Improving Lives: Work, Health and Disability Green Paper

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:36 pm on 31 October 2016.

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Photo of Damian Green Damian Green The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions 4:36, 31 October 2016

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his support. He is right about the binary choice that has obtained up to now under ESA and the fact that under the universal credit system, which he introduced, we have the capacity in the welfare system to make our approach much more flexible. That is precisely what the changes to the work capability assessment are designed to achieve—so that people are not simply put in one group or another and then left there. The much more personalised approach will mean that everyone should benefit from the assessment. We will be able to separate out the level of benefit that people should get from the level of support that they need to make the best of their lives. On the question of reversing previous changes in allowances, we have no plans to do so.