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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, for what I think is the first time. You have presided over an extremely informed and useful debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) for securing the debate. He and I have had a number of conversations about disability matters over the past 18 months, and he brings a great deal of expertise to the House.
The debate covered a broad range of issues and I hope to do justice to them in my response, but if I cannot answer them all in the time allowed, I will be happy to deal with them separately should Members wish me do so. First, I shall set out the Government’s approach to supporting disabled young people. I shall then answer some of the important questions raised today.
When I talk to disabled young people, as I did only last week and over the weekend in my constituency, I find them to be as ambitious as non-disabled people—no one in the Chamber today will find that surprising—and their hopes for the future are no different. They want a job in which they can excel, a home, a family and friends. They want to live independent lives, and those lives will be different for each of them.
The catch-all title of disabled can sometimes be unhelpful. As Minister with responsibility for disabled people, I have to deal with the wide range of conditions, illnesses and challenges that these people face. We heard today that it is only by joining together the work of social care, health, education and employment effectively that we can ensure adequate support for disabled young people. All of those elements have a part to play. Joining up those services to ensure that disabled young people live independent lives is at the heart of the Government’s work, but in doing so we must also ensure that we retain the ambition that every disabled young person and their family have for their lives, including the ability to take on the challenges of the future so that they can reach their true potential as an individual.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) rightly said that families have a critical role to play. Sometimes, though, it is important to separate an individual’s passions and desires for the future from the family. Although we need to ensure that families retain their vital role, we must at the same time recognise that it is the disabled young person and their individual needs that we must focus on first and foremost to ensure that they can enjoy an independent life, whatever that means for that individual. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) also made the point that by enabling disabled people to live independent lives, we can avoid many of the mental health problems that we all see in our own constituency surgeries. All too often such problems accompany disabilities.
Let me outline a few of the measures that the Government are taking. I pay testament to the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) is doing in this area as a Minister in the Department for Education. It is under her stewardship that the special educational needs and disability Green Paper has been produced. I am thankful that she has agreed to work closely with me on that key reform affecting some of the transition problems that have been raised today. The single assessment that my hon. Friend sets out in the Green Paper will start to deal with some of the problems that the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) so eloquently articulated today. We are looking for local authorities to trailblaze the new approach, so that we can avoid some of the complications and hurdles that currently face disabled people and their families.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne talked about the importance of effective support for transition. Again, the SEN Green Paper clearly sets out the importance the Government attach to dealing with the variable support that is sometimes provided for parents and disabled children after they turn 16. It is precisely to resolve the problems post-16 that we are considering testing the new approach of having a single assessment across the full zero-to-25 age range, as well as ensuring that it is portable. The Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), is also involved in that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne talked about key workers and how they support disabled people in transition. We are in full agreement that key workers can play a hugely important role in supporting families and young people to navigate through transition, which is why we commit in the Green Paper to invest in key worker training. We are in the process of appointing a voluntary, non-profit-making organisation to lead. Those are important and exciting developments that we can look forward to in the future.
[Mr Bone in the Chair]
Personal budgets are also pertinent. In our constituencies, we all see a great deal of money being invested in supporting individuals, but all too often it can feel that that money is not well co-ordinated. The Department for Health’s commitment to personal budgets and to allowing every disabled individual to access them is an important step forward and will help to ensure that all the available money is used to best effect. Last Thursday, I was fortunate enough to meet a wide range of individuals from disability organisations and a group of disabled people in Barnsley. I was told about the important benefits personal budgets gave in disabled people’s day-to day lives, including allowing them to lead the sort of independent lives they wanted. Barnsley is part of the right to control trailblazer initiative that was extremely well put together under the previous Administration. We are continuing the initiative because it gives more flexibility to disabled young people to start their lives in a strong and independent way.
The Government are also conducting an important review of employment support for disabled people. It is vital that we understand that the majority of disabled young people aspire to be in employment. All too often that aspiration does not come to fruition—perhaps through an inability to navigate the system or to get the right support in place at the time. Earlier this year, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions asked Liz Sayce to produce an independent review of employment support for disabled people. That review, which was published before the summer break, highlighted that disabled people want the same access to jobs as everybody else, and the best way to make that happen is to ensure that employment support is built around the individual. We are consulting on the proposals set out in the Sayce review and we will publish a response in due course. At the heart of Liz’s proposals is support for access to work, which, for young people in particular, can give the sort of personalised support that they need not just to get into work, but to stay in work and to give them the opportunity to live independent lives.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak mentioned the importance of supporting disabled former members of the armed services. One of the recommendations from the Sayce review was to set up a cross-departmental group to consider the employment of disabled people, and I have done that straight away because I thought that it was a superb recommendation. One of my colleagues from the Ministry of Defence will be on that ministerial group for the very reason that the hon. Gentleman talked about. I hope that that reassures him that I understand his point. Many young people who have served our country have come out with severe disabilities and they require that support. The ministerial group will also include a Minister from the Department for Transport. As hon. Members recognised, transport is important in ensuring that disabled young people have independence and are able to get into the workplace.
Some of our work is about ensuring that the profile of disabled young people is positive. The Paralympics has an important role to play in that, but we are also investing heavily in user-led organisations to ensure that disabled young people have strong voices in the future. We also have a strong policy of ensuring that more disabled people have access to elected office, which is an important way to get one’s voice heard.
I will answer as many of the specific points made in the debate as I can now, but I will write to Members if I am not able to answer their questions in detail. “Aiming Higher” is a three-year programme set up by the previous Administration. It includes short breaks and transition support, both of which the present Government are continuing to fund. The fruitful work under “Aiming Higher” is therefore continuing.
To reassure Members who raised the implications of the personal independence payment, let me say that I recognise that the transition from DLA to PIP at 16 is an important and sensitive matter. I have already begun meeting organisations and representatives to ensure that they have clear input into our work. I recently met a number of organisations, including CLIC Sargent, to help to inform our thinking on the qualifying period. I am sure that the debate on the matter will continue in the Lords. I will be looking at the needs of individuals in residential colleges in the same way as the needs of other recipients of DLA. I understand the arguments that hon. Members have made today on that point. We have done some detailed work on the order of migration from DLA to PIP. We will make sure that it is a fair process and it will be considered as part of the equality impact assessment.
I apologise for not being able to cover all of points hon. Members raised today. Suffice it to say, the work that the Government are doing puts support for disabled young people very high on our priority list.