Simplification is essential to reform. For example, the local housing allowance, rolled out from April, has simpler and clearer rules than the previous housing benefit system. Last month, following successful pilots, we agreed with the Local Government Association on a simpler approach to claims when starting a job. From October, two current benefits—incapacity benefit and income support on health grounds—will be replaced by one: the new employment and support allowance. Those are all examples of simplification.
I recognise that some progress has been made on simplifying the benefits system, but much more needs to be done. Will the Minister investigate the case of my constituent, Sara McGlynn, who is suffering because she is not ill enough to earn an invalidity benefit? She has not earned enough in the past, because she is too young and does not receive incapacity benefit, and as her partner earns just above the minimum income level, she does not receive income support. Will the Department investigate the case so that complexity does not rule out that person’s receiving Government support?
I am happy to consider the details of that case if the hon. Gentleman will forward them to me. However, it does not sound to me like a problem of complexity. The system has been effective in increasing employment—we have more people in work in Britain today than ever before, and that is partly the result of the success of welfare reform. However, I agree that simplification is important. For example, we will explore further the idea of a single working age benefit, which would be a radical simplification and would perhaps partly deal with the case of the hon. Gentleman’s constituent. I repeat that I am happy to look at the details of the case.
Will the Minister consider simplifying the double benefit rules, especially regarding carer’s allowance and the state retirement pension? Will my right hon. Friend be willing to examine that rule, which is of long-standing concern to pensioners? I am sure that the designers of the welfare state in the 1940s could not have expected so many pensioners to be carers for other pensioners—whether spouses or elderly parents. It is a shock to the system to find that, when they receive state retirement pension, their carer’s allowance stops.
My hon. Friend is right to make the point that people are often concerned when they get into that position and discover that that is the rule. He will know, however, that it is a long-established principle of the benefits system that we do not pay two benefits in those circumstances. I cannot hold out for him the prospect that that will change imminently. However, he will know of the carer’s premium in pension credit, which is helping to address the problem that he rightly highlights, and we will of course see whether there is more that we can do.
A number of my constituents have come to me and complained that their incapacity benefit was stopped after a medical and that, although they then went to appeal and won the case, they experienced a huge delay before their benefit was restored. If that benefit can be stopped immediately, why can it not be started again?
When an appeal is successful, benefit should come back into payment very quickly. Again, if the hon. Gentleman wants to draw my attention to any particular problems, I should be happy to look into them; however, anybody who experiences a delay will have their arrears paid in full.