Danny Alexander (Shadow Minister and Disability Spokesperson, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)

I beg to move amendment No. 45, in clause 18, page 15, line 5, leave out ‘24’ and insert ‘60’.

I do not have a great deal to say about the amendment. It is designed simply to probe the Government’s intentions in respect of pilot schemes. I would like the Under-Secretary of State to explain her thinking on the amount of time to be allowed for those schemes. The Bill as drafted allows regulations for pilots not to exceed a specific period of 24 months. Will the hon. Lady spell out why she thinks that two years is the right period for a pilot, given that there is evidence that longer pilot schemes allow more time for the evaluation and understanding of their outcomes?

With those extremely brief words, I look forward to the Under-Secretary’s response.

Anne McGuire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Disabled People), Department for Work and Pensions; Stirling, Labour)

I am not aware of any great evidence that we need longer than 24 months, but if the hon. Gentleman wishes to present such evidence we will be delighted to consider it.

Our experience has shown that 24 months is a suitable period to review the progress of pilots and to test new approaches to welfare. I am pleased that this is a probing amendment; if the period were 60 months, it would be not so much a pilot as a sentence.

Danny Alexander (Shadow Minister and Disability Spokesperson, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)

I introduced the amendment very briefly as the Minister will have some well-prepared responses, but the Bill states “not exceeding 24 months”; “not exceeding 60 months” would give the Government more flexibility, which I am sure they would welcome.

Anne McGuire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Disabled People), Department for Work and Pensions; Stirling, Labour)

The flexibility is built into the Bill because if we need to extend a pilot beyond the 24-month period, clause 18(7) allows for replacing one pilot with another, which would be dependent on Parliament’s approval. If it went up to five years it would stultify the pilot rather than encouraging us to learn from it. In the spirit in which the amendment was tabled, I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw it.

Danny Alexander (Shadow Minister and Disability Spokesperson, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

David Ruffley (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Bury St Edmunds, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 244, in clause 18, page 15, line 15, at end insert—

‘(c) make it more likely that employers will recruit and retain such persons.’.

In the preceding debate we heard how long a pilot should be. In my calculation, the piloting of the new Labour party has been going on for nine years; perhaps that pilot will end next year when the Chancellor of the Exchequer takes over, but who knows?

In the clause and the amendment there are powers to pilot most of, but not all, the provisions in the Bill. The piloting provisions are intended to allow for different variations in the conditionality regime in order to understand what works best to help ESA claimants, and we all agree with that. As the Bill rightly focuses on the obligations of the individual as part of the rights and responsibility agenda, the amendment probes for more information on how employers will be engaged in the process of helping claimants get from welfare into work.

As well as the roll-out of pathways, the welfare reform Green Paper also refers to the piloting of a new initiative in cities—the so-called city strategy—to bring partners to work together to improve the chances of claimants getting into work. As the Green Paper pointed out on page 75, it will entail more effective engagement of local employers. The Disability Rights Commission’s response to the Green Paper suggested that employers in city strategy areas could recruit more people from IB through Jobcentre Plus and its providers promoting work trials more extensively, and through local government agencies using their procurement powers to extend the  range of employers that recruit disabled people. In pushing the amendment, I ask the Under-Secretary what she understands by the city strategy agenda to get employers more involved, and how the piloting of new ways of taking people off IB will work.

Anne McGuire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Disabled People), Department for Work and Pensions; Stirling, Labour)

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point, because there must be engagement with employers—the people who will provide the jobs. My hon. Friend the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform and I have met employers not only in the proposed city strategy areas, but in other areas throughout the country, to discuss how they can play their part in making welfare reform work. For too long, the business community thought welfare reform was a social issue, and although it has a social dimension, it is also a serious economic issue. We are trying to engage employers to ensure that they feel part of the agenda, and my hon. Friend and I have met various employer organisations throughout the country.

The hon. Gentleman asked for information about the trials that we may consider. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire might be interested in my answer, because with Tesco and Jobcentre Plus we are trialling a scheme in which Tesco offers work tasters for up to one week to pathways to work participants whom a Jobcentre Plus adviser refers. Tesco will help with the application and interview.

One big difficulty for people who have not been in employment, and sometimes for people who have, is how to get past the interview. If one has not been in that situation before, it can be a real confidence shaker. It is bad enough for politicians standing up in front of a selection committee, and most of us have the gift of the gab. We are used to selling ourselves, but imagine going to an interview after a long period out of work. The support is necessary, and it will include a work-taster review with the participant, adviser and company—Tesco, in this case—to identify the further assistance that may be needed to succeed at an interview.

The scheme will build on many good factors that the voluntary sector has put in place for many years. Without going into my background too much, we would provide such support as a matter of course. The Government are determined to explore the range of avenues that might lead to better outcomes, and we are working hard with employers to ensure that they think of welfare reform as an economic as well as a social issue. The two are intertwined, and it is important that we ensure that employers, businesses and companies feel part of the process.

David Ruffley (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Bury St Edmunds, Conservative)

The hon. Lady has given an informative reply and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

David Ruffley (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Bury St Edmunds, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 245, in clause 18, page 15, line 27, leave out subsection (7) and insert—

‘(7) It shall be a duty on the Secretary of State to report to Parliament annually his evaluation of the pilot schemes.’.

Jimmy Hood (Lanark & Hamilton East, Labour)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Amendment No. 195, in clause 22, page 17, line 19, at end insert—

‘(1A) The Secretary of State must, on an annual basis for the previous twelve months, prepare a report to Parliament on the exercise of the power to make regulations under this Part’.

New clause 5—Reports to Parliament (No. 2)—

‘The Secretary of State shall report annually to Parliament on the employment recruitment and employment retention practices of publicly-funded organisations in respect of current and previous claimants of employment and support allowance.’.

New clause 12—Duty to report on impact of Part I on older people and others—

‘(1) The Secretary of State shall annually lay before Parliament a report on the effects of Part One of this Act on recipients of the allowance, with respect to their employment opportunities and health.

(2) The report shall describe separately the impact on—

(a) people aged over 50,

(b) people with mental health conditions, and

(c) people who have been in receipt of the allowance for longer than 3 years.’.

New clause 4—Reports to Parliament—

‘The Secretary of State shall require the Social Security Advisory Committee to report annually to Parliament on the operation of this Act.’.

David Ruffley (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Bury St Edmunds, Conservative)

Amendment No. 245 asks for there to be a requirement that the Secretary of State reports annually on the evaluation of pilot schemes. What lies behind the proposal is that, while we all celebrate the early successes of the pathways to work pilot, there is still a lot more information on how it has performed that is not available in the public arena. Opposition Members are not the only people to express worry that a full-on, all-singing, all-dancing cost-benefit analysis of pathways to work will not be available until next year. The pilots have been going for some time. I am not criticising in any way some of the early successes, but it is quite a job for all hon. Members to table written questions endlessly and diligently to tease out information.

It might be in the interests of a more transparent debate if we have as much information as possible in the public realm that has come from the evaluators at DWP and the research bodies that it commissions to evaluate pathways to work and other pilots. It would be useful in that context for there to be an annual evaluation of all pilot schemes, not only pathways to work and its successors, but the other schemes that will no doubt be put in place to test work-related health assessments and much else besides.

New clause 5 seeks to flag up the importance of the employer in making welfare reform work. As the Under-Secretary of State said, that is a subject to which Ministers pay attention. I was encouraged to hear her remarks in the previous debate. New clause focuses on the requirement that we would like to see for the Secretary of State annually to report to Parliament on employment and recruitment, and employment retention practices of publicly funded employers in respect of claimants of ESA. I do not want to open up a long debate at this stage in that respect in Committee now because we must make progress. Moreover, access to work has been alluded to and will be touched on in a minute by my hon. Friend the Member for South-West  Surrey. As an example of what the new clause would drill down into, I wish to remind the Committee of a DWP memo on the removal of access to work funding from central Government Departments from October 2006. It stated:

“Access to Work funding will be removed from central government departments ... from October 2006. Departments will be responsible for funding from their running costs the workplace adjustments required by their disabled staff. Central government departments can continue to use the advice and expertise of Jobcentre Plus staff. This is in line with practice in the DWP since 2003.

The ‘savings’ to the Access to Work budget resulting from this change will be kept within the programme. As a result of this change Jobcentre Plus will be able to re-focus support towards people who work for smaller employers.”

I am quoting the whole story, and I hope that the hon. Lady will give me credit for that. There is a rationale and a logic to the policy change, but it did concern Susan Scott-Parker, who asked the Secretary of State about it in a letter on 9 June. On new clause 5, how many disabled employees did the DWP support under the access-to-work arrangements until 2003? How many has it supported since 2003, when it changed its access-to-work funding regime? Could those questions be answered at the end of the debate?

Tim Boswell (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Daventry, Conservative)

Does my hon. Friend not agree that his point was confirmed when it was made clear to me that no baseline transfer had taken place? Other Departments, which are critical to delivering the Government’s agenda and setting a good example through the public sector, would therefore have no additional funds and would face the invidious choice of reproviding access-to-work funds from their running costs or finding alternative provision. Is it not particularly important, therefore, that the effects of the change on what is, after all, 20 per cent. of total employment, should be evaluated to determine whether the issue has been dealt with or whether provision has withered on the vine, with fewer disabled people able to get work through the public sector route?

David Ruffley (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Bury St Edmunds, Conservative)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes a typically powerful and eloquent point. I am sure that the Under-Secretary will want to respond to his point and mine, which are closely related.

New clause 12 would require that the

“Secretary of State shall annually lay before Parliament a report on the effects of Part One of this Act on recipients of the allowance”.

Subsection (2) suggests that the

“report shall describe separately the impact on...people aged over 50”—

older workers or potential workers—

“people with mental health conditions, and...people who have been in receipt of the allowance for longer than 3 years.”

Those groups are singled out for a reason. We must remind ourselves that the aim of the Green Paper was not merely—I say “merely”, but this is asking a lot—to get 1 million people off the incapacity benefit roll and  bring it down to 1.7 million claimants by 2016. The Green Paper also set out two other noble objectives, which were not so time limited. One was to get1 million more older workers into employment, while the other was to get about one third of a million lone parents off benefits. The Bill is designed to achieve those important aims.

The reference in the new clause to people over 50 is important because most of us feel that not enough reference is made to older people. We must remind ourselves that just under half the existing stock—48 per cent.—are over 50 and below the age of retirement. They form quite a large proportion of the IB case load, and we must not forget them. I remark parenthetically that the interests of this large group of our fellow citizens have been flagged up in the past couple of weeks by the Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), in a well received and widely reported speech. I hope that Ministers will join us in highlighting the need to do even more to get more support for those people over the age of 50 so that, when they are able to, they can get back into work, as so many we know wish to do.

Age Concern, which we all agree does marvellous work in highlighting these issues, has reminded me of some important statistics of new claimants, around30 per cent. of which are by people who are over 50. That proportion has only declined slightly in the past decade. I make no party political point; I am sure that that figure was as disappointing at the end of the last Conservative Administration. It has certainly not been improving. Only 29 per cent. of over-50s come off incapacity benefit within six months compared to35 per cent. of under-50s. Under the pathways to work pilot, this measure has increased by 9 per cent. for those under the age of 50 but by only 4 per cent. for people over the age of 50.

These statistics show that pathways to work and the current regime are doing a better job for those under, rather than over, 50. This new clause therefore draws specific attention to the fact that reporting should be made by reference not just to all claims and to the way in which the Act and the new regime is helping them, but specifically to the people over 50, because there is a differential in the performance of pathways to work for those under and over 50.

I will not detain the Committee with statistics; the exact quantum might be disputed. However, statistics show that almost 1 million older people want to get back into paid work—part-time or full-time—and that this under-employment of older citizens costs the United Kingdom economy billions of pounds a year. I know that that is something that Ministers and officials will concede. The new clause seeks to focus with laser-like intensity when Ministers come to report to Parliament to talk specifically about the effect on those over 50.

The same arguments could be made in reference to subsection (2)(b) of the new clause, which refers to those with mental health conditions. Is the number of those with mental health conditions coming off the new allowance and getting into work higher or lower than the average? What about those who have been in receipt of the allowance for more than three years? How are those further away from the labour market performing compared with the average?

We need that information teased out in an annual report so that we can all see it in a handy and useable way. We can all go to the Vote Office and pick it up without the tedious preface of putting down large numbers of written questions. Such information should be openly available and I hope that any Government of any political persuasion would want the rays of transparency shone on this particular area.

We need to know not just what the new regime—that this Bill will usher in—will do for the general stock, but whether it will get 1 million people off the current stock of 2.7 million. What sorts of people will be coming off the stock and being helped? We need to disaggregate the off-flow. It is as simple as that and this new clause will achieve that.

New clause 4 is very much in tune with the preceding amendments to which I have spoken in that it would require the Secretary of State to procure a report to Parliament on the operation of this Act from the Social Security Advisory Committee. This new clause is slightly different in intent from the other new clause and amendments in the group, because it asks for a report from a body that is at one remove from the Secretary of State. We would like the Secretary of State to report, not because we do not trust his or her bona fides to produce good information but, as a belt-and-braces approach. Having the Social Security Advisory Committee report to Parliament as well as the Department seems to me a valuable safety net. By requesting the Government to provide reports or procure them from arm’s-length bodies, we want the evaluation to be transparent, whether it is of piloting or the general operation of the legislation.

Before I conclude, I shall give an example to flag up why we need to delve deeply into some of the evaluations that are likely to come out before 2008. Our old friend the Police Complaints Authority will be not so much piloted as subject to dummy and parallel runs. The Rethink organisation has rightly pointed out that Atos Origin will run the current and new tests side by side, and, more importantly, that it will be analysing customer satisfaction surveys in 2007. It sounds reasonable, on the face of it, that there should be an evaluation of how well the dummy runs are operating—we all have an interest in knowing how the assessments in clauses 8 to 10 will operate in practice—but as Rethink pointed out, not many claimants are likely to complete the surveys after spending time at an assessment centre. They might have other things on their minds. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson) is speaking from a sedentary position. Does he wish to intervene?

It is suggested that such surveys are an inappropriate way to gather the views of many claimants, including those with learning disabilities, such as autistic spectrum disorder, and those with difficult mental health problems. People with literacy problems might also be excluded from participating efficaciously in the surveys, which we expect to form a key part of the evaluation. Some of us who have noted those observations think that there should be a more objective evaluation procedure. If that is put in place, we certainly want to know about it in the annual report, so that the annual reports to whichthe amendments refer explain exactly who has done the evaluation over what period and what the results are.

I sense that Government Members are getting a bit restless, but I hope that they have taken my observations on board. To sum up, we are calling for greater transparency and a greater call to accountability for Ministers, whoever they are, so that Parliament can access, in a more user-friendly way, information on exactly how these critically important proposals and the new regime will operate.

Danny Alexander (Shadow Minister and Disability Spokesperson, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)

I shall speak briefly in support of amendment No. 195 and new clause 12. The amendments concern the public interest and the way in which the operation of the Bill and various aspects of it are monitored. They are not so much about the convenience of Members of Parliament, although that is significant, as about making information much more widely accessible to the general public. The publication of reports by the Department will provide an opportunity for members of the public to scrutinise the operation of the Bill much more carefully.

Amendment No. 195 requests a report to Parliament by the Secretary of State on the operation of the powers to make regulations under the Bill. It has been noted that there are a huge number of regulation-making powers in the Bill, covering a wide range of matters. We shall turn in a later clause to which of them will be subject to the affirmative resolution and which to the negative resolution procedure. Considering their vast range, an annual report to Parliament on their use would be a useful addition to the body of information available to Parliament and to the general public on the Bill’s important provisions. Draft regulations have not been available to the Committee in relation to many of the powers, so it has been hard to consider all of them in detail, although the Under-Secretary will agree that we have considered a number of them in considerable detail.

The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds made an important point on new clause 12 about reports on the scheme’s impact on older workers. Age Concern’s work is valuable in that respect and suggests that older workers have not benefited as much as other categories from pathways to work. The point has been made that a substantial part of the Government’s target of getting 1 million people off incapacity benefit in a 10-year period could be met simply by waiting for recipients of incapacity benefit and who are over 55 for men or 50 for women to reach retirement age. There are 1 million people in that category and when they reach retirement age, they will come off the benefit. The Department is therefore a long way towards meeting its target. It is not an onerous target, but thanks to the body of people on benefit, the Department is a lot closer to it than might be suggested. As the hon. Gentleman said, that should not lead to people over 50 being given less good access or less preferential treatment in pathways to work. Reporting to Parliament on that would be a useful way to ensure that the Government are regularly held to account.

New clause 12(2)(b) relates to reports on progress in relation to people with mental health conditions. It is important to remind the Committee that the evaluation of pathways to work carried out by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has found that, among people whose  first reason for claiming benefit relates to mental health, there is no statistically significant difference in outcomes compared with what might otherwise have happened. That is an important point, because pathways to work is widely praised as being successful. Indeed, the evaluation shows that, for many categories of benefit recipients, it has been successful in achieving job outcomes. However, for people in the mental health category, it has not proved so successful. There might be a wide range of reasons for that, and the Under-Secretary has addressed them in previous remarks, but they should be addressed. It is not good enough to say that pathways generally works well, even though it does not for certain people, particularly considering that we are referring to the group that is the largest cause of new claims.

A specific annual report to Parliament on how welfare to work help is operating for people with mental health conditions would be a useful way to hold the Government to account for how the scheme is working for those for whom it has not been seen to be so successful. The point about longer-term claimants is relevant in that regard. I hope that the Under-Secretary will address the matter in her response, to which I look forward.

Jeremy Hunt (Shadow Minister (the Disabled), Work & Pensions; South West Surrey, Conservative)

I see in front of me a sea of weary faces, so I shall make my comments brief. I wish to make one comment on new clause 5. There is a huge opportunity—[Interruption.]

Jimmy Hood (Lanark & Hamilton East, Labour)

Order.

Jeremy Hunt (Shadow Minister (the Disabled), Work & Pensions; South West Surrey, Conservative)

There is a huge opportunity for the Government if we are trying in the Bill to change employers’ attitudes to employing disabled people. The Government are the biggest employer with 1.3 million employees in the NHS alone. Not only that, but they issue contracts worth £120 billion every year to private and voluntary sector providers. They have a real opportunity for an easy win by ensuring that they transform their recruitment policies. Their record has got better, but it is still not as good as it should be overall: 4.5 per cent. of civil servants are disabled, compared with 19 per cent. of the working-age population. That is an average figure and, in some Departments, the percentage is lower than that. In the Department of Health, for example, which one would think would understand such issues, the figure is only 3.3 per cent. In the Scotland Office, it is zero, but I do not know whether that is because it has a small number of employees and that the sample size is very small. The point is that there are some low percentages. Presenting a report annually to Parliament, as new clause 5 would require, would put pressure on Governments of all colours to ensure that they make progress in this important area.

I conclude by reminding the Under-Secretary of a response that I received from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in reply to a parliamentary question on25 July. He said:

“Public procurement law includes a provision enabling contracting authorities to reserve contracts for supported businesses and factories employing more than 50 per cent. disabled people.”—[Official Report, 25 July 2006; Vol. 449,c. 1352W.]

There is an opportunity even under existing legislation for the Government to do a lot more and the proposal in new clause 5 that an annual report should be presented to Parliament would be the catalyst to make that happen. I commend the new clause to the Government.

Anne McGuire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Disabled People), Department for Work and Pensions; Stirling, Labour)

Many questions have been raised and I will go through them, but first I want to pick up some general issues that have been alluded to.

I want to make it clear that when we are talking about the number of disabled workers in any organisation, we must recognise that disability is a voluntary declaration. Hon. Members will recognise that when we publish figures in response to parliamentary questions on the number of disabled members of staff, we always make it clear that that declaration is voluntary. For all sorts of reasons, we must recognise that people may not wish to declare themselves disabled. That is a particular issue, as the hon. Member for Daventry will recognise, for those with mental health conditions. I make that caveat at the beginning of my comments.

On access to work, I am glad that the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds gave me the opportunity to address some of the issues concerning access to work. The letter that he read out clarifies the position, but perhaps not quite in the way that he might have expected.

When the Prime Minister’s strategy unit reported in January 2005, it made a series of recommendations, one of which was that if disabled people are to be truly considered part of mainstream employment, we should look at opportunities and options for their employment cost to be part of mainstream employment costs. The DWP, as the hon. Gentleman graciously highlighted, has blazed a trail with that because we have absorbed the cost that would previously have been met bythe access-to-work scheme. We seriously think that Departments should assume the responsibility for access-to-work provision in their employment budgets. Saying that disabled people may have specific support requirements and that they should be considered as part of employment costs is a beacon to other parts of the employment market. It is to be applauded, not to be criticised.

Having said that, I recognise that concerns were raised about the recruitment and retention of disabled workers in the Government estate. The Office for Disability Issues has given a commitment to the major charities and players in the lobby to monitor and evaluate the impact that the withdrawal of access to work will have on employment and retention. We do that in the context of another element of Government legislation, which I know the Opposition support: disability equality schemes. We are not talking about something that has come from nowhere, but about something that was part of a well regarded and well respected Prime Minister’s strategy unit report that clearly highlighted the way to equality.

It is justifiable to expect an enormous Government employer across the board to take in some of those employment costs, because if we are truly to get disabled people recognised for what they can do and not for what they cannot do, we must start to think about how we support them in employment. Government can lead the way on that.

The other part of the equation is also important. Opposition Members and, indeed, some of my hon. Friends have made it clear that some of the challenging work in the employment of disabled people must be undertaken with small and medium-sized enterprises, where the majority of new jobs are. That is why we are clear that the access-to-work budget will be recycled into the system to support disabled people in SMEs— we are talking about £2.5 million or thereabouts—because that is where we need to make the breakthrough.

Mr. Boswellrose—

Anne McGuire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Disabled People), Department for Work and Pensions; Stirling, Labour)

Before the hon. Member for Daventry comes in, may I clearly indicate to the Committee that since 1997 the access-to-work budget has quadrupled? It was £15 million in 1997 and is now £60 million.

Tim Boswell (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Daventry, Conservative)

Can the Under-Secretary simply confirm that the evaluation of the performance of public sector schemes by the Office for Disability Issues will be published?

Anne McGuire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Disabled People), Department for Work and Pensions; Stirling, Labour)

I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. The Office for Disability Issues publishes an annual report, and a first annual report has been published. The information will be in the public domain. I cannot say whether we will do an all-singing, all-dancing report, but it will be in the public domain, not least because part of my role as Minister with responsibility for disabled people is to meet regularly with representatives of the lobby. These are the very issues that came up as part of those discussions.

Danny Alexander (Shadow Minister and Disability Spokesperson, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)

I want to obtain a brief point of clarification. The Under-Secretary made sensible remarks about pushing access to work out, particularly to SMEs. What steps do the Government plan to take to promote access to work to businesses in that category, given the relatively low level of awareness among many small businesses about access to work?

Anne McGuire (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Disabled People), Department for Work and Pensions; Stirling, Labour)

There is a bit of an urban myth that we somehow hide access to work under a DWP bushel somewhere. We do not, and it is well used. I think that about 35,000 people use access to work on a regular basis. That includes what might appear to be quite minimal support in the form of equipment through to support staff and all sorts of fairly sophisticated adaptations. If I had a pound for every time that access to work was mentioned at enormous gatherings, I would be quite a rich woman. It is not hidden away and we are pleased to be able to announce that access to work is in place.

The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds made great play of accountability and spoke passionately about ensuring that the figures are in the public domain. My hon. Friend the Minister looks forward to the third Wednesday of every month when the Office for National Statistics publishes exactly the sort of figures that the hon. Gentleman is looking for. There is no need for parliamentary questions on some of those  figures because the ONS publishes them every month—both the off-flows and on-flows to incapacity benefits. The figures are not hidden; they are in the public domain. There might still be a need for parliamentary questions to tease out some background information, if that is what he wishes, but the ONS does that job and it does it with robust independence, as he will be aware from his days as an adviser in the Treasury. The figures are not ours. They are independently scrutinised and put in the public domain.

The hon. Gentleman made an important pointabout older workers. Earlier in October we introduced a new legislative framework aimed at ending age discrimination. It has opened up opportunities for older people and will progressively open up more. My hon. Friend said that over the last year, some 200,000 over-50-year-olds have moved into jobs. That is a significant change.

On disabled people moving into employment, I think that the figures show that we are on the right track. There is still a lot to do, hence we are keen to promote pathways to work with the voluntary sector. However, the inactivity rates for disabled people have reduced dramatically since 1998—they have come down by about 10 per cent. We are seeing the same trend again. Of course, there are areas in which we have a significant amount to do, not least among people with learning disabilities who fall way behind in employment opportunities.

I want to give a detailed rebuttal—I hope—of some of the points raised. By removing subsection (7) of clause 18, as proposed in amendment No. 245, we would prevent the extending of a pilot beyond the original 24-month period and replace it with a duty to report to Parliament. Although I understand the desire for scrutiny, as I have said, Standing Committees do not sit in isolation and there are various ways in which information and the activity of any Department can be scrutinised.

I am not convinced by the arguments of the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds about needing the Secretary of State to submit a separate annual report to Parliament. We have a Select Committee process and the Social Security Advisory Committee—also independent—which reports annually. Those arrangements work very well and I think that there would be a danger of over-reporting to no apparent end when we already have pretty good procedures in place. We often talk about over-regulation and overburdening the private sector, but dare I suggest that there is a danger that new clause 5 would increase the burdens on the public sector by asking for additional reports? I should highlight the fact that Departments will have to report annually on their progress under the disability equality schemes.

New clause 12 relates to the over-50s, those with a mental health condition and those who have been receiving benefit for more than three years. I repeat yet again that the Government are determined to ensure that the support on offer alongside ESA is relevant and useful to every individual, whatever their personal circumstances. We are clear that that is the philosophy underpinning the pathways-to-work approach; it is about looking at individuals as individuals, not as part  of a group or a selection of statistics, as we did in the past. The results from pathways have vindicated that approach.

I ask Opposition Members to reconsider their provisions. All our regulations, all our work and all our statistics will be in the public domain. We have nothing to hide in terms of our approach and we welcome constructive criticisms about how we can improve. Indeed, we welcome the discussion in this Committee, which has been constructive not just for the most part, but almost exclusively.

We have reporting means in place, which have served us well. They are independent, and involve everyone from the ONS to the Social Security Advisory Committee. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman not to press his provisions to a vote.

David Ruffley (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Bury St Edmunds, Conservative)

I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for her comments. Although I do not accept for a minute her argument that the provisions would lead to information overload, I am prepared not to press the amendments and new clauses, save for new clause 12, which I understand can be voted on at a more appropriate point in our proceedings. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.