Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Reform (Disabled People)
(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)
Read Full debate16:10 - The House divided: - Ayes: 243 / Noes: 302 - Question accordingly negatived.
Kate Green
That is absolutely right. As I will show later, on several occasions when I have asked Ministers for information about what is happening, the answer has either been that they do not know or that they do not record the information at all.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)
I have known the hon. Lady for a long time, and I am concerned by a charge she is making. Will she explain to the House why, if this matter of the clumsy and offensive words for which Lord Freud has apologised were of concern to the Labour party to the extent it says, Labour waited weeks after it had the recording to bring it forward at Prime Minister’s questions? Surely if Labour Members were so concerned about this—instead of the faux concern they are now showing—they would have raised it immediately and demanded an apology and an explanation. Why did they not do so immediately rather than wait for weeks?
Kate Green
We were so taken aback and stunned by these remarks, and we considered them so offensive and serious, that we considered it right to bring them before the Prime Minister in the highest forum in this land, this Chamber, in the very first Prime Minister’s Question Time that we had the opportunity to do so.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mr Mark Harper)
I am very disappointed by the tone of the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). This is a cynical debate, and I think my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State put his finger on the issue because if the hon. Lady meant what she said about the remarks of my noble Friend Lord Freud, she should have exposed them when she first knew about them. The fact is that the Opposition, right up to and including the Leader of the Opposition, used those remarks as a cynical device to detract attention from the excellent performance of the economy and the 2 million jobs that were created—news that was announced on 15 October but that the Leader of the Opposition did not want the House to focus on. That is what this is about.
Mr Harper
Not until I have at least made some opening remarks.
The Leader of the Opposition did not want the House to focus on the fact that employment is at record levels or that there has been the largest annual fall in unemployment on record. He did not want the House to focus on the fact that the claimant count had fallen below 1 million or that there had been the largest annual fall on record of youth unemployment. He did not want the House to focus on the fact that long-term unemployment was down, and that there are 400,000 fewer workless households since 2010. That is what this was about—a cynical piece of politics, and the hon. Lady had no answer to the charge of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. [Interruption.] She did not, and that will have been exposed to all those watching this debate.
Mr Harper
Let me make one point, and I will give way to my hon. Friend.
The motion contains not a single positive idea about improving the lives of disabled people. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston mentioned some ideas in her speech, but she has not troubled the House with any of them in the motion, which is an attack, pure and simple, on my noble Friend. In a moment, I will set out exactly why that charge is not warranted in any way whatever.
Conor Burns
Our noble Friend Lord Freud used clumsy and offensive language and rightly apologised for it. Does the Minister agree that for the shadow Minister deliberately to misinterpret and mislead the House as to Lord Freud’s comments for blatantly partisan advantage and to castigate Government Members who care as much about disabled people as Opposition Members shows the very worst of the House? The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) made a disgraceful speech.
Mr Harper
I agree with the sentiments expressed by my hon. Friend. The Conservative party has a proud record. When my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House of Commons held the office that I hold today, he took through the House the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, the first Act of its kind. That is a record of which our party can be proud and we do not need to take any lessons from the Labour party. Frankly, the words of the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston were offensive. I will deal with the points in the motion, with my noble Friend and with the positive policy proposals and record of the Government, and then I will invite the House to reject the motion.
The hon. Lady’s words would be a little more credible if there was some evidence that she believed them. Let me set out for Opposition Members, in particular for those who were not in the previous Parliament, some of the history of my noble Friend’s record on welfare reform.
Mr Harper
I will set out some of the history before I take the hon. Gentleman’s intervention.
It is worth remembering that Lord Freud was hired by John Hutton, now Lord Hutton, the Labour Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in late 2006 to write a report on radical welfare reform. At that point, Labour thought Lord Freud was an excellent person to involve in the welfare reform agenda. He delivered that reform in March 2007. The right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain) then became Secretary of State for Work and Pensions—there was not a lot of appetite for welfare reform under him—followed by James Purnell, who was appointed in January 2008. On the second day of his term of office, he appointed Lord Freud to implement the proposals in his report. In the Command Paper, “No one written off: reforming welfare to reward responsibility”, the then Secretary of State, James Purnell, set out the proposals of the Labour Government and made it clear that they were
“inspired by the reforms proposed by David Freud in his report on the welfare state.”
The Command Paper made it clear—boasted, in fact—that the Labour Government would implement all of Lord Freud’s reforms and even boasted that they would take the reforms further.
That is the man whom the Labour party is castigating. Labour brought him into Government to work with them on welfare reform. The right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) is chuntering from a sedentary position. It is worth the House remembering that he was appointed Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform in January 2008. Between then and October 2008 he served with Lord Freud implementing welfare reform under the Labour party. The right hon. Gentleman knows Lord Freud and that although Lord Freud expressed himself clumsily—he did so, and apologised—the characterisation of those words is simply inaccurate. The Labour party should be ashamed of itself.
Jonathan Edwards
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, but I fear that he has answered my question before I ask it. It is the same Lord Freud that the Labour party took into the heart of Government. Before his appointment Lord Freud had said that he understood nothing about welfare, so will the Minister explain why the noble Lord played such an important role in implementing and coming up with welfare policy for both the previous Labour Government and the current Conservative Government?
Mr Harper
I will set out some of the things that Lord Freud has done in government, but let me finish on the record of the Labour party, which is worth listening to. Some Labour Members may have to do some rapid rewriting of their speeches.
James Purnell, when Secretary of State, appointed Lord Freud to work on his proposals. Lord Freud served with the Labour party until January 2009. He then concluded that there was no appetite for radical welfare reform under the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). Lord Freud then joined the Conservative party and our Front-Bench team, of which I was a member at the time, to develop our proposals for welfare reform. James Purnell of course had similar thoughts about the appetite of the Labour party for welfare reform and he resigned from the Government five months later. He called on the Labour party to dump its leader, and thankfully for us the public did so a year later.
Lord Freud joined us, I have worked closely with him and he is passionate about getting disabled people into work. I know that the travesty of his character that the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston set out is unfair and unwarranted.
Kate Green
I acknowledge all that the Minister says about Lord Freud’s personal motives, but as a Minister the language that he uses is important. It exemplified what disabled people feel, experience and live in their daily lives. Does the Minister not accept that that is why the remarks of Lord Freud, not as an adviser but as a Minister who takes decisions about disabled people’s lives, have caused so much hurt and offence?
Mr Harper
The hon. Lady knows that Lord Freud’s mistake was to accept the premise of the question. The man who asked the question is the father of a disabled daughter. He was concerned about her ability in the past to get work. It was an honest question asked in an honest way. Lord Freud himself accepts that he expressed himself clumsily and that he had offended people. He apologised for that when the remarks were drawn to his attention. Any reasonable person would accept his apology.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I am not an expert in the field, but it has been drawn to my attention that Lord Freud was not the first person to make such remarks, however poorly expressed. The Guardian, back in February 2000, called for an “urgent revision” of the rules on the minimum wage to enable what The Guardian called “low output” disabled workers to be exempt from minimum wage legislation. At the time, Mencap stated that while it otherwise supported the minimum wage, an exemption should be allowed, because:
“Most people with a learning disability want to work”.
That was not some terrible statement, but an attempt to get people who cannot be as productive as a fully able person into work where otherwise no job would be offered to them. Cannot hon. Members see that?
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend makes a sensible point. That was indeed the policy of Mencap at the time. It has stated that the policy has now changed, but it was Mencap policy at the time. I therefore think that some of the outrage being expressed is not genuine.
The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston mentioned “Question Time” on which the Secretary of State for Health made some comments. It is worth repeating other comments made on that programme, not by members of the panel but by members of the audience. The Labour MP, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), raised the issue on that programme and I think it is fair to say that she did not get an entirely positive response from the studio audience. One audience member said:
“I think Angela Eagle is being extremely disingenuous. I think we all knew what he meant, even though he said it clumsily.”
Another person told her:
“What you are doing is hypocritical point scoring and it’s disgusting.”
A final comment, from another young woman, was:
“I just wanted to see whether you”—
the hon. Member for Wallasey—
“would use this as a political football and you have done—thanks Angela.”
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
The Minister makes a confused argument. He accepts that Lord Freud has apologised for his comments, but defends them none the less. Surely the problem is the message sent to disabled people such as my constituents who came to see me. They have the most difficult life, and find that, under this Government—they say, “Under this Government,”—they receive abuse walking down the street because of their disability and because one of them receives benefits. The Government should take the stigmatisation of disabled people in this society seriously but the Government are adding to it.
Mr Harper
I am not defending Lord Freud’s words. I am saying that it is not a reasonable conclusion to pretend that his comments reflect someone who is not fit to be a Minister of the Crown. I think Opposition Members do not really believe that. The motion is a cynical attempt to divert attention from some of the Government’s economic successes.
Let me set out the details of some of the proposals on which my noble Friend has been working. The House will see that he has improved lives not just for disabled people, but for other disadvantaged people in our country, not just in what he has said, but in what he has done.
John Howell
Does my hon. Friend agree that Lord Freud raised an important question, namely how we help those who want to work but who are faced with the most colossal barriers to doing so?
Mr Harper
I will make a bit more progress because other hon. Members wish to speak.
On Lord Freud’s focus in office, he has been working with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and is one of the driving forces behind the introduction of universal credit. That reform will be important in our welfare system for many years. Most of the gains from universal credit will go to those in the bottom 40% of the income distribution. It means that we will be able to look people in the eye and tell them that work will always pay, and that more work will pay for them. It also increases spending on disabled households and enables disabled people to earn nearly £8,000 a year without affecting their universal credit entitlement.
Opposition Members know that Lord Freud has been at the heart of the Government’s work on understanding how we can provide better employment support to people with mental health problems. Working closely with the Minister with responsibility for care and support, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), he has pioneered the introduction of pilots to test the best ways to support people with mild and moderate mental health problems into work.
In 2012, Lord Freud drove and penned the foreword to “Untapped Talent”, a guide to employing people with autism produced jointly by the Department for Work and Pensions and the National Autistic Society. Lord Freud said:
“We need to be clear to employers that making business environments more ‘autism friendly’ is not about meeting corporate social responsibility objectives, but about tapping into and seeking out the most talented individuals for a role…People with autism can have exceptional talents and by making some straightforward adjustments can prove to be a tremendous asset to business. We need to do more to make use of those talents.”
That sets out his view about disabled people clearly. Any fair and reasonable person would conclude that my noble Friend wants more disabled people in work and has dedicated his time in the Government to ensuring that that can be so.
Mr Stuart
My hon. Friend is doing a tremendous job staying calm in responding to the scandalous opening speech by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). Compounding the cynicism, she tried to make out that discrimination against disabled people is a function of this Government. Is he aware of the 2007 Leonard Cheshire Disability review, which found that 89% of disabled people at that time felt discriminated against in Britain? Conservatives did not try to pin that on the Labour party. For Labour Members to pin that discrimination on us is below them.
Mr Harper
My hon. Friend is right. I see in the Chamber a Member who served as a Minister for disabled people. She will know that, when I shadowed her, my approach was always to work in a consensual and bipartisan manner so that we could do the best for disabled people. I am disappointed that Labour has not reciprocated.
Mr Harper
Let me make a little more progress. I am conscious of time and that others wish to speak.
On the other points in the motion, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston spoke of the personal independence payment. I have been frank with the House, both at the Dispatch Box and in evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee—the Chair of the Committee is in the Chamber—that there are delays and that they are unacceptable. It has been my top priority since being appointed on 15 July to drive those delays down. We are seeing progress in that direction throughout Great Britain, and we will achieve the Secretary of State’s commitment by the end of this year that no one will wait longer than 16 weeks for an assessment.
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
Is the Minister aware of a case that I referred to the Secretary of State, in which it took a year to deal with an application for PIP? Three days later, my constituent died. His sister said: “Is this the way to treat a person who has worked all his life, paid his taxes and national insurance, and when he needed help, it was not there?” I wrote to the Secretary of State, who has accepted that such delays were unacceptable, but that illustrates what has happened to so many people, not just my late constituent.
Mr Harper
I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I said in my opening remarks, and I have said it several times in the House and when giving evidence to the Select Committee, that those delays are unacceptable. That is why I am working tirelessly to ensure we drive them down. Officials in my Department are on the case of the assessment providers on a daily basis. We have people embedded with those providers. I look at the matter continuously to ensure that we drive down those delays further.
The hon. Gentleman is right that the delays are unacceptable, which is why we are doing something about them. We have more than doubled the number of assessments since the start of the year to more than 35,000 in June and July. There have been further improvements since and we are driving down the backlog. Both assessment providers have increased the number of health care professionals and the number of assessment centres has increased. We have improved guidance and extended opening hours, and our decision makers in DWP have improved their productivity threefold. Importantly, we have fast-tracked claims for people who are terminally ill.
Sheila Gilmore
We have heard such assurances for the best part of the past year. Fast-tracking terminal illnesses was promised months ago. Surely the problem is with the policy. At the outset, many people said that it was not necessary to throw the whole thing up in the air and start again, and that the system had not been well thought through. When the Select Committee asked the Minister’s predecessor but two how it would be possible to process so many assessments and reassessments in the time scale given, we were told that there would be no problem, and there has clearly been a major problem. The Government cannot easily sort out the problem, so will the Minister consider whether some of the policy drivers are the wrong ones?
Mr Harper
I have accepted openly that there is a problem with delays in the system, but the hon. Lady will know that the independent review is under way. We have appointed Paul Gray, who has taken evidence and is in the process of compiling his report, which he will give to the Secretary of State in the coming weeks. The report will be published for hon. Members and the Select Committee to review. That is the right way to proceed.
Mr Harper
I am going to make progress. Otherwise, nobody else will be able to speak and it would be very boring if everyone was listening to me all afternoon.
Let me mention the employment and support allowance and the work capability assessment. I was criticised by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston for the work capability assessment. The Government inherited the contract with Atos, which, I should remind hon. Members, was appointed by Labour. It was not a great piece of procurement. We inherited a backlog when we came to office. We have made considerable improvements to the process. Hon. Members will know that Atos is exiting the contract early, having paid a financial settlement to the taxpayer. I will announce the results of the process to appoint a new provider in due course.
The hon. Lady will also know that there have been four independent reviews—Dr Paul Litchfield is undertaking a fifth—and we have implemented more than 75 recommendations. We have made the assessment less mechanistic, with better interactions between the Department and claimants. We have also improved communications and carried out an evidence-based review of the descriptors, which looked at the current assessment criteria along with alternative assessment criteria from disability charities. The findings indicate that, overall, the WCA provides a valid assessment relative to experts’ opinions about people’s fitness for work.
We have also built on previous changes to how claimants with cancer are assessed to ensure that patients awaiting, undergoing or recovering from cancer treatment are placed in the support group. We have also retained a strong focus on how mental health is assessed, including, for example, through the introduction of mental function champions. We have introduced mandatory reconsideration. The number of people waiting for an assessment has fallen by more than 20% in the last six months, and I want it to continue to fall.
Debbie Abrahams
(Oldham East and Saddleworth)(Lab): Will the Minister explain why seven out of 10 people with progressive conditions such as multiple sclerosis or cystic fibrosis are being assessed two or three times? Does he think their conditions will change?
Mr Harper
The hon. Lady will know that the WCA and the personal independence payment are not based on diagnoses of conditions; they are about the impact on somebody’s life. It is also—[Interruption.] Perhaps Members will listen to the reply. It is also worth making sure that people are getting the appropriate help. When someone is assessed the first time, it might be that they are found able to work. If their condition deteriorates and has a larger impact on their life, it is important for us to ensure that they get the help they need for that level of condition, so I think it is perfectly appropriate to reassess people at intervals of up to three years.
The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston mentioned the spare room subsidy, which this House has debated at great length. The basic issue is one of fairness and treating people in social housing the same as those in private rented accommodation. That was the position that applied under the whole of the last Government, and I am still waiting to hear how Labour plan to fund the reversal of that policy. It is also worth noting that the example she gave, if I heard her correctly, was of somebody who had received support from discretionary housing payments, which are exactly designed for people who need that extra support. I could not quite see what her criticism was.
Kate Green
I am grateful to the Minister for allowing me to answer that point. The issue about discretionary housing payments, as I know from my own disabled constituents, is the stress and uncertainty of receiving short-term award after short-term award and having to apply, then reapply and reapply. I frequently have to intervene with the local authority to ask it to make longer awards. Would it not be fairer, simpler and less costly for those claimants, as well as giving them much greater peace of mind, simply to make an award that recognised their housing needs?
Mr Harper
In preparation for the private Member’s Bill debate, I read through the guidance we give to local authorities on discretionary housing payments, which is clear that it is perfectly open to local authorities to make a long-term award where someone has a long-term condition. That was one reason why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor set out the amount of discretionary housing payments not just for the current year, but for the year ahead, saying that local authorities could make those awards with the confidence that the money would be available.
Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s comments about discretionary housing payments, because I have had precisely that problem with one constituent who has a long-term condition. He was given an award, which the local Labour-controlled borough council keeps on coming back to him to reaffirm, even though it is within its power to give him a long-standing award. However, it does not do so purely for political reasons.
Mr Harper
I have listened to what my hon. Friend has said. The guidance is quite clear that if authorities think it appropriate, they are able to make a long-term award. As I said, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has set out that the funding is available, not just this year but next year, so that they can have the financial confidence to do so. I leave it to others to make a judgment about why authorities might be doing what my hon. Friend says.
Despite the fact that Labour’s motion, in the name of the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston, contains not a single positive point about how we could improve the lives of disabled people, let me set out some positive suggestions, which Members can think about as they reject the motion before us. In 2012-13, this Government spent nearly £50 billion on disability benefits and services. Overall spending on benefits will be higher in every year through to 2017-18 than in the 2009-10 financial year, so we are absolutely committed to providing the proper support to disabled people. However, we also want disabled people, where they can, to move into work, to stay in work and to progress in the labour market.
Of course, the value of work is not just financial, which is one of the points to come out in the debate provoked by my noble Friend’s remarks. One of my hon. Friends pointed out earlier that disability employment had increased by 116,000 in the last year alone, which is very welcome, but there is more to do. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston mentioned the disability employment gap. It is worth saying that the percentage of disabled people in employment in Britain is about the EU average. Our gap is higher, but of course that reflects our better performance at getting people into work overall. The gap has remained stable during the recession, but it is still too high. We want to narrow the gap through the range of programmes we have to support disabled people into work.
Let me say a little about some of those programmes, which include Access to Work. Members of the Work and Pensions Committee will know that on Wednesday I am giving evidence about Access to Work, not only on some of the areas where there have been administrative issues, which we are fixing, but on some of the changes that I hope we can make in the months to come. We said in 2012 that we would invest a further £15 million in the scheme, which we have. In 2013-14, more than 35,000 people were helped by Access to Work, which was 5,000 more than in the year before. It is a valuable scheme; I want to try to make it less bureaucratic and more successful.
The Work programme, which has already been mentioned, is designed to help people at risk of becoming long-term unemployed. Of course, employment and support allowance claimants are required only to prepare for work, rather than having any more conditionality, but providers have developed innovative approaches to support those with significant barriers to work, and one in 10 of the more recent ESA new claimants has had at least three months of work in the first year of the programme. Work Choice supports disabled people with more severe disabilities, with support tailored to individual needs. In 2013-14, more than 20,000 people started on Work Choice, with more than half achieving a sustainable job outcome.
Let me say a little more about mental health conditions and the conditions people have that prove a barrier to getting into work. I do not pretend that we have by any means solved the problems for those with physical health conditions—there is more to do—but the biggest gap is for those with mental health conditions, just under half of whom are in work. The figure for those with learning disabilities is around a quarter, while for those with some other hidden impairments, such as autism, it is only 15%.
This Government are doing a great deal on improving the performance on mental health. I have set out some of the things that my noble Friend Lord Freud has brought forward, but we have also made significant announcements about our mental health policies. The Deputy Prime Minister has set out a number of changes, which will come into force from next April, on the national health service’s performance on making talking therapies available more quickly. He has also set out the pilots that will be run to improve waiting time standards. This Government are stepping up the action we are taking on mental health that will enable people with mental health conditions to get into work.
Finally, on our employment programmes, I want to mention the Disability Confident campaign, which, as Members will know, the Prime Minister launched last year. It is about giving employers the confidence to employ disabled people. My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who is no longer in his place, referred to the event he is holding on 15 November—which I will be very pleased to attend—to promote employers in the Gloucestershire area hiring more disabled people. Such events are going on all over the country—the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston said she would be holding one. I have written to every Member of the House and would urge everyone to hold an event to demonstrate practically to employers that if they wish to hire disabled people, the help and support is there to ensure that they can do so.
In conclusion, this debate is cynically motivated. It is not about what Lord Freud said. The Labour party knows that he is a man who cares passionately about getting disabled people into work. The right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), who was Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform in the last Government, worked with him and knows that to be the case. He inspired—in the words of the then Secretary of State—their welfare reforms. Everyone has seen through this debate, which is about trying to draw attention away from the success of our long-term economic plan and the creation of 2 million jobs. I have set out some of the Government’s positive policies to ensure that disabled people can live independent lives and that as many as possible of them can stay in or move into work. I am proud of our record.
I draw a different conclusion from that of the Labour party about these events and how Members have conducted themselves. Labour’s handling of this issue and its lack of a credible economic policy prove that it is not fit to govern this country. I urge the House to concur in that view by rejecting this cynical motion.
The Minister for Employment (Esther McVey)
I want first to congratulate the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) on her maiden speech. It was delivered with humour, confidence and skill. I look forward to her future contributions in the House. I would also like to pay tribute to her predecessor, Jim Dobbin, a Member of the House who was much respected and well liked in all parts of the House. He will be sorely missed.
Returning to today’s motion and debate, there is one point on which there is consensus and on which we all agree, which is that the words used by my noble Friend Lord Freud were wrong. And do you know what? He came forward immediately and said the same thing: he agreed. He apologised without reservation for his words and then went on to explain fully how he listened to the pleas of a father of a disabled child saying what he would do, who had used his same words. For clarity, nothing that my noble Friend said on that occasion was Government policy—not now and not in the future. National minimum wage entitlement applies to workers whether they are disabled or non-disabled. That is the Government’s policy.
Let me confirm that this Government’s overarching ambition is to enable disabled people to fulfil their potential and fulfil their ambitions. The UK has a proud history of furthering the rights of disabled people. I am pleased to say that even in these very tough economic times, this Government have continued that progress and continued to maintain this country as a world leader in the support it gives to disabled people, spending £60 billion a year on benefits and support for those who face the greatest barriers to enable them to participate fully in society. We spend nearly double the OECD average, a fifth more than the European average, double what America spends and six times what Japan spends. In every year up to 2017-18, we will be spending more on disability benefits than in 2009-10.
Let me explain what has happened over the last few years. No one would know this from listening to today’s debate, but there are now nearly 3 million disabled people in work, which is up 116,000 this year. Access to Work is helping more people—5,000 more than in 2011-12. An extra £15 million has been put into that programme. Attainment levels for pupils with special educational needs have increased since 2010-11 at both GCSE and A-level. The number of disabled students gaining their first degree has increased from nearly 32,000 to nearly 40,000 now. We have also reduced the proportion of disabled people in relative income poverty. These are the things that are happening. Social participation has increased. Sports participation has increased. Those are the facts that we need to set out.
We have heard Members of the House deliver some powerful speeches today. Let me turn first to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), who said, “I want to look past labels; I want to make the world a better place. Isn’t that why most of us came into this House?” I believe that is true. He talked about the work he has done on disability hate crime. When I was the Minister for disabled people, I visited the work he was doing providing safe places for people to come forward and explain what was happening to them. He has played a key and crucial part in the journey towards people feeling able to come forward and talk about the issue.
Many Members asked why we, in the epicentre of democracy and the home of free speech, should not be able to talk about the matters that really concern the public. Should we not be able to tackle them head-on, without shying away from some of the difficult issues? Was that not what Lord Freud was trying to do? My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) said that most clearly, as did my hon. Friends the Members for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) and for Ipswich (Ben Gummer).
I want to move on to something that I hoped today’s debate would touch on, but it did not. I am going to read out what a mum, Candice Baxter from Grimsby, said. It would have been better if more time had been devoted today to listening to what some people who heard Lord Freud’s words had to say about them. She said:
“My daughter’s ambition is to get a job in an office. She has Down’s syndrome. She thinks that, if she works hard, someone, somewhere will give her a job. At £6.50 an hour, it’s never going to happen.”
Maybe at something else, it could. She continued:
“The minimum wage protects from unscrupulous employers. But for my child, it is a barrier to meaningful employment. Indeed, because of the minimum wage, she is destined for a life of short-lived, voluntary non-jobs”.
This is the mother of a disabled child, and she wanted this issue debated here today, but we never debated it. What we did was just talk about what Lord Freud said. This demonstrates what parents of disabled people wanted the debate to be about. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who should have talked about that, did not do so.
Esther McVey
I will not give way. I have listened to points raised for several hours, and many of them were wrong, particularly those about the Work programme and how we are helping disabled people through it. Over 60,000 people have got a job from the Work programme, which is now on track to deliver a 17% higher performance than Pathways to Work. That means it is supporting an additional 7,000 people back into work. Furthermore, the Work programme is helping more people than any previous employment programme did, which I think needs to be put on the record.
When we talked about Remploy and the staff who used to work there, a couple of points made by the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) were wrong. In fact, 80% of former employees have now found jobs or are receiving specialist tailored employment and support to help them find one. These are the sort of things we are doing to help disabled people, as well as helping an extra 116,000 people into work in the last year.
When we talk about positive initiatives moving forward, I was delighted to be part of the Government who introduced Disability Confident, which was about moving forward and working with employers. How do we best engage with employers? It is about having a conversation with and listening to them, but it is equally for them to understand—this is where we started the conversation with employers—that the disability pound is worth £80 billion a year. It makes sense for employers to get involved with the disability movement and employ more disabled people. When they looked at the issue in a logical way and thought about who were the people shopping in their stores and listening to the things they were saying, they realised that they should get on board with Disability Confident. I am pleased to say that 1,100 companies are involved. That conversation has partly led to 116,000 more disabled people getting into work this year.
As for media coverage, we all agree that it is totally wrong to stereotype people or depict them in a negative way. That is why I was pleased to arrange a round table and to secure a motion for moving forward with some of the main players in the media to make sure that they employed more disabled people—not just in front of screen, but behind screen. They are now creating the programmes and the words said and moving forward so that everybody is portrayed in the best possible light.
We have to reject the motion, because it is absolutely wrong, although many Government Members suggested that it would be best for us not to vote on it, and for the Opposition to remove it. We have every confidence in Lord Freud, who has done so much—working for both this Government and the Labour Government—to advance the status and the job outcomes of disabled people.
Question put.