62 Lord McCabe debates involving the Department for Work and Pensions

Welfare Reform Bill

Lord McCabe Excerpts
Wednesday 9th March 2011

(13 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Iain Duncan Smith Portrait The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)
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I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The Bill before us today covers a number of areas, but I hope that it sets a new course for the welfare state. I believe it will enable us to reach out to some of the groups of people who have become detached from the rest of society—trapped, too often, in a permanent state of worklessness and dependency. For the sake of the House, I will go through the relevant clauses of the Bill. I am sure that colleagues on both sides of the House will want to intervene. I hope they will recognise that we shall get to most of the clauses that they want to discuss, but I will take interventions as and when they come.

The problem is that although from 1992 to 2008 this country saw some 63 consecutive quarters of growth, and 4 million more people were in employment by the end of that period, before the recession had even started we still had some 4 million-plus people on out-of-work benefits. The question is: where did all those jobs go? Under the previous Government, over half of the jobs created went to foreign nationals. This is not an immigration point; it is a point about supply and demand. There were a group of people in this country completely unable, it appears, to take advantage of that long period of growth and job creation. In essence, the key point about the Welfare Reform Bill is that it is intended to help that group.

Lord McCabe Portrait Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
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I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way so early. I wondered whether, at the outset, he would like to comment on the reports in today’s Telegraph that the cancer charities are warning that his proposals for employment and support allowance will penalise those who do not recover soon enough. How could anyone think that that is a fair approach, in a Bill like this?

Iain Duncan Smith Portrait Mr Duncan Smith
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I think the report was in The Guardian. I do not know whether it is in The Daily Telegraph.

Lord McCabe Portrait Steve McCabe
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The Telegraph too—you’re famous.

Iain Duncan Smith Portrait Mr Duncan Smith
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I read The Guardian; he reads the Telegraph. What can I say? Times really are changing.

I have read the report, and I think that a number of elements in it are simply not altogether correct. I say that rather carefully because the point about the cancer aspect is that, as the hon. Gentleman knows, we inherited from the previous Government a process of reform and change to the employment and support allowance, which included the work capability assessment. We supported that, with the previous Government, because it was the right thing to do—to look at the 1.5 million people on incapacity benefit and check them over. We did not inherit any real allowance for cancer sufferers. It is important to make this clear. The Employment Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), immediately accepted the internal reviews, but went further. He asked Professor Harrington to conduct a review of what we did regarding cancer patients and others, and the hon. Gentleman, being a generous individual, will know that we then incorporated a big change, so that a person in cancer treatment—chemotherapy—who is between treatments will go straight on to the support element. Thus the contributory aspect will not affect them, because while they are on the support element they will continue to be supported when they are out of work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord McCabe Excerpts
Monday 18th October 2010

(14 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Iain Duncan Smith Portrait Mr Duncan Smith
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We are, of course, aware of that, and the hon. Lady has, I think, discussed the matter with my right hon. Friend the Minister of State. As things stand, we think that the money that has been made available will be sufficient to cover the gap period, of which we are fully aware, so that nobody suffers a loss until they have gone through the system and had a chance to get on to the Work programme. We will, of course, keep the matter under review, and if there is an issue I guarantee the hon. Lady that we will make sure that it will not mean that people are penalised.

Lord McCabe Portrait Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
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In the same vein, may I ask the Secretary of State what he is doing to measure the adequacy and effectiveness of private job agencies such as FourstaR Employment and Skills Ltd, which has a Government contract to help unemployed people in my constituency to find work?

Iain Duncan Smith Portrait Mr Duncan Smith
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The greatest form of measurement that we can use is that which will apply to the Work programme, whereby bodies will essentially be paid by results. In other words, if they do not get people back to work, they will not receive the money that will allow them to make any kind of profit at all. The best way of measuring them is to pay them when they are successful, and not, as happened with one scheme under the last Government, before they are successful.