Welfare

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. When he uses the figure of 292,000, we should make it absolutely clear that we are talking about 292,000 disabled people who, with lots of support from the different initiatives of this Government, have made that transition back into work. That is a terrific record, but let us not be complacent. There is so much more to do if we are to achieve our manifesto promise of halving the disability employment gap.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on his appointment and wish him well. He faces a huge challenge, but he also leaves behind a huge challenge for his colleagues in the Wales Office in respect of the Wales Bill. With one bound he was free—or possibly not. I welcome his commitment to resetting the conversation with disabled people. The abandoned changes to PIP were apparently based on review of just 105 cases of the more than 600,000 people who depend on PIP, supplemented apparently by 400 further reviews after the decision was taken. Will he guarantee that before further changes to welfare are proposed, proper, independent research will be publicly available beforehand?

[Stephen Crabb]

The kind of research that the hon. Gentleman talks about is always published by a Department ahead of any major policy change. There is a duty on Departments to publish impact assessments and to conduct their policy making in an open and transparent way. What I hope he has taken away from my statement today is my personal commitment to ensuring that as we look again at these really challenging long-term issues around disabled people moving into employment, I will be doing so in a way that is transparent, open and based on sound evidence.