Clause 1
Welfare Reform Bill
12:30 pm
Danny Alexander (Shadow Minister and Disability Spokesperson, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)
I associate myself with the remarks made by the hon. Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson). He made points about probing the potentially complex interactions between ESA and other benefits, particularly as they relate to lone parents, carers and so on. That is an important issue, and I look forward to the Minister’s clarification of the intentions.
Some broader issues about the complexity of this benefit need to be drawn out a little. In the Green Paper, the Government made it clear that they thought that there was a possibility of further simplification of this aspect of the benefits system in future, in particular by an idea that I think well worthy of a further debate in relation to where we go next after this: moving to some sort of single working age benefit to create a much greater degree of simplicity in the benefits system. The Green Paper suggested that that idea might be considered. I should be grateful if the Minister could enlighten us whether the Government wish to look at that. I hate to prejudge matters, but if the Bill were passed, is that a direction in which he believes that policy could go next?
Short-term issues are also involved in the complexity of the system that remains under the Bill, as the hon. Member for Daventry said when he referred to graphs, charts and the explanatory notes. Explaining to current benefit recipients how the new benefit will work and how it will differ from the existing benefit will be complicated, not least because it is now the Government’s intention, when the new system is in place, to migrate all existing claimants to the new benefit. Will the Minister provide a little more enlightenment about how the Government intend to go about migrating all existing claimants to the new benefit? What does he regard as the timetable for such a process? What process of education and information does he envisage being undertaken?