I wish to speak to amendments Nos. 98 and 99, which I tabled. I will be brief because I, if not everyone else, wish to comment on other groups of amendments.
The amendments are quite important. They would insert new provisions in paragraphs 1 and 9 of schedule 2. Amendment No. 99 would allow regulations to make provision
“for a person to be treated as having a limited capability for work-related activity where it has been decided that he does not have a limited capability for work-related activity but he is appealing against that decision.”

For the lay man, they would apply to someone who has been told that he cannot work, although he wants to work, and who feels that he can work and can prove that.
The amendments would continue the current rules, which enable a person who appeals against a decision that he or she is incapable for work under the personal capability assessment to claim income support on the grounds of incapacity, albeit at a reduced rate, until the appeal is heard. As I read it, there is no equivalent provision in the Bill. Not including such a provision could increase the risk of poverty, given the poor standard of personal capability assessments at present. I doubt that it is the Government’s intention to make people suffer in reduced financial circumstances that may have occurred through no fault of their own, so if the Minister is unwilling to accept the amendments, how does he propose that the anomaly in the benefits system be removed?
I have some sympathy with new clause 3, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Danny Alexander). Having said that, I have never been enamoured of annual reports, which usually end up being crammed together in the week before they are due, and which never meet the aims that everyone wants them to meet. If an annual report is simply there as a target, it should not be required.
Adam Afriyie: Does the hon. Gentleman not acknowledge that if an annual report is requested, and there is a requirement to report on progress in certain areas, it tends to focus the minds of the people in an organisation, especially if the report is to be put before Parliament, too? It tends to enable people to focus on the things on which they were intended to focus.
John Robertson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but my experience is that people pick whatever they want out of an annual report. They concentrate on the points on which they want to concentrate, and those points rarely bear any resemblance to those that the ordinary person in the street wants them to talk about. Having said that, the Government should introduce a mechanism that enables an external body to ask them questions, to which they must supply answers, but that happens anyway, and my hon. Friend the Minister would want his Department to supply that information. I should expect the relevant bodies that deal with people with disabilities to want to ask questions, and I expect that they would issue their own reports, saying whether the Government—or in this case the Department—were doing their job.
Lynne Jones (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab): Is my hon. Friend not concerned, however, that evaluations are carried out by Atos Origin, and it is difficult to get access to independent information because of problems with commercial confidentiality? Is it not important that the Government propose a mechanism to overcome that problem?
John Robertson: My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I agree with it, but the Data Protection Act 1998 opened the way for Members of Parliament to receive information, in answer to questions, that we could not receive in the past. Will the Minister say whether, if we asked questions on behalf of the relevant groups, we would receive answers, despite the fact that my hon. Friend thinks that there would be some difficulty because of the 1998 Act and confidentiality issues? Obviously, medical conditions are a completely different matter; we could not get medical information. However, if an individual asked me, as their Member of Parliament, to act as their representative, could I get the necessary information? If I could not, and if the relevant bodies could not, how could we get the information that we were asking for, particularly given confidentiality considerations in medical cases?
The hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) made some good points about human rights.

Unfortunately, although I wished to talk about human rights issues under part 1, my amendments were not chosen, but I think that I can sneak in my concerns about people who are terminally ill in our discussions on part 1. Their assessments are very difficult, and the great fear, of course, is the length of time that the assessments take, from start to finish. Will the Minister comment on that, even though the matter has only a tentative link to the amendments that we are discussing? It is an important question that needs to be answered. Members in the other place will ask such questions, so I am helping my hon. Friend the Minister by asking it. I urge him to look favourably upon my amendments, and to consider the concerns expressed by Members on both sides of the House. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry) on the excellent points that he made about his fine proposal, which, like my amendment, is a probing amendment.

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