189. In evidence, the Secretary of State said that the Department had no intention of moving existing claimants of incapacity benefits onto the ESA. He argued:
"I do not think you should set about these sorts of reforms, as it were, by tearing up people's entitlement to benefits. […] I do not think it should be part of our agenda to retrospectively change benefit entitlement, […] it is likely to be the case in two or three years' time that the claimants who will be the hardest to reach and to place in the labour market will be people on old incapacity benefits, not people coming into new Employment and Support Allowance. But, again, I cannot see any alternative way of managing this process of change other than the way we have set out in the Green Paper."[211]
This is as it should be and by going back on this principle they have shown themselves to be unprincipled people. Now they also plan to retrospectively tear up people's entitlement to DLA too.
Source.
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