(6 years, 11 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Buscombe) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall repeat a Statement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in the House in Commons regarding work and health. The Statement is as follows:
“With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement on the Command Paper being published today by my department and the Department of Health.
Good work promotes good health. It enables people to be economically independent, and gives them more choices and opportunities to fulfil other ambitions in life. A country that works for everyone needs to ensure that all who can work or undertake meaningful activity have the chance to do so, and that the right care and support are in place to enable all to thrive in work throughout their lives.
Our labour market is in its strongest position for years, with the United Kingdom employment rate at a near-historic high of 75%, and over 530,000 more disabled people in work than four years ago. Despite this, only around half of disabled people are in work, but many disabled people and people with health conditions can and want to work. This means that too many people are missing the opportunity to develop their talents, and to connect with the world of work and the range of positive impacts that come with doing so—including good health and social outcomes. That is why it is important that we act now.
With around one in six working-age adults reporting a disability, it is clear that health and disability issues affect the working lives of millions of people. The majority of long-term health conditions are acquired in adulthood, and in an ageing population, inclusive work places are imperative. That is why, in our manifesto, this Government pledged to see 1 million more disabled people in work over the next 10 years. This is as much about preventing people from falling out of work as it is about supporting them into work. This requires a comprehensive and wide-ranging programme of action.
Last year, we published Improving Lives: The Work, Health and Disability Green Paper, setting out the Government’s new and ambitious approach to this issue; it marked the start of a new era in joint working between the welfare and health systems. Our 15-week consultation on the next 10 years of reform sought input from disabled people and those with health conditions, their families, employers and a range of stakeholders. The consultation was supported by 166 accessible events, and received around 6,000 responses.
Today, we are publishing Improving Lives: the Future of Work, Health and Disability, setting out our response to the Green Paper consultation and the next steps we will take to deliver our vision. Changes in the nature of work and more flexible working models benefit a wider range of people, and new advances in technology offer more opportunities than ever before. For example, accessible hardware and software, and developments in apps and wearable technology, make it easier for employers to offer flexibility and adaptations to their staff. Small businesses and large employers alike are already implementing these solutions for their employees, and it is for government to help to set the direction and stimulate good ideas.
We know that the barriers to moving into work and staying in work are different for each person, depending on the nature of their health condition or disability, their aspirations and individual circumstances. We need to work directly with people who experience these barriers to identify solutions that will work. We want to build an approach that is responsive and caters for every scenario, with the individual at its heart.
The change needed is not one that government can deliver on its own. Across the country, there are striking examples of what can be achieved when employers, charities and healthcare professionals work together locally, but government can help to create the conditions for success. In the workplace, employers should have the confidence to recruit and retain disabled people and those with health conditions, and to create healthy and inclusive workplaces where all employees can thrive and progress. The best employers have already realised the business benefits of hiring disabled people, and while there are many examples of good practice, we want to go further.
This Command Paper responds to what we heard in the consultation, and to the findings of Thriving at Work: The Stevenson/Farmer Review of Mental Health and Employers. We will improve advice and support for employers of all sizes, working in partnership with them—together with disabled people and other stakeholders—to bring together information and advice that meets businesses’ needs. We will also make significant enhancements to the Access to Work scheme, including increasing the capacity of its mental health support service.
To support a key recommendation of the Stevenson/Farmer review, we will establish a voluntary framework approach for large employers to report on mental health and disability within their workforce. We are also preparing a consultation on changes to statutory sick pay, and will run a cross-government programme of analysis and research to examine the incentives and expectations that influence employers’ decisions in this area. We will report back on this preliminary work next year.
We will build on the key role that the welfare system plays in supporting disabled people and those with health conditions to enter work where possible by developing a more personalised and tailored approach to employment support. We will continue to learn; for example, through voluntary trials to help us to build an effective offer of support that meets the needs of those in the support group. We will continue to improve the assessment process while building our evidence base, including working with external stakeholders, to take forward reform of the work capability assessment.
Health and care professionals are vital in supporting disabled people and those with health conditions to achieve their employment potential. We will work with and support health professionals with the tools and techniques they need to have supportive conversations with patients about work and health. We are doubling the number of work and health champions and investing around £39 million to more than double the number of employment advisers in Improving Access to Psychological Therapies services. We will also conduct large-scale randomised controlled trials delivering employment support in a health setting in the West Midlands and Sheffield City Region, beginning by March 2018.
Alongside this Command Paper, I am announcing the next steps for the Fit for Work service. Established in December 2014, it offers general health and work advice to employees, employers and GPs, through a phone line, webchat service and website. Since 2015, it has also provided occupational health assessments for employees at risk of long-term sickness absence, with advice on how they can be supported to return to work and remain in employment. However, referrals of cases to the service by employers and GPs have been much lower than expected. For instance, there have been only around 650 referrals per month in England and Wales, compared to the 34,000 forecast, and 100 a month in Scotland, compared with the estimated 4,200. By contrast, use of the advice line, webchats and Fit for Work website has exceeded expectations. I am therefore ending the contracts for the provision of the assessments service both in England and Wales and in Scotland while ensuring continued access to the Fit for Work online and phone services. These will continue to offer general health and work advice as well as support on sickness absence.
The Government are also announcing the appointment of an expert working group on occupational health to champion and drive a programme of work, taking an in-depth look at the sector. To inform policy development, we have commissioned research to better understand current market supply and delivery of occupational health provision. This research will look at local partnership models to integrate health and wider support, and will report in 2019. We will also take account of the lessons from the Fit for Work service as we move forward.
The Government are laying the foundations for a 10-year programme of change. Everyone has their own part to play to achieve this ambitious vision for a society in which all disabled people and people with long-term health conditions are able to go as far as their talents will take them. I commend this Statement to the House”.
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement and for advance sight of it.
I am sure that we all share the same ambition: to become the kind of society where all people, including people with a disability, can have the opportunity to fulfil their potential. For most that will mean the chance to take on meaningful work, but any strategy to support that aim must also be set alongside a commitment to give adequate support so that those who cannot provide for themselves through work can be assured of being able to live in comfort and dignity. I will briefly do three things: welcome the parts of the strategy which are going in the right direction, flag up concerns, and then ask the Minister some questions at the end.
I welcome the focus on disability employment, and some of the steps announced today will undoubtedly be helpful. I welcome the ongoing commitment to work with employers, and in particular the commitment to work directly with disabled people who experience barriers to work, to identify solutions. They are of course by far the best-placed people to understand what those barriers are. I welcome the attention given to what public sector employers and the Civil Service can do, and I encourage Ministers to go even further in that direction in leading the way. I am glad that Ministers are considering carefully the recommendations of both the Stevenson/Farmer review and the Taylor review, and I look forward to hearing more about those in due course. I also welcome the attempt to link up both sectors and different parts of society in trying to address the problem. In the end, only a cross-departmental approach and a cross-sectoral approach will make a difference.
However, there are some significant problems with the document published today, or at least the context for it. First, I could not find in my first reading enough detail to allow us to assess whether the Government are putting enough resources behind this strategy to make a difference. Secondly, I am a bit worried about the timescale, which seems to have been pushed quite a long way back. The Government’s previous commitment was to halve the disability employment gap by 2020. Their new commitment is about getting more disabled people into work within 10 years. We are seeing the results of that, as far as I can understand the timeline; perhaps the Minister can help me. There is a timeline for what will happen, but some of the hardest actions here have no hard deadlines; for example, the commitment to engage in further reform of the work capability assessment; the response to the Taylor recommendations on SSP and the right to return after absence; and the Stevenson/Farmer proposals on extending certification of fit notes. I hope that I am misreading it, but it looks as if most of those are in the section headed “Future actions”, which could be run until 2027. That simply will not be soon enough. I very much hope that it will not be the case.
Thirdly, I am concerned that in some areas the actions do not deal with the core problem. The most obvious of those is the work capability assessment. The Government consulted on a proposal to split parts of the assessment but there was not unanimous support for that from respondents. In fact, there is now a widespread view that the WCA simply is not fit for purpose. Leonard Cheshire said in response:
“We’ve consistently highlighted that work capability assessments are not fit for purpose and the system needs a complete overhaul”.
Precisely. That is a widespread view, and I am afraid that what is being done today will not address that fundamental problem.
I am also concerned that there is nothing about the impact of social security reform on the ability of sick and disabled people to prepare for work, to get jobs and to keep them. In fact, there have been repeated cuts in support for disabled people, of which only the most recent was the decision not to bring across into universal credit the severe disability premium, which was worth £3,200 a year for a single person. The Government have always refused to conduct a cumulative impact assessment. One of the problems with that is that they do not know what the consequences have been for disabled people of their decision repeatedly to cut or to change the social security system. If there is a strategy on the one hand to support people getting jobs, but a completely independent approach to social security, which is Treasury-driven and keeps cutting the benefits that help people to manage work, inevitably the two are not sitting together. So I do not think that the Government have been able to look at this whole position in the round.
I would like to ask the Minister some questions. First, how much extra money is being announced today other than that scored previously to support the moving of disabled people into work? Secondly, can the Minister be more precise on timings? When will the Government consult on reform to SSP and on legislating to extend the authorisation of fit notes? Thirdly, what is there in this strategy to support disabled people who are not either in jobs or on disability benefits like ESA? I think, for example, of the issue raised by Mencap of the hundreds of thousands of people with mild or moderate learning disabilities, who do not get any help from either ESA or social services but are struggling to get work.
Will the Government commit to a fundamental overhaul of the WCA at some point during the lifetime of this strategy? I would like to see it done straight away, but I would be grateful if they could at least commit that that will happen. Finally, what work is being undertaken to test the processes for applying for universal credit to ensure that they are suitable for all disabled people before the system is rolled out any further? If that does not work, any attempts to help people to apply for jobs will fail if they cannot get the support they need to be able to maintain them when they get there.
We all want to see disabled people supported into work. However, for this to become a reality, the Government need to put their money behind their promises and push themselves to be ever more ambitious. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. It is also time that I declared a few interests that are relevant here: I am president of the British Dyslexia Association and chairman of a company called Microlink PC. That is important because Microlink provides assistive technology and designs support for those who are disabled and in work or education, starting with education.
As I went through this document and scanned the original one it became clear that we have hit the buffers, the point at which a great idea hits the practicalities and starts to fracture in terms of what can be done. My own disability—and the one that the group that I work for is concerned with—is regarded as an education disability. In fact, we are the biggest disability group, as those in the neurodiverse group make up 15% of the population. Very little in this document refers to this group. Our problems relate not to accessing buildings but to accessing systems involving, for example, computers or paperwork. This document does not really seem to have got hold of that. It has missed a group. It has also missed a group when it comes to access problems when dealing with, for example, form-filling and work and pensions support. Therefore, when the noble Baroness talks about assistive technology, will she make sure that every single government website is accessible through the assistive technology of voice recognition? If she cannot answer that, she has effectively already broken the terms of the Equality Act for this group.
To carry on in that vein, we all know that each group considers the problems they have to be the most serious, but other groups will emphasise the importance of other activities. However, one important question is: are people being maintained in work? Access to work—it is one thing that I can give a rousing cheer to—is probably the best kept secret. It is the most underused thing in the Government’s arsenal. Expanding that to support for maintaining people in work and allowing them to expand or change their roles will encourage people to stay on.
We have also been talking about mental health. A person with a disability generally suffers more stress, and stress can trigger or create mental health problems. Are we making sure that people are maintained and supported in jobs and allowed to expand their roles? Once again, I am not absolutely sure about that. There is a great deal of emphasis on getting people into work but not on maintaining them in work and giving them a career into the future. I would like to know where the emphasis is there.
So we seem to be missing a large group—dyslexics, dyspraxics and dyscalculics—and, to a lesser extent, those with high-functioning autism. They do not seem to have been referenced here, probably because, to be perfectly honest, they are a lower priority in the Department of Health. How will we access these groups? How will we make sure that individual support is available and that people can get the right support? Nearly 20 years ago when the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, was the Minister in charge in this area, I had a ritual dance with her when we talked about the interview. Are the Government going to allow the person who conducts the interview to call in an expert? The interviewer will be awfully well trained but will an expert be brought in? If not, things will go wrong. Unless the noble Baroness can give me an assurance that some expertise will be structured in, the problems will continue. Expertise is needed to deal with the individual cocktail of needs in individual cases. Unless we can start to address these questions, we will continue to fail in this area.
Baroness Buscombe
I thank the noble Baroness opposite for her support thus far in terms of the overall response to the Command Paper, and I will do my best to reply to the many questions that she and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, have raised.
I want to make it clear that I welcome the noble Baroness’s constructive contribution. It is important to say that this is a programme aimed at helping people into work and to stay in work. I say immediately to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that we will not ignore any group of people or any individuals. That is the purpose of bringing together, to the best of our ability, work, welfare and social interaction. This is a holistic approach which, I think all noble Lords will agree, we have been looking for and waiting for for years. We are very proud that we will be able to focus on work, health and disability as one. We say that work enables every person to be economically independent. It boosts their confidence and gives them more choices and opportunities to fulfil other ambitions in life.
The noble Baroness was very clear in her question about the finances. This is about more than just the over £50 billion that we are spending on those with disabilities or health conditions. As announced in SR15, we are increasing investment in employment support for people with disabilities or health conditions in real terms over this spending review period. This includes building the evidence base for what does and does not work, investing in Access to Work and rolling out a personal support package of tailored employment support initiatives. We have committed to invest £330 million of funding over four years in support for people with limited capability for work as part of the personal support package. Last year, we spent £104 million on the demand-led Access to Work scheme, up from £97 million in 2015-16. The number of people who had Access to Work support last year rose 8% to over 25,000. In addition, further customers received payments for support agreed in previous years.
We are investing up to £115 million of funding to develop new models of support to help people into work when they are managing a long-term health condition or disability. We will be providing an extra £15 million a year in 2017-18 and 2018-19 for our flexible support fund so that local managers can buy services, including mentoring, and better engage the third sector—which is a very important part of this holistic approach—in their community to help disabled people and those with health conditions.
With regard to the work capability assessment, it is important to say that in our manifesto we committed to legislate to give unemployed disabled people and people with health conditions personalised and tailored employment support. We heard broad support for WCA reform proposed in the Green Paper but there was no consensus on what the right model of WCA reform would look like. We know that we need to get reform right and will therefore focus on working with external stakeholders in testing new approaches to build on our evidence base for longer-term legislative change. This will require primary legislation, but noble Lords are all too aware of the constraints that there will be in that regard in the near future. In the meantime, we are delivering on our commitment to personalised and tailored employment support with the introduction of our new personal support package. We are also committed to continuing to improve the WCA. Recent reform included stopping reassessments for people on ESA and UC with the most severe lifelong conditions.
We want to reform statutory sick pay so that it supports more flexible working, which can help people remain in or return to work if they are unwell. With regard to disability employment, we have added 300 additional disability employment advisers and have begun introducing 200 new community partners. We absolutely accept what the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said about the importance of having work coaches with the right expertise and skills, and that is something on which we are very much focusing.
In terms of UC, we are also focusing our efforts and thoughts on in-work progression, which is very important. This is not about helping people into work and then leaving them there; it is about prevention, getting people into work and helping them to remain in work. That is one reason why it is very important that we have this very strong, joined-up approach with our colleagues in the NHS, asking how we can manage mental health, for example, in the short to medium term as well as in the long term. Of course, the Farmer/Stevenson review is an enormous encouragement to us. As noble Lords will know, we have already accepted all its recommendations.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked about assistive technology, and he was absolutely right to do so. One individual who has particular difficulties said, “Without assistive technology such as voice recognition and the help of Access to Work in providing me with a support worker, I would not be able to compete in the job market and therefore would not be in employment”. His name is Tom and he sustained a serious neck injury in 2007. He is now using this brilliant technology and is thriving in work. We want all employers to reach the standards of the best and that is why we will work with them.
I hope that I have begun to answer some of the many questions noble Lords have asked. I reiterate that there are now around 600,000 more disabled people in work since 2014. We are making progress and this Command Paper will contribute to that.
Lord Low of Dalston (CB)
My Lords, I welcome the Government’s objective to get 1 million more disabled people into employment over the next 10 years. The Minister will recall the review, Halving the Gap, which I led with the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Meacher, with support from disability charities. That review looked specifically at the £30 a week cut to employment and support allowance and the corresponding limited capability for work component of universal credit. Over half of the disabled people who responded to our call for evidence said that the cut would push them further from the workplace rather than closer to it. Does the Minister agree that, in the light of that, it is time to reconsider this damaging cut, which can only have the effect of making it more difficult for the Government to achieve their objective?
Baroness Buscombe
As the noble Lord, Lord Low, will know, employment and support allowance was introduced in 2008 to replace incapacity benefit and income support. Since the ESA, as we call it, was introduced, we have conducted five independent reviews of the work capability assessment and have accepted and implemented the majority of recommendations. As to cuts, we spend more than £50 billion a year on benefits to support disabled people and people with health conditions, an increase of more than £7 billion since 2010. This is 2.5% of GDP and over 6% of government spending. This demonstrates that we are doing all we can to support the very people the noble Lord references.
Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)
My Lords, I come at this subject from two directions: I am chairman of Motability, which has been involved in this for 40-odd years; and I welcome this initiative for the simple reason that it is an all-party one that has nothing whatever to do with party politics. Everyone, in both Houses, has empathy with finding answers to these problems and difficulties.
From the Motability point of view, sadly, only 16% of our customers between the age of 16 and 64 have jobs. That happens to be identical with the figure for those with autism. I have a young grandson who is autistic and I have spent a great deal of time looking into some of these difficulties and problems.
One interesting factor is nervousness among the workforce. People do not know and feel nervous about having disabled people working with them. The more that you go round explaining the pros and cons, the better. People are worried about simple things such as, “Suppose he wants to go to the toilet. Who is going to take him?”, or “Where do we do this?”, or “How do we handle that?”. Once the workforce feels comfortable, it can change dramatically.
On the wider front, in the educational field—in the long term as against the short term—it should become law that everyone who teaches, no matter at what level, should know something about how to handle disabled people. A key factor is the huge amount of bullying in schools. If every single headmaster and headmistress of every single school was trained in how to handle disability, it would make all the difference. It should be a rule that they should have this training, otherwise they cannot be a headmaster or headmistress.
I raise that issue because there is a great shortage of educational psychologists. As a society, we try to get everyone else to be what we think is normal, but we do not adapt. If we adapted more closely, it would make all the difference. I cannot support more fully the fact that the Government—and, hopefully, everyone in this House—want to find the right answers.
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Sterling for his contribution. I commend him and pay tribute to the work that he has done with Motability. The Government recognise the valuable service that Motability provides to those with disabilities and health conditions, and we look forward to continuing to work closely with it.
My noble friend recognises that not enough disabled people are in employment. We feel that we have come a long way, but we have a lot further to go. That is why we have set out this ambitious wish to have 1 million more people with disabilities employed over the next 10 years. That is why it is important that we work with groups such as Motability and others to make this happen.
My noble friend is absolutely right that this is not about party politics. Indeed, in welcoming this report, the Mayor for London said this morning that it is time to put party politics aside on this issue. It is, frankly, too important.
My noble friend referred to making employers less nervous. I agree. That is why we are working hard in that area to encourage more employers to come on board. We have launched the Disability Confident business leaders group and started roll-out of the Small Employer Offer and Community Partners. We know some employers want more help to be able confidently to support disabled people in work, and that is why we will do more to improve advice and support: researching and identifying solutions with employers to bring together advice that is easy to find and use; improving access to work by increasing the capacity of the mental health support service; trialling personal budgets; creating an expectation that equipment will move with individuals when they move jobs—which is very important and we have to be practical about it; warm words are not enough—and increasing the reach and effectiveness of Disability Confident.
I take on board my noble friend’s reference to not making it law but encouraging everyone to understand and work with those with disability from an early age. That would make all the difference in the world.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, in introducing the Statement, the Minister promulgated the importance of work being good for people’s health and well-being. We agree with that—it is Waddell and Burton going back over a decade. The Minister referred to “good work” when she focused on this issue. Can she say how “good work” is characterised for these purposes, as opposed to the opposite, particularly in the context of limited and variable-hours contracts?
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, good work is about supporting people to stay in work as well as supporting them to move into employment; making them feel comfortable in healthier workplaces, while offering the right support for staff to help keep them productive and engaged in work; utilising the broad spectrum of the health system to promote good health; and helping individuals to better manage their conditions. We genuinely believe that people who are in work need proper support; otherwise, their roles will not be sustainable. Too many people are not staying in work once they are in there. Our true definition of good work is where people feel able to cope, continue to feel able to cope and can progress within the workplace. Good work for individuals is not being seen as having been given a job—that is good enough. That is not good enough for us, and that is what we must focus on.
On the issue of employment contracts and so on, we want to ensure that people are able to work in a way that is sustainable. Many people working on zero-hours contracts, for example, find that they are better able to cope with their work/life balance and so on in that environment.
Baroness Manzoor (Con)
My Lords, I, too, welcome the Command Paper. As the Minister has already said, it is a really important initiative and it is a holistic approach to tackling a very important issue. People with disabilities have a right to be able to access employment and to be supported in work. Therefore, I welcome the £115 million that the Minister has announced today for new models of working. I also liked, by the way, the aim of halving the disability gap by 2020, so I am keen that we continue to keep that focus in mind. What I am concerned about is that perhaps some employers may choose the less severe end of disabilities in focusing their efforts, rather than looking at the whole range of disabilities across the full spectrum.
Baroness Buscombe
I thank my noble friend for her question. The reality is that is why we are very pleased with the recommendations of the Stevenson/Farmer review. My noble friend is absolutely right that we have to encourage employers, large and small, to understand that what might superficially appear to be a lesser disability—or a more severe disability—should not enter the decision in terms of taking somebody on board. The reality is that we need to do more to work with people in occupational health and to find different ways to encourage employers to support those with disabilities. Also, one of the things we are very keen on is working with the third sector and charities—for example, the Samaritans, which is particularly close to my heart—to act as a backstop and support to employers so that employers can feel more confident about taking people with disabilities on board.
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
My Lords, I support everything that my noble friend Lady Sherlock said. She mentioned that the Government have not done a cumulative impact assessment on the social security cuts, but the Equality and Human Rights Commission has. It says that, since 2010, households with a disabled adult and disabled child have lost over £5,500 pounds per year on average. How does the Government’s new strategy address these losses?
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, I have to say that we do not recognise the findings of the EHRC, because the analysis does not provide a full picture; it looks only at a particular subset of disabled people and does not include analysis on changes beyond tax and welfare. It will, therefore, present a skewed picture.
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, can the noble Baroness indicate the extent to which the interesting proposals in the Statement would apply to people who are not technically employed—that is to say the people in the so-called gig economy?
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, I think it is right to say that in the first instance, or at the moment, our focus is about getting as many people as possible into employment. The issue with the gig economy is that we then cannot ensure that all the support systems that need to be provided will be there, but that is certainly something I am sure will be at the forefront of the minds of those who are taking the Stevenson/Farmer review forward—and also working with the Matthew Taylor review—in terms of finding every way to ensure that whoever is doing whatever form of work in the United Kingdom is properly supported.