happen to PIP and the number of disabled people currently on DLA who will receive the higher or lower element of PIP and whether the carers benefit will be passported from the higher rate or from both rates. Until that happens, not just disabled people, but thousands of carers are worried, anxious and distraught that they may lose the carer’s benefit that they currently enjoy. I know that the Minister is engaged with this issue and I am not pretending it is a simple one, but I would be very grateful if he would, first, acknowledge the work done by the previous Administration in bringing those who are economically inactive back into the labour market, and secondly, that we all share a concern for the position of carers and that he could give us some idea as to when we will know what their situation is.