The employment and support allowance was introduced in October 2008. Information about the number of claimants in each of the past three years is not available. Provisional figures for May 2009 show that the number of claimants of employment and support allowance was 270 in the hon. Lady’s constituency and 237,270 in England.
It would have been helpful to have had comparative figures, such as we see in the newspapers today, for the old incapacity benefit compared with the new allowance. I understand that radical reductions have been made. Why did it take the Government so long to analyse the figures and press the changes through? What right of appeal does a claimant who feels aggrieved by the change have?
On the final point, there is an appeals process. Most of the decisions made by the Department are upheld—more than 60 per cent. The employment and support allowance and the work capability assessment are part of the reform programme that we have instigated over a number of years. As the hon. Lady will remember, between the 1980s and the 1990s the numbers on incapacity benefit doubled. People were out of work and put on sickness benefit. We have arrested that rise since 2003 and we have seen the numbers fall.
The Minister will know that the number of people on incapacity benefit and employment and support allowance is higher today than it was when the Government came to office. The work capability assessment is successfully identifying people who should be able to get into work, but since employment and support allowance was introduced in October 2008 how many claimants have been helped to get a job?
The hon. Gentleman is selective with his points. He does not acknowledge that the number of people on incapacity benefit doubled between the 1980s and 1990s. It rose until 2003, and it has been coming down since then. [Interruption.] It doubled, and we are bringing it down. The pathways to work programme has helped into work 175,000 people who were on incapacity benefit and employment and support allowance, and there has been £1 billion of investment, which is a radical change from what we saw in the 1980s and 1990s.