With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about seasonal flu vaccine.

Five years ago, we decided to give higher priority to protecting the health of the public from winter flu. We introduced the annual seasonal flu vaccination programme and we targeted those at increased risk from seasonal flu—people aged 65 and over, and younger people in certain clinical risk groups as identified by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. This is an annual programme, because each year new strains of flu can emerge and therefore the flu vaccines need to be reformulated accordingly. In this way, each year's vaccine provides the best protection against the influenza virus currently circulating.

Since the programme was introduced in the winter of 2000–01, vaccination uptake in people aged 65 and over has increased year on year. In the first year of the targeted programme, just over 65 per cent. of elderly patients were vaccinated. Last year 71.5 per cent. of those aged 65 and over received the seasonal flu vaccine—some 5.2 million people—and in addition 1.2 million younger people in the clinical risk groups were vaccinated.

The responsibility for ordering seasonal flu vaccine and administering the vaccine has always fallen on general practitioners. GPs order their own supply of vaccine, based on the number of eligible patients on the register, and make contractual arrangements with any of the six manufacturers who supply flu vaccine to the UK. In addition to the GP orders, the Department of Health purchases a stock of flu vaccine each year as part of our contingency planning measures. We hold that for emergency use, in case GPs run into difficulties with vaccine supply.

We routinely meet representatives from the UK vaccine industry group at the beginning of each year to inform the industry of how much seasonal flu vaccine will be required in the UK. This is based on the numbers of people covered by the current Department of Health policy. This year, the estimated production total from all UK vaccine manufacturers was over 14 million doses—more than ever before, and sufficient to immunise 100 per cent. of those in the targeted groups, in other words the elderly and younger people in clinical risk groups, as set out in the letter from the chief medical officer to the NHS in July.

In late October, however, we began to hear anecdotal evidence that some GPs were facing a shortage of flu vaccine. In order to assess the potential problem, officials wrote on 3 November to the flu immunisation co-ordinators of all the primary care trusts. That letter reminded them of the priority groups for flu vaccination and how additional stocks of vaccine could be ordered from the Department of Health contingency stock, should extra supplies be required by practices in their area.

The current problems may be due to a combination of factors, such as possibly the under-ordering of vaccine on the one hand, and possibly vaccination of the worried well on the other. It also seems likely that awareness of the need for flu vaccinations is higher this year, due in part to the very high level of media interest in the threat of avian flu in birds and of pandemic flu.

We do not, of course, expect seasonal flu vaccine to protect people against bird flu or pandemic flu, but I stress that seasonal flu vaccine is important for people aged 65 and over and for the clinical risk groups and that high uptake in those groups is to be welcomed. We need to ensure that GPs prioritise their remaining stocks of flu vaccine to help those who will really benefit most—in other words, people aged 65 and over and younger people in the clinical risk groups. Officials wrote to influenza immunisation co-ordinators to that effect yesterday.

The Department is also helping GPs by releasing flu vaccine from the contingency stock that we have purchased. We have taken orders against that stock, and deliveries are already being made and will continue into December. There is, of course, exceptionally high demand globally for flu vaccine, despite which the Department has been able to secure an additional 200,000 doses of flu vaccine on top of the 400,000 dose contingency reserve that we have already obtained. The additional 200,000 doses will be delivered in January. We are also discussing with manufacturers whether additional supplies can be made available, over and above those additional 200,000 doses, and if so, when those stocks would be available.

In previous years, the GP-led arrangement that I have described has, on the whole, worked well. In view of what has happened this year, however, I am reviewing the arrangements currently in place for the seasonal flu vaccination programme and will consider this matter urgently.

I am sure that the House is grateful to the Secretary of State for her statement, although she must understand that we would have been more grateful if she had come to the House yesterday to make a statement on the same day as selected members of the press were being briefed on this subject. I am grateful to her not only for providing me with advance sight of her statement, but—indeed at 1.50 this afternoon—for replying by fax to the letter that I sent to her on 5 October raising concerns about the winter flu vaccination programme.

I am sure that the House will have listened to the Secretary of State's statement and found in it no acknowledgement of a simple fact: people have been going to their GP surgery to get their flu jabs and been told that supplies have run out.

Not everybody.

Happily, not everybody, but one person missed in the at-risk group is one person too many. The hon. Gentleman and the rest of the House should know that, even where that has not yet happened, it will happen because supplies are running out, and we have not completed the period during which the highest levels of immunisation occur.

The Secretary of State did not accept responsibility. She should have done so, but she did not. The delivery of the influenza immunisation programme is the Government's responsibility. It is not good enough that she has come to the House to blame general practitioners for the failure of the programme. Not only has she failed to apologise, she has not even remotely begun to explain what has gone wrong. If the House will forgive me, let us start with the actual figures.

First, the Secretary of State underestimated the success of the flu immunisation programme. Her own Department's figures suggest that, in 2004–05, a 71.5 per cent. vaccine uptake among the over-65 population in England amounted to 5.9 million people immunised—not the 5.2 million that she set out. However, she did not refer to the overall figures on vaccine uptake. Uptake was 71.5 per cent. in England, 68.1 per cent. in Scotland and 62 per cent. in Wales. For risk groups below 65 years old, the comparable figures were 42.6 per cent. in England, 39.3 per cent. in Scotland and just 25 per cent. in Wales.

The Secretary of State did not make comparisons clearly between what has happened in previous years and what is happening this year. On 26 October last year, her noble Friend Lord Warner told another place:

"The Government made sure that there were around 14 million doses of flu vaccine available for this year"—

he was speaking of last winter, not this—

"despite the problems in the Speke factory, which are well known—compared with 12 million administered last year."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 26 October 2004; Vol. 665, c. 1174.]

That implies that the number of doses that the Department of Health has made available this year—14 million—is the same as the number for the previous year.

The letter that the Department of Health sent to general practitioners yesterday referred on the one hand to 11 million people in the at-risk groups and on the other to the 14 million doses of seasonal flu vaccine that were available. Unfortunately, the 11 million people refers to England, but the 14 million doses refers to the United Kingdom. It would have been more accurate to talk of about 14 million people in the at-risk groups and 14 million doses of influenza vaccine.

The Secretary of State did not point out in her statement that, although the Department of Health met manufacturers early this year to agree that 13.4 million doses of vaccine would be available—it subsequently procured a contingency supply of 400,000, which I accept is routinely the same each year—it agreed at a later stage that the at-risk groups would include people with chronic liver disease, who had not previously been included. It also agreed that the recommended groups would include main carers with responsibility for the care of elderly and disabled people who would be at risk if their carers were to become ill. The Department has no figures on the likely number of such people, but it means that perhaps millions of carers might have gone to their GP surgeries this winter to try to get flu jabs and then received them appropriately, although that would not have been the case in previous years.

Those are the figures—the Secretary of State might have had the courtesy to tell us what they were—and the facts about the extension of recommended groups this year compared with previous years. The House will understand that, broadly speaking, the available vaccine supply did not increase, whereas the number of recommended groups did. The prospect of a great deal of speculation about avian flu in the autumn certainly should have led the Department to be aware at an earlier stage about the desirability of being prepared for a much greater take-up of flu vaccine among people in the recommended groups than in previous years.

Let me ask the Secretary of State several questions about what was done. When carers were added to the recommended groups for vaccination, was the number of doses of vaccine that was intended to be supplied increased from 13.4 million? When the British Medical Association told the Department of Health in October—this was not just anecdotal, as the Secretary of State said—that it had concerns about the availability of vaccine, what did the Department do?

The Secretary of State will recall that the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) made it clear on 17 October that he, for one, had gone to his surgery and been told not only that he could not have his flu jab on the day of his visit, but that he would not receive it until the end of November, at the earliest. What did she do after 17 October, given that we have now arrived at 22 November and we have a crisis? When a manufacturing company ran out of supply in late October and told the Department about that, what did the Department do?

When did the Department find out the new figures on uptake? Responses to parliamentary questions said that the uptake figures were due in the Department on 14 November. The Department talked to the UK vaccine industry group on 16 November—six days ago—and asked for additional supplies. Health Ministers did not have the courtesy to tell the House about the lack of availability of supply, even though they had talked to the industry about it. However, they must have talked to the industry because they knew the uptake figures on 14 November. What are the figures and how do they compare with those for previous years?

What is the Government's evidence that general practitioners have been vaccinating what the Secretary of State cares to call the worried well—people outside the recommended groups? The BMA certainly has no evidence that that is the case and the Scottish Executive do not tell the public and the BMA that it is the problem in Scotland. The Secretary of State might care to explain why general practitioners should vaccinate people who are not in the recommended groups, as they have no financial incentive from the NHS to do that—they are not paid by the NHS to do it—and would be out of pocket from buying the vaccine were they to do so.

The Secretary of State has not told the House the figures. She has not explained to the House when the Government knew about the implications of changes this year in the uptake of vaccine and in the number of groups recommended. The consequence of all those changes has been our constituents visiting GP surgeries seeking flu vaccinations and being unable to get them. What estimate does she have of the number of people who will at the end of this immunisation season be un-immunised? What justification does she have for coming to the House and instead of taking what is in truth her responsibility for the flu immunisation programme seeking to blame general practitioners?

I very much regret that the hon. Gentleman has chosen not to give any credit at all for the great success over many years of the targeted winter flu programme. Nor has he chosen to acknowledge the fact that in 1996–97, for which I happen to have the figures, vaccine production for the United Kingdom was a mere 6.1 million doses. For last winter, the figure was double that—12.3 million doses—and for the current year and the current winter season it will be nearly 14 million.

As I said to the House, the number of people in the risk groups—I mean by that the over-65s and younger people who are clinically at risk—is some 11 million. Therefore, it was the conclusion of the Department of Health that the availability of 14 million or so doses this year would be sufficient not only for 100 per cent. immunisation of the at-risk groups but for immunisation of carers, whom it has always been open to GPs to immunise.

When we discussed this issue at a recent Health questions, one of my hon. Friends said that he had been unable to get his vaccination. I went back to the Department to check and found that, as I had believed to be the case, there had been delay in production from one of the companies on which we rely for the vaccines. That problem in production was corrected some weeks ago, so the vaccine that should have been produced by that company has now been produced and, as I understand it, delivered.

The hon. Gentleman asked specifically about the uptake figures. The figures that I have, which have been made available to primary care trusts from a large number of GP practices, show that at the end of October—these are the latest figures that I have—the uptake of the flu vaccine was very similar indeed to that for last year. If one looks, for instance, at the figures for the over-65s, one sees that, by the end of October this year, 48.9 per cent. had been vaccinated. By the end of October last year, the figure for elderly people was in fact 55 per cent. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman asked for the figures; perhaps he would like to listen.

This year, for younger people in the clinical risk groups, 25 per cent. had been immunised. By the end of October last year, the figure was 28 per cent. That is why the director of immunisation for the Department says that there is no evidence to support the proposition that a much higher proportion of people in the at-risk groups have been asking for immunisation. I have spoken to the chairman of the BMA to ask whether it has any evidence of a sudden upsurge in the past few weeks in requests for immunisation. He said that he did not, in fact, believe that there had been but he is to some extent relying on anecdotal reports, as do we in relation to reports from GPs of increased demand by people whom I did indeed describe as the worried well who do not fall into the at-risk groups for whom we recommend immunisation but who none the less may wish to try to obtain the vaccine.

The most important issue at this point is ensuring that we provide supplies of vaccine to GPs who, for whatever reason, do not have enough. That is the problem. As in every previous year, GPs have placed their orders. The total number of doses available to the country is about 1 million higher than in the previous year which, in turn, was about 1 million higher than the year before and so on. A number of GPs, however, have run out of vaccine, which is why we are doing everything possible in the Department to fulfil our responsibilities and ensure that the supplies that we already have are delivered to GPs who have run out as quickly as possible and that we secure fresh supplies as quickly as possible and in turn make those available to GPs who need them so that everybody, particularly in the at-risk groups, who wants a flu vaccination this winter can have one as soon as possible.

I am grateful for sight of the Secretary of State's statement.

Does the Secretary of State accept that central Government have only two things to do? They must ensure that the emergency stockpile is adequate and they must monitor what is happening on the ground. Does she accept that the Government have failed on both fronts? We are told that the emergency stockpile will expire in a few days and, from what she has said, the Department does not appear to have a clue about what is going on. In her statement, she said that problems "may be due" to certain factors and used the words "possibly vaccination" and "awareness may be". Frankly, the Government do not know. Will the Secretary of State admit that she cannot say what has happened to all those vaccines? Does she know where they are and who has had them?

Has not the Department of Health been grossly complacent about the issue? I and Conservative Front Benchers wrote to the Secretary of State in the first half of October, but she told us today that the Government had to rely on anecdotal evidence in late October and more recently. Why did she not take action when hon. Members contacted her to alert her to the issue? Is the Department not guilty of gross complacency? How many pensioners have gone to GP surgeries and been turned away? Does she have any idea how many we are talking about? Given that many people face a barrier when going to have a vaccination—it is an ordeal even to think about it—how many will never come back because they have been turned away and simply do not want to face it again?

The Government need to take responsibility instead of blaming GPs for prescribing to the wrong people, because there does not appear to be any evidence that GPs have done so. Did the Secretary of State ask the BMA if its members had been prescribing to the worried well and, if so, what did it say? I do not imagine that it said that its members had been doing so. If this is how the Government cope with predictable seasonal flu, which they know about every year and for which they have plenty of time to plan, can we have any confidence that they will cope with a much bigger flu pandemic if we have one?

When the hon. Gentleman accuses my Department of complacency and a lack of preparedness he is simply talking rubbish. At the beginning of the year, my Department did what it has done every year since we embarked on this programme—talk to the industry about the amount of flu dosage that would be available and ensure that it would be more this year than it was last year. As I said, there has been an increase every year for the past eight years in the amount of vaccine for winter flu available in our country. When we began to receive information and calls from GPs who were running low on supplies, we immediately took steps to set up a national audit, from which I have cited figures to show the position for the at-risk groups by the end of October. We also contacted the industry to secure more supplies. We were accused by the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) of not contacting the industry until the middle of November. In fact, that was the second time that we went to the industry to secure more stock for departmental supplies because of the problems that GPs had encountered.

The fact remains that for the winter flu vaccine programme—this is a different arrangement from the one that is in place for childhood immunisation—general practitioners have always been responsible for ordering and administering the flu vaccine. Given the overall amounts—some 14 million doses—that have been delivered in our country, we can be clear that GPs have ordered at least the same amounts, if not somewhat more, compared with last year.

As regards possible pandemic flu, the arrangements that we are already making for obtaining antivirals and for obtaining vaccines are based on the system that we use for childhood vaccination—in other words, a central ordering system. The only central ordering system that we have for the winter flu vaccine is the relatively small but now increasing stockpile that we use to supplement the far larger amount that GPs order, based on their own patient lists and knowledge of the number of patients who fall within the at-risk groups. As I stressed, it is important now to ensure that we continue to do as we are doing, to obtain as much additional stock as we can and supply that to the GPs as quickly as possible.

In my constituency, in at least one health centre, those in priority groups—the over-65s—have been told not only that supplies are exhausted, but that it is too late in the season for new supplies to be obtained. Is it the case that a seasonal cut-off date has until now been applied to the supply of vaccine?

No, it is not the case that there is now a cut-off date and that my hon. Friend's elderly constituents are too late for the flu vaccine. As I said, we are distributing a significant number of doses—indeed, we have orders for some 200,000 doses that we are starting to distribute. We are taking further orders, which we will fill as more vaccine becomes available. As I mentioned, we have already placed an additional order for a further 200,000 doses—that is, on top of our initial order of 400,000 doses—so an additional 200,000 doses of flu vaccine will become available in January, and will continue to be made available to GPs who need it for their elderly patients and other at-risk groups. I hope that my hon. Friend will reassure his constituents that, if they are elderly or in the at-risk groups, they should seek to get their winter flu jab, even if it is a little later than they or, indeed, we would have wished.

Fairly recently, hon. Members on both sides of the House took part in a promotional exercise to seek to draw to our constituents' attention the availability of influenza vaccine and the necessity for the elderly, particularly, and those at risk to use it. We did so, confident of the information made available by the Department of Health that there was sufficient available. Clearly, that confidence was sadly misplaced. In the small village of Birchington in my constituency, over the past few days, more than 50 people have presented at Courts the chemist carrying prescriptions for vaccine that is not available. A ring-round suggests that no chemist in the area has any vaccine at all. It is no good saying that it will be January before the vaccine arrives. When will people get it?

As I have just told the House, we already have orders from GPs who have run out of vaccine, and we are filling those orders. We still have several thousand doses of flu vaccine in our own stockpile. Those are being made available to GPs in the order in which GPs place their orders to us. We will continue to fill those orders and, because of the problem that has emerged, we have secured additional stocks of flu vaccine. We have done so despite the fact that the manufacturers are reporting far higher global demand than was the case last year, so we have responded promptly to the problem that has emerged.

I stress to the hon. Gentleman that the GPs in his constituency are responsible this year, as they have been for every year since winter flu began, for placing their orders. They did so. The number of doses available to our country is significantly higher than last year, and was sufficient for 100 per cent. take-up of the vaccine among the elderly and the other at-risk groups. It is something of a puzzle, it is fair to say, that at a point in the year when, by the end of October, only about half of the over-65s and only about a quarter of the under-65s at risk had been immunised, the stocks have already run out. There are clearly lessons that need to be learned for next year. This year, the priority is to get our stocks out as quickly as possible to the GPs and replenished, so that other GPs who have not yet placed their orders can get them.

Given the cost to the economy of millions of people missing work with flu, is it not time to examine widening the at-risk category to allow anyone who wants an influenza jab to obtain one free of charge?

My hon. Friend has raised an important point. We constantly keep under review the groups for which we recommend a winter flu vaccine and take advice from the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.

I declare an interest—as a result of the session in the Palace of Westminster, I am one of those who has fortunately had the winter influenza jab. I fall into the vulnerable group. Was the Secretary of State actually alleging that general practitioners have not ordered as many doses of flu vaccine as they should have done this year? If the Department of Health were to order a larger quantity of vaccine in order to hold a larger balance in case of an outbreak or pandemic, would the vaccine go off? Does the flu vaccine go off after a time, which would prevent the Department ordering a larger quantity? I agree with the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) that a far wider group should benefit from the vaccination.

As I have said, because the flu virus takes on a different form each year, it is not possible to stockpile winter flu vaccine from one year to another. As we did with considerable success in previous years, this year we ensured that GPs placed their orders in the usual way, and we placed an order for a relatively modest, but none the less significant, stockpile of 400,000 doses in case any GPs faced difficulties. I have already referred to one manufacturer having a problem with one of its production plants, which has delayed the delivery of supplies to some GPs who rely on that particular company. Last year, there was also a problem with a production facility, but we were able to step in.

We do not know exactly how many doses each GP ordered, although the overall figures suggest that GPs ordered at least as many doses as they did last year—they probably ordered more than that. Those supplies have now run out, despite the fact that at the end of October the same proportion of people in the at-risk groups had been vaccinated as last year. We are ensuring that our stockpile is distributed to GPs as quickly as possible, with the exception of a small amount that we have ring-fenced for poultry workers, and we are supplementing that stockpile with the additional 200,000 doses to which I referred earlier.

My right hon. Friend will recall that I gave her some anecdotal evidence about the matter in this House on 17 October, and she asked her officials to make sure that there was not a problem of the kind that I described, which was the appropriate ministerial response. As she has said, however, we still do not know what has happened, which is a problem and a puzzle. People such as me were asking whether it was likely that demand for seasonal flu vaccine would increase because of the attention paid to avian flu, but did the Department factor that point into its calculations? If there is a question about the vaccinating practices of GPs, is there any check on whether they are giving the vaccine to priority groups only?

My hon. Friend raises important points. He refers to the problem that he had encountered, which he mentioned to me on 17 October. After that, I checked with the Department and established that there had indeed been delays because of production problems with one manufacturer. Those problems were overcome and the delayed supplies were then delivered to the GPs who had ordered them. We also put in place a national audit process so that we could track exactly what was happening. GPs regularly provide information to their primary care trusts, mostly through the computer system, on the numbers of people in the at-risk groups whom they have vaccinated. I gave those figures and proportions to the House.

If somebody who is not in an at-risk group asks for a flu vaccination because they think that it might be a good thing to have this year, perhaps because of the publicity that they have read about avian flu, that does not mean that a GP necessarily should or will give a vaccination to that person. GPs are not required to report to PCTs on vaccinations given to people who fall outside the at-risk groups, although those figures might become available later in the year when they claim reimbursement for such vaccinations. We have stressed—we did it again in the letter that went to GPs—the need to focus on the priority groups. Those people are most in need and will most benefit from the vaccine. Given the shortages that have arisen in so many GP practices, it is absolutely essential that supplies are reserved for those groups.

Will the Minister give a categorical assurance that GPs will be directed to stay within the at-risk patients guidelines for the vaccine so that the worried well, who are allegedly being vaccinated, do not receive the vaccine until the crucial groups are catered for? Given that we face an extreme winter period, surely the vulnerable must be first in line to get this much-needed vaccine.

I agree. The whole point about having priority groups is that they should get priority. The letter that went from the Department yesterday to the flu co-ordinators and the advice that goes through them to GPs stresses that the vaccine should now be directed towards the priority groups—the elderly, younger people at clinical risk and carers—who are at risk.

Is the Secretary of State aware that not all of us who are in the categories that qualify for the flu jab have responded? I suppose that I qualify, having had a tumour removed and a heart bypass. I have a lot to thank the national health service for, and I rise to support it again. I have heard the figures. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that in the last year of the Tory Government there were 6 million flu jabs, yet this year there have been a record 14 million flu jabs? When I have mine next week, if I go—I found out this morning that it will be available—it will be 14 million and one, at least. Can there be a more sickening sight than Tory MPs who voted against—

Order. The Secretary of State will answer just one supplementary.

I entirely agree with all the points that my hon. Friend has made. In particular, I stress that more vaccine has been made available in Britain than ever before, and that it has been received by people who are, I hope, predominantly in the priority groups for whom it is of most benefit.

The Secretary of State says that lessons have to be learned for next year. What lessons has she learned, given that she does not seem to be taking any responsibility for the crisis that we are facing? Steve Flynn of Mellor in my constituency contacted me today. He is an asthma sufferer who was told that he could not get the flu jab this week. He said, "I'll ring back next week", and was told, "Yes, give us a try." I then phoned both my Clitheroe practices, which expect it to run out of the vaccine at the end of the week. Will the Secretary of State say how long the 400,000 doses that she has in the current contingency stock are likely to last, and will she ensure that all practices, in rural as well as urban areas, get access to it?

Some 110,000 doses from the contingency stock that the Department holds have already been delivered; 200,000 doses have been allocated to orders and will shortly be distributed; 40,000 doses are currently available for order; and a further 50,000 will be delivered to our distributors in the week beginning 5 December. As I said earlier, 10,000 doses are being reserved for poultry workers. In other words, a total of 80,000 doses will still be available for order. We will distribute them in the order that GPs place their orders. Whether GPs are rural or urban, the doses will be distributed on the basis of first come, first served.

My colleagues in the Department and I take extremely seriously our responsibility for monitoring exactly what is happening, ensuring that we get our contingency stock to GPs, who, for whatever reason, have run out of stocks, and for supplementing our stocks and getting them to GPs who continue to need them as quickly as possible.

My right hon. Friend will recall the letter that she wrote to all hon. Members asking them to launch a campaign in their constituencies to get elderly people to take up their flu vaccine. That happened in Scotland as well as in England. Will she therefore look seriously at getting the figures correct? There are either 11 million people in England and 14 million throughout the United Kingdom or there are simply 11 million people who need the vaccine. We need to know whether the supply of 14 million doses to which she referred is available throughout the UK and whether it is required by 14 million people.

I hope that my right hon. Friend will analyse where the vaccines went from the manufacturers' point of view. I am worried about people who pay for their vaccines and never claim anything from the NHS—she never knows whether fairly well, economically active people take the vaccines from those who require them and are at risk. I should like her to check with the manufacturers how many doses were supplied to GPs and therefore how many went to people who did not require them.

My hon. Friend raises important points. We need to get much more information than we currently have by the end of the winter. As I said earlier, the estimated production total from all the UK vaccine manufacturers is 14 million doses—around 1 million more than the previous year and well over double the figure some eight years ago.

May I tell the Secretary of State that the excellent GPs in my constituency will have heard with dismay her blaming them for the incompetence of her Department? When can she guarantee that the rationing will stop—by January, February or at the end of the winter, when our people have already suffered?

This is not a question of blaming the GPs or anybody else. Since winter flu vaccination started, it has been the responsibility of individual GPs to order what they believe they need for their practices, taking into account the Department's advice on the risk groups for whom immunisation is a priority. As I have said several times, the number of doses—14 million—available this year is significantly higher than in previous years and should have been more than adequate for not only 100 per cent. take-up in the at-risk groups, which we have never achieved, but for others, including health care workers, for whom immunisation is often desirable.

The last time the Secretary of State spoke on the issue, I asked her whether there was a need for a Government information campaign to deal with public confusion about the differences between a seasonal flu jab, a pandemic and avian flu. In her reply, she said that the Government's information campaign on seasonal flu had already been completed. Who is therefore to blame for those non-vulnerable and ineligible groups seeking the flu jab—the Government for not informing the public properly, the media for confusing the message that the Government needed to convey or the public for not understanding the Government's message?

In line with contingency plans and World Health Organisation guidance, we have published a great deal of material, all of which was well tested on the public to ensure that it is as clear as possible. We have made that available to GPs and on a variety of websites. We do our best to brief the media on the difference between bird flu, which does not exist in Britain and poses a very small risk to human health in Europe generally, a possible pandemic flu of a currently unknown strain, and winter flu, with which we have been dealing in the usual way. We have done our best to communicate that information as clearly as possible.

The Secretary of State said that last year one in four of the elderly at risk did not manage to get vaccinated. It is reasonable to infer that those people are more likely to be infirm and housebound, and therefore less able to get to their GP's surgery for their vaccination. Does the Secretary of State want GPs to carry out domiciliary visits in order to reach the elderly infirm, of whom there are increasing numbers, at home?

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. Because we give priority to the elderly and other clinically at-risk groups, and because GP practices are paid specifically for vaccinating the people in those groups, there are already quite a lot of programmes of that sort. District nurses, for instance, go to old people's residential homes, or to very frail elderly people who might well be housebound, to offer them the flu vaccine. However, there has never been a 100 per cent. uptake and GPs tend to base their orders for the vaccine on what they used the previous year, as they do not want to be left with unused stock. The GPs and the Government do everything possible to ensure that vulnerable elderly people get the protection that they need and deserve.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Government made major announcements today on the reorganisation of local government in Northern Ireland. They also announced the implications of that reorganisation on the education, health and social services sectors. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has referred to the proposed changes as "major" and "substantial", yet he has chosen to make the announcements in written form, rather than by coming here to announce the proposals on the Floor of the House of Commons.

You will be aware, Mr. Speaker, of the large number of right hon. and hon. Members who take a close interest in the affairs of Northern Ireland. Given that the proposals in the written statements are so fundamental and far-reaching, would it not have been more appropriate for the Secretary of State to have made a statement here in the Chamber of the House of Commons, where all of us who take an interest in the affairs of the Province would have the opportunity to question him and to contribute to what is a very important debate?

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. The announcement that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland made today details some of the most radical changes in the way in which Northern Ireland is to be administered. The statements cover not only local government but health, social services and education, and the total number of public bodies involved in those sectors is to be reduced from 67 to 20. That will have an impact on hundreds, if not thousands, of employees. Surely, rather than announcing such important changes at a press conference in Northern Ireland, the Secretary of State should have come to this Chamber to allow the Members of Parliament elected by the people of Northern Ireland and other right hon. and hon. Members to ask him questions about the changes. Mr. Speaker, will you invite the Secretary of State to come immediately to the House to make his statement here?

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is getting increasingly difficult for people in Northern Ireland to feel that they are being governed by people who understand what is happening there. Surely this matter should have been discussed by the parliamentary representatives of Northern Ireland, who do not get the chance to have such discussions now that there is no devolved Government or any other way of doing so. This is quite wrong, and I hope that you agree, Mr. Speaker, that the Secretary of State should have come to this House to make these announcements.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not bordering on contempt of this House for the Secretary of State to have asked his Ministers to invite Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly to briefings on the announcements that he has made today, rather than coming to this Chamber? Instead, he slinks away to an hotel to make his statement.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) for giving me notice of his point of order. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has indeed made four written statements to the House today on the structure of local government in Northern Ireland. I have no doubt that there will be an opportunity to discuss the proposals in the House. I also note that some of the proposed changes will require legislation, so there will be opportunities for the House to consider them in due course.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We have been expecting delivery later this week of the National Audit Office's annual report on the 20 largest defence projects—a report that always commands widespread public interest. To my surprise, this afternoon the Press Association carries a story that the Minister responsible for defence procurement, Lord Drayson, has held a press briefing providing a partial interpretation of the forthcoming NAO report. I have checked with the Public Accounts Committee, which tells me that the report is embargoed until one minute past midnight on Friday.

I understand that the Ministry of Defence claims that the timing of today's press briefing and the NAO report is coincidental. Even if we allow for Lord Drayson's relative inexperience of the courtesies of parliamentary procedure, is it not unacceptable that a Department of State should be engaged in what clearly amounts to a naked attempt to pre-empt the report of a universally respected and impartial public agency?

The PA report states:

"The MOD took the unusual step of releasing the figures three days before the National Audit Office publishes its annual report on major defence projects."

That report will show, apparently, that the combined cost of the 20 biggest projects is still running at about £1 billion.

As I am sure you will appreciate, Mr. Speaker, the Opposition are always handicapped by having sight of public documents of this kind only 24 hours before publication. Is it not a grave discourtesy to us and, indeed, to all Members with an interest in these matters, that the Ministry of Defence has sought to use its privileged position to taint and pre-empt public reaction to the forthcoming NAO report? If you agree with me, Mr. Speaker, can you advise me on what we might do about it?

rose—

Order. Perhaps I can reply to the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth) first. That might help the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton).

Obviously I am not aware of the circumstances surrounding the matter raised by the hon. Member for Aldershot. This is the first time that it has come to my attention. However, I would be very angry indeed if information required for the House went first to journalists. I am not happy with that, and I condemn such an action. The best advice that I can give the hon. Gentleman is that he should allow me to investigate the matter. My officials will look into it this afternoon and will get in touch with the appropriate Minister.

Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am extremely grateful to you, as, I am sure, is the whole House. I am sorry that I could not give you notice of the matter earlier, but it came to my attention only about an hour ago. I thank you warmly for, as ever, seeking to protect the interests of Members.

Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. Let me say from the Back Benches that I am extremely grateful for your response to my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Howarth). The whole matter is tremendously important to some of us whose constituencies contain defence industries. Four trade unionists from BAE Systems visited me at the House today. Please will you use your best offices—I know that you will—to ensure that statements of importance to Members are made in the House and not outside?

I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. All information should come to the House; it should not go to television studios or reporters.

I am so glad that everyone is so pleased with the Speaker. I hope it that it lasts at least for the afternoon.

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the British Nationality Act 1981 to enable citizens of the Republic of Ireland resident in the Untied Kingdom to register as British subjects.

The Bill will offer people born in the Republic of Ireland after 1949 who have associations with the United Kingdom through residency some of the rights that are currently given to those born before 1949. It will provide political, practical and symbolic recognition of those affected and will allow them to join and to be treated in all other regards as British subjects. That end is achieved by amending the British Nationality Act 1981. There will be a requirement that anyone applying to register as a British subject under the provision swear an oath of allegiance to the Crown, as provided in schedule 5 of the 1981 Act.

It is not easy to estimate the number of people who would wish to avail themselves of that scheme, but the 2001 census for Northern Ireland provides some evidence. Its figures show that the number of people born in the Republic of Ireland, but now resident in Northern Ireland, is around 40,000, though it does not indicate how many of them were born before 1949 or give any indication of the number who might wish to avail themselves of the provision. In the Northern Ireland Westminster parliamentary constituencies, the number of people born in the Republic of Ireland ranges significantly, from less than 1,000 in one instance to more than 5,000 at the other extreme.

There is a long history to these matters, Mr. Speaker, dating way back to the Act of Union 1801 and perhaps long before it. For present purposes, Members will be content to note that I will confine myself to the last century in general and the last 50 years or so in particular. I will point out that there is already a scheme in place for those people in this position who were born before 1949.

The law as it stands makes provision for anyone born before 1949 in the Republic of Ireland with associations with the UK—as defined in the 1981 Act—to become a British subject. Indeed, we have the ludicrous position whereby those born in Northern Ireland who consider themselves Irish, though they have never lived in the Irish Republic or voted in an Irish election or paid Irish taxes, can avail themselves of an Irish passport by a straightforward process of completing an application form and enclosing the fee, yet those born a few miles across the border in the Republic since 1949, having lived in the UK for many years, having voted in UK elections and having paid UK taxes, cannot avail themselves of a British passport without going through the cumbersome procedure of applying for what is known as naturalisation.

It is impossible to understand the issue without fully appreciating the relationships between all the people who live within the British Isles. Just a few weeks ago, we remembered those who have died in various conflicts, including the first world war. At that time, many born in what is now the Republic of Ireland fought as British soldiers in the British Army. As I have already explained, the law reflects their circumstances, as they were obviously born before 1949. It is those born after that arbitrary date, some of whom were descendants of those soldiers, who are denied the same option.

The last few decades have inevitably focused on events in Northern Ireland and the history of our Province. There has not been much focus on the history of the Republic of Ireland since partition. One is inevitably driven to generalities when dealing with such matters. For example, in the 1920s, the drawing of the boundary between what is now Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland was not without contention. Some areas with a significant Protestant or Unionist population were not included in Northern Ireland. The reduction in the number of Protestants living in the Republic from 1921 to today is also a matter of historical fact.

The reasons why that has been the case are a matter for another day, but quite a number of those people have moved to Northern Ireland. As I have explained, if those who moved were born before 1949, they are already catered for, but many born in the Republic of Ireland after that date will be able to benefit from the Bill. These people, aged 56 and under, are indistinguishable in every respect from other British citizens in Northern Ireland—except in their formal nationality. As a result, they travel on Irish passports and are legally regarded as citizens of the Republic of Ireland, despite many of them regarding themselves as British. To qualify for British citizenship on another basis—if such is available to them—they are required to undergo the lengthy process that I outlined earlier.

I mention only in passing the approach taken by the Republic of Ireland to those who are born in Northern Ireland. Under article 1(vi) of the British-Irish agreement—the treaty section of the Belfast agreement—anyone born in Northern Ireland has the right to identify themselves as Irish or British or both, as they so choose; it is a matter for them. They also have the right to be regarded as Irish citizens. This allows me, living in Northern Ireland, to regard myself as an Irish citizen if I so wish, yet some of my neighbours—those born, for example, in County Donegal in the 1950s and 1960s, but who have lived in the United Kingdom for almost all their lives—cannot currently become British subjects without some inconvenience and additional cost.

I do not believe it too much of an assumption to accept that the majority of those in Northern Ireland who would wish to benefit from this change in legislation are from the Unionist tradition, but it would of course be open to all to whom it applied. None the less, since I raised this issue publicly in Northern Ireland, there has been no opposition to the provisions. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine how anyone could oppose this anomaly's being resolved.

This Bill is important not just in a symbolic, but in a very practical, way. It is important to these individuals that they be recognised as subjects in the country in which they live, contribute, vote and pay taxes.

I am very unhappy about this proposal. It carries with it a number of very important assumptions and implications with which I am certainly not prepared to go along at this stage; it needs a lot of further debate. The first assumption is the casual one that the good folk of Ireland should continue to have special privileges in this country that others do not have. Of course, Ireland is a proud member of the European Union, as, indeed, is this country—for the time being. That suggests that for fairness and even-handedness, we should treat Ireland in exactly the same way as we treat other EU member states: no better and no worse. This constant demand for special treatment for Ireland strikes me as anomalous, to say the least. If the Irish want their country to be treated as a sovereign nation within the EU, they should surely accept the responsibilities that go with that. So there is a basic problem with this proposition that we have to face up to.

I turn to another difficulty. The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Campbell) made some play of the fact that the naturalisation process is extremely difficult, arduous and strenuous. I do not think that that is so, but if it is, it is properly the case. Surely British citizenship is a privilege that should be somewhat arduous and difficult, rather than casual and easy, for people of any other nationality to obtain. So the idea that we make the privilege of British citizenship very simple and easy to get strikes me as odd. We should move in the other direction instead, given the problems that we face with people coming from other countries to this country. If, as the hon. Gentleman suggested, they come to live here for a long time, pay taxes and so on, there is a process open to them whereby they may apply to become British citizens, and it is a perfectly proper and correct process. I hope that that process is retained. Indeed, I could easily be persuaded that it should be made somewhat more difficult, rather than easier.

I have given two basic reasons why I think that this proposal should be resisted, certainly until we have explored its implications a lot further than we are able to today.

Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 23 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business), and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Gregory Campbell, Kate Hoey, Michael Fabricant, Andrew Mackinlay, Lembit Opik, Rev. Ian Paisley, Mr. Peter Robinson, Mr. Nigel Dodds and Mrs. Iris Robinson.

British Subjects (Registration)

Mr. Gregory Campbell accordingly presented a Bill to amend the British Nationality Act 1981 to enable citizens of the Republic of Ireland resident in the United Kingdom to register as British subjects: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on 16 June, and to be printed [Bill 91].

We now come to the debate on welfare reform and incapacity benefit. I must tell the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

I beg to move,

That this House is extremely concerned that the Government is failing to tackle welfare reform despite promises to do so; recognises that the pensions system is in crisis; notes that the Prime Minister believes the Child Support Agency is not suited to carry out the task that it has been given; believes that the New Deal has failed to deliver; notes that 116,000 more people are claiming incapacity benefit than in 1997 despite the Government's pledge to reduce the number; is deeply disturbed that the Incapacity Benefit Green Paper, which was due to be published in the summer and then the autumn, will not now be published until January; believes that this is due to continuing conflict between the Prime Minister and the Department for Work and Pensions on the desired content of the Paper; and calls on the Government finally to deal with the increasingly urgent need for welfare reform, for the benefit of users of the system and all taxpayers.

My first, and very pleasant, duty is to welcome the new Secretary of State to his responsibilities. I am getting rather good at this, as only six months ago I welcomed his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett). The right hon. Gentleman is no less than the fourth person to occupy the role in just over 12 months. The Prime Minister had better get careful: to lose one Secretary of State is a misfortune, to lose two is clearly carelessness, but to lose three suggests a degree of serial incompetence in 10 Downing street. In part, that explains some of the incoherence that we are experiencing in welfare policy.

Of course, we wish the new Secretary of State well. I hope that he will not mind if I borrow a phrase from pension language and say that he will find his Department rather difficult to handle, with very few direct benefits for him. He will expect to make most of the contributions and will find that a difficult task. One of the questions on which we will judge his performance is whether he can live up to his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside. Despite his other failings, he was a big beast and could hold out against 10 Downing street when that was appropriate. The Secretary of State does not yet have that reputation, and we wait with interest to see whether he can earn it.

Welfare reform is an appropriate subject for debate today. When they first came to office in 1997, the Government chose to adopt it as one of the major issues on which they would be judged. It was one of the great themes of that election, but the Prime Minister essentially fell at the first hurdle. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) was appointed as the Minister in charge of welfare and invited to think the unthinkable. However, he was out of government within a year, and never emerged again.

That was our first evidence that, on welfare reform and many other issues, the Prime Minister is very powerful when it comes to rhetoric, but very poor when it comes to delivery.

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

I will in a moment. The Prime Minister likes to give the impression that he leads from the front but, on a great many issues, he prefers to go for public opinion when the going gets tough. In effect, he tells people, "Tell me where you wish to go, in order that I might lead you."

In 1997, the Government introduced the new deal, which has reduced unemployment in my constituency by 80 per cent. and helped 550 single parents into work. Why does the right hon. and learned Gentleman want to abolish the new deal? Is that a coherent policy?

Like the hon. Gentleman, we know that most jobs offered under the new deal are not permanent. It has not had the impact that had been hoped for, and a powerful argument for using the private and voluntary sectors to find jobs is that they tend to offer long-term or permanent employment.

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

I hope that the House will forgive me, but I intend to make my speech. I will accept interventions, but this debate is about the incoherence of the Government's welfare policy. That is what we shall concentrate on.

On so many issues, at the first sign of difficulty, the Prime Minister tries to distance himself from the policy of his own Government. Only last week, the Prime Minister dropped broad hints at the Dispatch Box that he was enthusiastic about the suggestion that the Child Support Agency should be abolished—he knows the low esteem in which it is held by the public. But of course, soon after the Prime Minister left the Chamber, No. 10 Downing street and the Department for Work and Pensions were asked for confirmation of the policy, and we then heard the magic word, "clarification". That made it clear that there was no intent to abolish the CSA. There was no new policy on the CSA: the Prime Minister simply wished to make a short-term impact.

The same thing happened with the deal that was done between the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and the public sector trade unions. The Prime Minister let it be known how unhappy he was with the deal that had been made, as if somehow it had nothing to do with him. His attitude was, "Forgive me, I'm only the Prime Minister. I can't be expected to be held responsible for deals made by my Government." But we know that that deal has been enormously damaged by the Government's attempt to argue that the rest of the population should work longer and retire later while simultaneously sanctioning a deal for their own employees that will take 40 years to come into effect. It is a poor situation, and the Secretary of State will have to acknowledge that.

We are discussing welfare policy as a whole today, but as the motion implies I shall concentrate specifically on incapacity benefit, which is one of the areas where the Government have most fallen down on their stated ideals since they came into office.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman probably knows that areas in my constituency—Bridgend and Rhondda Cynon Taff—saw the rolling out of the pathways to work pilots. It is right to say that since the Government have been in power the number of incapacity benefit claimants has risen from 2.6 million to just over 2.7 million. However, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman confirm that if the trend established under the Conservatives had continued, the increase would have been from 2.6 million to 4 million? This Government have tightened up the system and helped people back into work under the pathways to work pilot.

The hon. Gentleman might think that he is being logical, but he should remember that logic is the art of going wrong with confidence. He should not use that sort of nonsense argument if he wishes to impress the House.

This is a debate about incapacity benefits, which are received by many millions of our fellow citizens, the majority of whom are sick or disabled. I am proud to have been a member of a Government who introduced improvements to the financial security and wellbeing of millions of our fellow citizens who, through no fault of their own, are sick or disabled. Of course, when one introduces such improvements, there is an initial high take-up, but that should be welcomed because it improves the wellbeing of our fellow citizens. However, the Government cannot rest on that case. When they came to office in 1997, they said that the number claiming—the hon. Gentleman rightly said that it was 2.62 million—was far too high. The Prime Minister said then, and has said every year since, that 1 million of those people should be in employment and not on benefit—

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

No, I shall not give way until I have finished my point.

The Prime Minister and his colleagues should be judged by the policy on which they came to power, which—

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

No, I wish to develop my argument and then I will take interventions.

The starting point that we have is a Labour party which said that the number of claimants was far too high at 2.62 million and that it was an overwhelming priority of a Labour Government to reduce that figure by—it hoped—1 million. What has been achieved in the past eight years?

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

No. The hon. Gentleman does not want to be reminded of the facts, but he will be reminded that far from reducing the figure by the million that the Government sought as their target, the number of people claiming incapacity benefit has gone from 2.62 million to 2.74 million—120,000 more claimants than when the Government came into office.

The situation is even more alarming than that. The biggest increase in that overall total is in the number of people who have been claiming IB for stress or depression, subjects that by their nature are far more difficult to prove or disprove and where general practitioners have the greatest difficulty in establishing the reliability of the claim. The figure was 592,000 in 1997, but it is now more than 1 million, a 39 per cent. increase. That is the mark of the Government's failure.

I appreciate the right hon. and learned Gentleman's generosity in giving way again on that point. He did not accept my figure of 4 million if the Conservative policy had continued, but will he accept that since 1997 the Government have succeeded in tightening up the gateway so that although people already on incapacity benefit will, as part of our policy, be increasingly well protected, the trend for people going on to incapacity benefit is downwards? That was certainly not happening under the Conservatives.

Only the hon. Gentleman, or perhaps some of his colleagues, could claim that an increase of 120,000 is a downward trend—[Interruption.] He will be difficult to persuade because he uses a system of grammar that is not known to the rest of the human race. That is a matter on which we will have to agree to differ.

By the Government's own standards, they have failed over the past eight years. There has been a remarkable collapse. Each year, Ministers have to say the same thing. In 1997, they were saying that a million people needed to be found jobs and in 2004, after they had already been in office for seven years, there were still a million people who needed to be found jobs. Only last year, the Secretary of State's predecessor found yet another million people who still had to be found jobs, yet nothing has happened and that is typical of the Government's approach.

I was interested to hear the right hon. and learned Gentleman say that he was proud to have introduced incapacity benefit. The reason for reform is that the benefit itself has put barriers in the way of disabled people who want to get back into work. How can he be proud of that?

I did not say that there is no case for reform. Of course there is, as there would be for any other major innovation. I am saying that the Government have completely failed to meet that case; they have completely failed to deliver the policy that is required.

At the beginning of the year the Government announced a major new strategy, launched by the right hon. Gentleman who is now Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. That was two Secretaries of State ago; it is difficult to keep up, as the current Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will appreciate. On 2 February, when the Department of Work and Pensions five-year strategy was launched, the Government announced, with the hype typical of them, that they were launching the

"biggest change in incapacity benefits since they were created".

That sounds pretty impressive, as though the Government were at long last getting to grips with the problem, yet when we looked at what it meant in practice we found three things.

First, we found that all that the Government proposed to do was to publish a Green Paper—not a White Paper. One might have thought that if they had already worked out how to implement the greatest reform in incapacity benefit it would have been followed by a White Paper, which could have gone out for consultation. But no, we were promised only a Green Paper.

Secondly, the new policy would be implemented—if it ever was—not in 2005, or even 2006 or 2007, but in 2008, three years from now. Thirdly, the most extraordinary part of the announcement, which is, I think, still Government policy, is that all the marvellous new benefits would not apply to a single one of the 2.7 million existing IB claimants but only to new claimants.

In their announcement the Government said:

"The reformed benefit will provide enhanced financial security for the most severely sick and disabled"

Very good. None the less, not one severely disabled person currently receiving the benefit will have the ghost of an opportunity to enjoy any of the new benefits. The same announcement stated that there would be

"more money than now for all those claimants who take part in work focused activity".

More money than now, but not for anybody receiving the benefit now. For some reason best known to the Government, no advantage will be obtained by the 2.7 million people currently in receipt of IB.

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

I will, although I would have been happier to give way to the Secretary of State if he wanted to correct or change that policy, but as he remains silent and is on a learning curve I will give way to the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) instead.

As always, the right hon. and learned Gentleman is trying to teach us all something. He tried it the last time he was here. Unfortunately, I think he has got it wrong. My understanding from people that I have talked to in the DWP is that anyone who is on incapacity benefit at the moment who believes that they can have the benefit of those extra resources will be granted them. I have asked and been told that that is the case.

I think we are talking about different things—unless the Government have made an announcement of a change of policy to the hon. Gentleman that he has not announced to the House. That is always possible. [Interruption.] On the contrary; we have not had the Green Paper yet. That brings me to my next remarks. All we have to go on at the moment is—

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

No. Let me deal with this matter first. The hon. Gentleman will forgive me. All we have to go on as to what the Government's policy is—

rose—

No; I am sorry. All we have to go on is what the Government said in February. In February it was indicated that the new reform proposals would not apply to existing claimants, only to new claimants after 2008. Let me just share with the House—

rose—

I understand why hon. Gentlemen wish to deflect me, but they will not succeed. Let me share with the House what has happened since that grand statement in February, promising the greatest ever reform in incapacity benefit. We were told then that there would be a Green Paper—seemingly it had to be a Green Paper, but at least it would be published in the summer—and that remained the Government's position. Indeed, after the general election the Prime Minister repeated at his first press conference that

"there will be a Green Paper on reform of Incapacity Benefit before the summer recess."

Well, what happened to it? It never appeared. And later, in July, we were told that the timetable had slipped, and that it would be published in the autumn. And then, when asked at oral questions on 31 October why the Green Paper was four months overdue, the Minister for the disabled, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions—the hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs. McGuire)—said,

"the Green Paper is not four months overdue: we made it very clear earlier this year that we would publish it in the autumn."—[Official Report, 31 October 2005; vol. 438, c. 622.]

Well, the difference between summer and autumn is not very different from four months, but we shall put that on one side.

Then we had a statement by the Prime Minister on 16 November that the Green Paper is not now going to be published until January of next year. Now, is January of next year consistent with the autumn? Is this what the Government mean by their policy on climate change? Are these things very difficult to control? When asked why the delay was taking place—

rose—

I shall not give way for the moment.

When asked why, the Prime Minister said, "Well, you know, there has been a change of Minister at the head of the Department." This, we are told, is the official reason why the Green Paper now cannot come out until next year. Well, when the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside was appointed Secretary of State back in May, that was not given as a reason for delay; far from it. The Prime Minister confirmed that the original timetable was going to be held to.

We know exactly why the delay has taken place. If the Secretary of State will forgive me, it has nothing to do with his appointment. It has to do with the very serious differences of view, to put it mildly, between the Prime Minister and the previous Secretary of State—and perhaps the present incumbent. We just do not know yet what the present incumbent's view is. But what we do know—

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

No.

What we do know is that the Prime Minister has been putting very severe pressure on the Department for Work and Pensions—quite contrary to the Government's stated policy—to toughen up the line. We know that it is contrary to the Government's stated policy, because the Secretary of State has actually said that this is not a cuts agenda.

indicated assent.

The right hon. Gentleman is nodding. And others have said that cutting benefit is not part of the Government's reforms. And yet we know—unless the right hon. Gentleman will tell us that this is not true—that on Monday 10 October, "Channel 4 News" reported—[Laughter.] Well, we shall hear the Government's views on this in a moment—

Scraping the barrels.