Think Work First: The Transition from Education to Work for Young Disabled People (Public Services Committee Report)

Tuesday 4th November 2025 Grand Committee

Motion to Take Note

15:45

Moved by

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report from the Public Services Committee Think Work First: The Transition from Education to Work for Young Disabled People (1st Report, HL Paper 12).

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to speak to this report from the Public Services Committee. In doing so, I will offer some thanks—first, to the team of officials who supported us. I do not want people to think that we have more officials than anyone else, but I have a particularly long list, because it was Sam Kenny’s last inquiry as clerk, it was Dan Hepworth’s first inquiry as our new clerk, and we had Nick Boorer in the interregnum. We also had Tom Burke, Claire Coast-Smith and Clayton Gurney, as well as a special adviser, Professor Charlotte Pearson. In a difficult time, with a general election in between and a new Parliament, that team of officials served us very well, and I am grateful for their expertise.

I thank the officials of the many departments that contributed to this, but I have to say to the Minister— I realise that this was not due to her or her department—that we waited 10 months for a reply to our committee’s report. It was particularly annoying that this was during a period when this issue was at the top of the Government’s agenda. An excuse that, “We can’t reply to your report because we’re discussing the policy” did not go well with us. Could the Minister therefore kindly pass back that 10 months is too long, when the expectation is two months? Apart from that, we are very grateful to the officials who gave of their expertise.

I thank my committee members who, as ever, worked hard to bring their knowledge and skills. They helped to make it a happy committee that has brought about a good report. Most of all, I thank our witnesses—there were many over the year or more that we took evidence. I do not want to single them out, but I will single out two groups. One is the young people with disabilities who, in round-table discussions, talked to us about their lives. We probably learned more from them than from anybody else.

This is really—to use a football phrase—a report of two parts. The statistics paint a story of things not going right: of failure and of us not being successful in this area. It is still the case that, at 19, 43% of students with disabilities get level 2 in English and maths, compared to 84% of students overall. Look at the university drop-out rate and the drop-out rate from apprenticeships: you are more likely to drop out if you are a young person with disabilities than if you are not. The employment gap of 30% has barely moved in decades, and the pay gap shows that people with disabilities do not get paid as much as those who do not have disabilities. All that is true, and it is all one picture or view of how we are doing in this area, but it is not the only picture we found. There were many evidence sessions where we finished listening to examples of good practice that left us inspired, encouraged and knowing that we could get this right if only we made the best available to everybody. Overall, the system is not a success story, but overall there is hope and expectation that it could be.

I looked at presenting this in two ways. There is the universal provision—the institutions and the bits of the system that are designed to meet the needs of all people, whatever their background or ability—but, too often, this does not meet the needs of people with disabilities. These things affect every single one of us, whether you are talking about schools, colleges or workplaces; about how we assess the qualifications we give; about careers education and guidance; or about vocational pathways, apprenticeships or recruitment practices. They are part of the universal provision in this society, and they work less well on the whole for people with disabilities than they do for anyone else.

When you look at the specialist provision specifically designed to support young people with disabilities transitioning from education to work, you find some excellent examples, and we have lots of them in our report. But, on the whole, the summary is that they lack the continuity, with Governments of all parties changing names, changing focus, scrapping one thing and introducing another, and they lack the consistent funding at the necessary rate that is absolutely essential if they are to succeed. We often get isolated examples or pilot schemes at risk of being scrapped. That was one of the most frustrating things. When you sat and listened to somebody giving evidence about something that worked, you just wondered why, as a Government and as a society, we did not seem to have the capacity to roll that out to everybody else.

If this problem is to be solved, the transition from education to work has three elements that need to work. First, what goes on in our educational institutions needs to work; secondly, that process of moving from one to the other needs to work; and thirdly, it needs to work when people get into employment. We all know that, whatever our background or ability, those transitions from one set of institutions or one set of support services to the other is the place where you most often fall off the bus; that is where it most often goes wrong. That is even more so if you are a young person with a disability. I just want to look at each of those areas and examine some of the evidence we took.

On the educational institutions, we made a number of SEND recommendations. I shall not touch on those, because I know that the Government are producing a report that I hope will be launched shortly. I just hope that the Minister and the Government have looked at our recommendations. It would be great to see them reflected in the recommendations in the SEND review to be published in the new year, but I do not think it is particularly a priority for me to go over that now. When we look at these institutions, there are no doubt lots of individual lecturers, teachers, tutors and classroom assistants who do a great job. There are lots of people who make a successful transition from school to work and can name particular individuals without whom that would not have been possible. But we also heard that there are individuals who still have low expectations of what might be possible for somebody who has a disability. Both those things are true, which means that how well you get on is as likely to depend on who happens to teach you as anything else.

However, I really wanted to talk about the system in those educational institutions. I know that the Minister is particularly interested in this and I want to spend a bit of time on it in the hope that we might get somewhere with it. I know that the Government have produced a White Paper on 16-plus qualifications and vocational routes and I know that it is a priority. I also understand well that we are a high-skilled nation and that we have to push people to levels 3, 4, 5, 6 and wherever you want to go. What we heard was missing was anything substantial at levels 1 and 2. We are not saying for a minute that all young people with disabilities are at level 1 and 2; they are all levels, including master’s and PhD—the highest levels in the land. But some are at level 1 and 2 and working towards level 3 but may never get there.

We heard from a particularly impressive principal of a college in the East Midlands,

“we find ourselves scrimping around for qualifications”.

He is working with young people who are learning skills and working towards targets, but they are not recognised by any formal qualification because they never reach level 3 or anything like that. What was lacking was a robust qualification at levels 1 and 2 that can be used, first, to record the achievement and, secondly, as a stepping stone, perhaps over a number of years, to something at a higher level. Young people may be learning skills and working towards targets, but they may never be recognised in any formal qualification because we have not incorporated that in our schools framework.

One of the things that rang a bell with me, because it was familiar from when I taught all those years ago—it was sad to think it had not improved—was young people with disabilities, who were not at level 3, being put on one college course after another. These claimed to prepare them for employment and a job, but they did not. It was six weeks on this and six weeks on that—“Take another course. You’ve finished a year; sign up for something else”—but none of these were vocational pathways. When that young person started that course, they and their parents believed: they had the same enthusiasm, aspiration and hope as somebody starting a university degree or a professional qualification. It is no different; it is where they are at. They are as ambitious as anyone else, but there are too many courses that do not lead to a meaningful qualification and a route into employment.

So I ask the Minister to reflect, in the work she is doing on post-16 qualifications, to check what the vocational route is for young people with disabilities. As I say all the time, I am not putting all young people with disabilities into the level 1 or level 2 qualification framework as I know that is not true, but it is where we found a lot of work still to be done. The same is true for apprenticeships. It must be possible for somebody to go on an apprenticeship scheme below level 3. They have a role to play and a contribution to make. Some of the most heartening things we heard were from young people in work in level 1 or level 2 jobs feeling as proud as possible. When you spoke to their employer, they said they were useful members of that company. If we do not get that right, we are all losers.

The last thing that I want to mention about these education institutions is that this group does not get work experience. It is difficult to sort it out and they are not a priority. Can the Government make sure—especially when they are rolling out the work experience entitlement in years 10 and 11—that this group does not get left behind?

Then there is the transition into work. Low expectations in school move into low expectations in the workplace. I want to mention a few things we found problems with. First, careers advisers are great, but we heard time and again from young people with disabilities that the advisers had no specialist training and there was no continuity. That is not a criticism of careers advisers; it is a criticism of the system. Every young person, whether they have a EHCP or not, should have careers advice from a careers officer who has some sort of specialism in their needs.

Secondly, we had good reports about disability employment advisers, but there are only just over 700 of them, which means one or two for each Jobcentre Plus. That does not work. There are good schemes, such as Access to Work. When it works at its best, it really helps, but the shortest waiting time to get it in place is 90 days. By that time, we would all have lost enthusiasm, let alone somebody who has probably had to fight hard right the way through the education system to get to that point.

We spent a lot of time hearing about things that work, so what does work? Supported internships work. I know from chatting to the Minister that she has a historic connection with Whipps Cross Hospital. We left our day there absolutely enthused, chattering all the way back about what we had seen. It was out of this world. It should be recognised far and wide because it works.

Supported employment schemes, such as Connect to Work, work. We met young people on supported employment schemes. They told us different stories from the people whose opportunities I described previously.

I met employers and people who run vocational profiling projects in Essex and Kent and they explained how they were an integral part of careers guidance. Vocational profiling works and makes a difference.

What all those things have in common is that they manage to join the joins. They are not disjointed; they have some continuity. They are examples of schemes where work takes place between a young person and a specialist to identify the young person’s strengths, skills and aspirations and then match them to an appropriate job or career.

It took me some time to grasp what the difference was. What we usually do is give someone a job and then, once they are in employment, try to fit them in or find something they can do—or compromise, or spend six months preparing for what they can do. What this does, in conjunction with the employer, is work out with the young person what their strengths are, so that, when they do go into work, a job match has taken place, the employer understands the young person’s need, and there is continuity.

Those are the underpinning things that happen: supported internships, supported employment and vocational pathways. That is why 60% to 70% of children on supported internships that are part of the education system go into full-time work, and those who are on supported employment are more likely to go into full-time work than if they have not been in a supported-employment system. So what we found there was a successful route into work. The frustration is that that is taking place at the same time as this merry- go-round of college courses, six months at a time, which are not a vocational route into work.

I will say just one thing here. Some of those courses are available only to people with EHCPs. So I say to the Minister that, when the Government are looking at the SEND review in general, if they decide to have a more inclusive framework, it would be awful if access to EHCPs was lost: I would like to see that access go to anybody who has a need, not anybody who has managed to fight to get an EHCP.

I will finish by looking at the employment bit. It is the same story. We heard stories about where it works. I think the difference here was in culture and aspiration. Changing culture is more difficult than changing policy. But, where it has been changed, it is a success story. We found a lot of employers who were honestly nervous about taking on people with disabilities. They worried that they would say the wrong thing and it would not go down well with their employees, and they worried that there would be an economic cost. We also heard from the Chambers of Commerce, the Humber Learning Consortium, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Business Disability Forum that it can work. So, again, it is an example of people paddling like mad below the water to get some bits of it working, and they can give us evidence about what works.

I will finish by referring to the title of our report. The first bit—the strapline Think Work First—was something one of our witnesses said to us. She was running a very successful project getting young people with disabilities into work. She said that, so often, when you are working with young people with disabilities, you do not “think work first”; you think of lots of other things. She said, “It’s tough. If you want to get people into work, you think work first. That’s what the young people want”. I believe that is what we all want, and we have to have it higher up the agenda than we do at the moment. I beg to move.

16:02

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, and I commend her and her committee members on producing such an important and well-considered report. I will pick up on the point that the noble Baroness ended on, which is the title of the report. For me, it implicitly recognises that, for too long, work has been the very last thing that policymakers and politicians have instinctively associated with disabled people. The preconception that disabled people cannot contribute or realise their potential at work and, on merit, reach the top of their professions goes to the heart of our professional psyche. Indeed, its roots go deep in our societal culture. It is a culture which spawned the term “invalid”, a term still experienced today, in practice, in so many aspects of their life by disabled people.

So I thank the committee not only for recognising the scale of the challenge and for proposing a joined-up package of solutions, but for the title of its report, Think Work First. It is not just absolutely appropriate; it is instructive of the scale of the change in mindset that is required. For that is exactly the change we must make, and quickly—not just as policymakers but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, implied, all of us.

I will give two figures. The UK’s £2.9 trillion national debt and the £100 billion that we spent in the last year servicing that debt surely underline the fact that we are all paying the consequences and the costs of the 30% disability pay gap highlighted in the report and the unsustainable disability benefits bill for those who are out of work. It is therefore in all our interests to think work first. I am glad that, as the noble Baroness said, in several respects the Government have indicated that they intend to do so and to think work first, whether on vocational profiling, supported internships, in-principle support in education, including through EHCPs, and mandatory reporting of the disability pay gap, the efficacy of which, I argue, depends on disability employment reporting as well—this is a theme to which I will return. The fact that the Government are engaging with some of the committee report’s recommendations is surely a fitting tribute to its deliberations and its 36 common-sense recommendations.

I shall highlight the recommendations that I particularly welcome as a disabled Member of the House. These include increasing the number of supported internships; developing a transition information hub, co-produced with disabled people, as in Scotland; improving the support that young disabled people receive in the education system; the collection and publication of data on the number of careers advisers, especially those who have received specialist training relating to pupils with SEN; increasing work experience opportunities, including through supporting and incentivising local bodies, such as chambers of commerce, which I think is an excellent idea; improving the quality of accessibility information provided to students by universities; ensuring that work coaches and disability employment advisers fully understand the specific barriers that young disabled people face, including in the commissioning and use of assistive technologies; crucially, coming back to the committee and updating it on government action to reduce the access to work application backlog and delays; and the introduction of a four-week deadline by when employers must respond to an employee’s request for reasonable adjustments.

I could go on but I shall just highlight one other recommendation, which is making the Disability Confident scheme fit for purpose and credible by introducing rigour and transparency, so that employers are no longer marking their own homework and are instead subject to external, independent audit of the evidence as to whether they are hitting the thresholds for the percentage of their workforce that is disabled.

There is one other recommendation that I particularly highlight because, as a disabled person, I believe that it is crucial to the transition, indeed to the transformation, that we must all make to our cultural attitudes if we are truly to benefit, as a society, from extending equality of opportunity to disabled people and enabling them to realise, on merit, their potential at work. The recommendation that I am referring to is that the Government should ensure disability pay gap reporting, to which I would add disability employment reporting—that is, the percentage of an employer’s workforce that is disabled—being made mandatory for employers with 250 employees or more and for all Disability Confident leaders.

Page 43 of the report refers to the Disability Employment Charter, the brainchild of Professor Kim Hoque, who gave evidence to the committee and with whom I have been privileged to work for a number of years. Disability employment and pay gap reporting is the number one demand of the charter, which in practice has already been adopted, as the report comments, by employers such as EY, Capita and Clifford Chance. Mandatory reporting has also been supported as a recommendation by two commissions that I have chaired: first, the Centre for Social Justice’s Disability Commission, in its “Now Is The Time” report of March 2021; and, secondly, in the report produced in October 2022 by the Institute of Directors’ commission, “The Future of Business: Harnessing Diverse Talent for Success”. I pay tribute to Jon Geldart, the IoD’s director general, for his continuing commitment, and to Alexandra Hall-Chen, its principal policy adviser for employment, skills and sustainability, for building earlier this year on the commission’s work through the publication, in partnership with Disability@Work, of “Progress through Transparency: the Case for Mandatory Disability Employment and Pay Gap Reporting”.

As Professor Hoque made clear in his submission to the committee, mandatory pay gap reporting would be relatively straightforward if introduced in tandem with disability employment reporting. Establishing which employees are disabled will depend on the creation of a supportive work environment, using the Labour Force Survey definition of disability, so that disabled employees feel confident that they will not be penalised for their disability and that the data that they provide on their disability status will be treated as confidential. This is surely to the mutual benefit of any decent employer, keen to get the best from its workforce. Professor Hoque has also proposed a hybrid metric that accounts for both the employer’s disability employment levels and its disability pay gap in a way that does not unfairly represent those employers that, to their credit, are taking positive steps to hire more disabled people. I would be grateful if the Minister could update us on when we might expect the Government to respond to the consultation on mandatory reporting in line with the Labour Party manifesto and the Government’s King’s Speech commitments.

I finish on a rather despondent note, but one which underlines the urgency of moving ahead on the report’s recommendations. The CBI submitted what, to my mind, was a deeply discriminatory response to the consultation that I have just mentioned. I have told it so and I have asked that the response be withdrawn. It is completely unacceptable for an organisation like the CBI, or indeed any member organisation with a vested interest in the status quo, to perpetuate prejudice. I ask the Minister to confirm that the Government will treat responses that are based on outdated and costly attitudes, whereby disabled people are only ever regarded as a burden, with the contempt that they deserve.

In conclusion, the truth is that prejudice against disabled people is rife in Britain in 2025. In fact, I have never known it to be worse. The extent to which we have gone backwards since the demise of the Disability Rights Commission is disturbing, soul-destroying and, above all, disorienting. I never thought that we could be back in this place. That is why this report and its recommendations are so important. I urge the Government to show that they are responding to those recommendations with the urgency that they deserve.

16:15

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough (LD)]

My Lords, as ever, I feel quite embarrassed to follow that particular contribution. I begin my contribution by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, for leading this inquiry so effectively, as indeed she has led every other inquiry since we worked together in the House of Commons 15 years ago, or whenever it was.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

It was longer ago than that.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough (LD)]

Was it longer? I am sorry; I try to think I am younger than I am.

This was a very challenging report. As ever, I thank the committee clerks for their excellent preparation of material and witnesses, particularly young people and their parents. Sometimes, when you do an inquiry of this sort and you meet real people who are involved with their youngsters in an issue that is really life-threatening, you go away thinking that you have to write reports that are fundamental to government support. That is really what has happened.

For me, this was an extremely moving inquiry, as it reflected quite dramatically my own involvement in the education of young people with highly complex educational and physical challenges during the whole of my career. In 1978—I am not going to do it year by year—I was given my first headship, of Ormesby School in Cleveland, at the same time that the late Baroness Warnock produced her ground-breaking report on the future education of children with special educational needs and physical impairments. For a variety of reasons, partly due to an on-site specialist primary school for children with complex physical challenges, the local authority and the governors agreed to adopt the Warnock recommendations and include, at secondary level, all pupils in south Cleveland with severe physical difficulties, including a key number of pupils who were severely disabled due to thalidomide. With the support of the Department for Education, we became the first state school in the UK to make such a fundamental decision.

The teaching challenge was significant but highly rewarding. However, post-16 education and employment were even more challenging, and I constantly receive letters from my former pupils and their parents who, despite their excellent educational skills, could not get appropriate employment. That challenge remained with me for the rest of my career. When I moved to Leeds, with the support of the former Labour MP, George Mudie, who I think all your Lordships will know, we expanded the inclusion of pupils with special educational needs and physical needs to include pupils with impaired sight and hearing, and Down syndrome. However, the task of moving pupils on to skill training or employment, even in a highly progressive city such as Leeds, became even more challenging, despite our attempts to include external and internal career staff.

Of course, there have been a number of initiatives by successive Governments to address these issues since: the Education Act 1981, the Children and Families Act 2014 and the Commons Select Committee report of 2019 all sought changes to the landscape and tried to address the issue of education and skills for employment training. Indeed, the current EHC plans and access to work are positive initiatives to address the issues, but so much more needs to be done.

The Government’s response to the committee’s report is, frankly, outstanding. Nineteen of the 36 recommendations have been accepted in full; a further 12 have been partially accepted; four have been noted for action; and only one has been partially rejected.

Incidentally, I say to the committee that, two years after the production of the Warnock report in 1978, the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, said, “On all the main conclusions and recommendations, we were in complete agreement”. I would like the Minister to agree with Baroness Thatcher that that is the case here as well.

The current legislation is not sufficiently strong or appropriate to reduce the 30% disability employment gap that has existed for the past 50 years. Further legislation, which will require action, is probably necessary. There may be criticism, or indeed ridicule, by some that the current Government’s mission, expressed in response to our report, saying that

“economic growth is at the heart of the policy to improve access to work”,

is unrealistic. But the recommendations in this report provide, time after time, opportunities to carry out the promised mission and I fully support them.

The title Think Work First: the Transition from Education to Work for Young Disabled People is the philosophy that needs to be in line from nursery to employment. But, frankly, that is not and never has been the case. I understand just how challenging it is to link employers in both the public and private sectors with appropriate levels of support for SEN and disabled students. But that must be the Government’s objective because, if it does not happen, changes to the education system to improve links to employers will quite frankly be very difficult. How the agreed recommendations will be initiated and, crucially, how they will be financed and when they will be introduced are what we need to hear in the Minister’s response today.

For me, the following are priorities. Too often in the past, SEN was regarded as the sole area for guiding pupils from education to employment. Thankfully, the committee, and indeed the Government, embraced as the key challenge that the Government must include in future policies all young people with disabilities, long-term health conditions and special educational needs, and their families. I say “their families” because what is constantly missing from successive Governments in support of young disabled students moving to employment or further education is including parents or carers in research and decision-making. We heard that from our witnesses and it is something we should emphasise.

Committee members were deeply moved by the description by both parents and students of the mediocre level of support that often exists in schools. Two fundamental challenges emerged, as they have over many years: the need for better careers education and the need for more appropriate internships. The previous Government’s commitment to double the number of supported internships should be continued and indeed combined with the proposal to develop an English version of Scotland’s Compass tool, to assist the transfer from education to employment. This would certainly help the transfer and support system, but schools will need to radically increase their existing careers education system, which frankly has rarely been successful, particularly for pupils with SEN and disabilities. Education, health and care plans are extremely useful, but the continued failure to adequately fund them must be addressed to prevent the constant delays that simply undermine support and lead to people leaving their employment.

Crucially, too, the Government must totally review the careers service in schools. To be honest, it hardly exists in many schools. This affects most students but can be devastating for SEN and disabled students. The committee wanted to see this issue seriously reviewed, with an analysis of the number of existing careers advisers, their training and their qualifications. It would be useful if the Minister could say whether this has happened or will happen and whether the introduction of improved qualifications is being considered.

The final points that I wish to make concern employment opportunities for young disabled people. Unless there is a change to current policy, which will be radically affected by the use of artificial intelligence, et cetera, the situation examined by Baroness Warnock, which has not really changed in 50 years, will simply continue for decades to come.

We can radically increase the quality of education and skills in our schools, colleges and universities for disabled and SEN young people, but unless as a nation we can increase the level of employment for young people—and, indeed, more mature people—in both public and private environments, little will change. The committee discussed how this would be possible, but without a bold recruitment policy to include a wider range of employers, it simply will not happen. I was disappointed when the Minister did not fully accept the committee’s proposal to seriously improve the availability of ready-to-work programmes such as that provided by Think Forward, which would have engaged local authorities with employers much more readily. I hope that the Minister agrees that without a legal framework to expand links between schools, colleges and universities, as well as local authorities, the increased links will not happen.

Interestingly, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria and Denmark all have legal employment requirements, which benefit companies as well as individuals, while Luxembourg is recognised as having one of the most successful arrangements for engaging employers with disabled young and elderly people, not only in Europe but throughout the world. There, companies with 25 employees or more are required by law to include a quota of disabled young people, and are compensated by removing social security payments and receiving benefits for an excess of basic requirements. Frankly, we have to give something to employers that will encourage them to do it, rather than simply saying that they must do it ad hoc.

Surely if, as the Minister stated in reply to the committee’s report, the Government

“was elected to deliver change”

and, crucially,

“is committed to tackling economic inactivity, particularly where it is driven by ill health”

which I totally agree with, taking a bold set of actions, including legislation, before the next general election, will help silence the critics and reward the significant population of disabled and SEN young people.

16:27

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, at the outset, I once again emphasise how greatly the committee was helped by hearing from children with a disability and their parents. They very generously helped us to have an insight and to understand something of their experiences. That was so valuable.

It is worth while constantly reminding ourselves that childhood is a time of very great change and individual growth. It is the foundation of personal development. That being so, I am sure we all agree that, as a society, our aim should be for each and every child to have every opportunity to reach their full potential. Of course, change brings with it uncertainty, so it is not possible to predict what the outcome for each child may be. That said, sadly, there is often the temptation in some areas to make an assumption about the future prospects of each child. This especially applies to a child with a disability. Indeed, for children with a disability, sad to say, it is not unusual for a catalogue to be created from a very early age of things that they will never be able to do or skills that they will never possess. That is tragic.

This is why we should put in place, at a very early stage in a child’s life, both a personal development plan and a programme of support, for the child and their parents. The parents of a child with a disability often face very real challenges, so they deserve our support and encouragement. Alas, the evidence from the committee shows that, at best, the services provided for children with a disability and their parents are, to put it mildly, very patchy. Indeed, it is right to record that in some places, the services offered to children with a disability and their parents were seriously inadequate.

The movement from education to employment is a milestone in the life of every child. In the case of a child with a disability, it is a key stage in their development. In too many places, however, the arrangements are unpredictable, unreliable and negative. The good news, though, is that the committee heard of some heartwarming and outstanding work with children with a disability at this important stage in their lives. In each case, the good work was based on a vision and the determination to ensure that each child matters. In some areas, there was a well-developed plan of preparation for the transition from school to work in place for each child. In other areas, there was nothing.

Sadly, in other places, parents described the transition when their child left school as being like facing a frightening cliff edge. Too often, no preparation had been made, no plan had been created and no discussions with the adult services had taken place, as if they occupied a different place in the world. Due to this, parents described it as being like starting from scratch all over again. Although children’s services and adult services are provided by the same local authority, incredibly, that did not mean that these services were interested in communicating with each other or able to do so.

Children with a disability and their parents deserve better, especially at this critical time of transition. It seemed that in some places it was assumed that a child with a disability would simply be regarded as unemployable for the rest of their life on leaving school. This approach must be unacceptable, and I hope the Minister will take this point very seriously. The reality is that across the country, the number of children with a disability who are helped into employment is remarkably small. That being so, we should all set ourselves a challenge to demonstrate that there is an increase in the number of these children with a disability moving into employment each year. I am afraid this is a rather neglected field.

We need to be altogether much more ambitious. However, we can take encouragement because, despite all I have said, there is good news. The committee heard some evidence that was both inspiring and instructive of what can be done. I will refer to just one example, which is simple but telling. We heard that in one local authority area, the children’s services and the adult services worked together to organise a hub meeting, in which local employers and young people soon to leave school could meet in semi-social circumstances. The employers described their work and the employment possibilities, and then the children set out their skills and hopes for the future.

In one such meeting, an employer described the work of his recently created business. In doing so, he acknowledged that, because he was mainly concentrating on securing more customers and making the organisation grow, he sometimes failed to carefully manage the details of things such as ordering stock, cost control, staff hours worked et cetera. A pupil responded by saying that, despite his limitations because of his disability, he loved working on spreadsheets. The employer indicated that he had no experience in designing or working with spreadsheets and did not know how to engage in that area of work. The employer invited the young man to visit the workplace and explore together what might be possible. It was good to hear that the young man was offered a job but even better to hear that it completely transformed the lives of both the employer and the young man. The lesson from this and from a great deal of what we heard is that it can be done because it is being done in some places. The challenge, and the challenge for the Minister, is that each of us should do all we can to make sure that this is working everywhere in our society. As a nation we must rise to the challenge for the good of everyone.

I commend the important messages in this report—sadly, some are negative and things need to be rectified, but some are very hopeful. We can do it because it is being done. Let us just get on and do it. I hope that the Minister and others will take from this meeting that there is, with great ambition, great hope ahead.

As I will shortly be stepping down from the Public Services Committee, so ably chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, I pay special tribute to the work of the administrative staff who are so competent and conscientious and such a pleasure to work with. I offer them my warmest thanks.

16:37

[Lord Mott (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, who has been incredibly kind and generous to me since I first joined the Public Services Select Committee. I am sorry that he will be leaving us very shortly. I also pay tribute to and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, for excellently chairing the committee, leading to the report today. I echo the comments of many noble Lords in thanking the excellent team who provide the support that we require.

The gap in employment between disabled and non-disabled people had been narrowing for a number of years, at least until the Covid-19 pandemic. But since then, progress has stalled. According to the latest estimates, just over half of working-age disabled people are employed, compared to more than four in five non-disabled people. Tackling this gap is, of course, important from a financial standpoint, not least given the significant increase in the costs of working-age welfare and the broad consensus across the political divide of the need to reduce this. Crucially, tackling this gap for those who can work and want to work is far more important on a human level.

There will always be some people unable to work due to disability and they must get the full support that they require. As disabled people transition from education, we must do everything we can to help them find suitable and fulfilling jobs. Making use of all the talent we have in this country means more people with the security of work and with the independence, improved well-being and social inclusion that it brings.

It is timely for the Public Services Committee, of which I am a member, to have undertaken this inquiry: Think Work First: the Transition from Education to Work for Young Disabled People. The committee’s extensive report makes over 30 recommendations, ranging from education and employment services to workplace rights and support to employers. I hope that these will provide much food for thought for the department.

In my contribution today, I want to focus on how we can improve the bridge that links education and employment. This is where there are clear examples of things working well and where progress should be sustained. Getting real, hands-on experience is vital for anyone getting into the workplace, disabled or not. I saw this not only as an apprentice myself but during my time as chief executive of the Conservative Party, where I was delighted to help establish a paid internship scheme with the Patchwork Foundation, for which I remain a mentor, to help young people from disadvantaged and minority communities get experience working in politics.

We know that this type of experience is particularly valuable for disabled people moving into the workplace. If a young disabled person can get a supported internship, an accessible apprenticeship or quality work experience, they are more likely to go on to fulfilling work. Supported internships provide a structured, work-based study programme for 16 to 24 year-olds with special educational needs and disabilities who have an education, health and care plan.

I was delighted that the previous Government made a commitment to double the number of supported internships. We saw evidence of their particular success in the NHS, with 68 hospitals hosting supported internships and strong evidence that these often end with the NHS employer offering the interns full-time, permanent contracts. I urge the Minister to commit today to building on the previous Government’s commitments here and to take the committee’s recommendation to

“increase the number of supported internships, and … introduce ambitious, time-bound rolling targets for this”.

I agree that there are many opportunities in the public sector for such an increase, but the Government should also seek suitable and willing private sector partners.

Moving on, I support the efforts being made to help more disabled young people into suitable apprenticeships and I would be keen to hear from the Minister what plans the Government have to communicate the new criteria, promote apprenticeships to employers and training providers and incentivise employers to take on disabled apprentices, in line with the committee’s recommendations.

Finally, the committee is right to highlight the value of supported employment. The universal support programme, announced by the last Conservative Government, was allocated an initial £53 million to help 25,000 out of work, long-term sick and disabled people who face barriers to employment, with an ambition to go much further, with larger numbers of people helped, by providing sustained, wraparound help for up to 12 months for both the participant and their employer to help them stay in work.

The programme was welcomed and praised. Scope called it “good news” and said that it was something that it had been “calling for over many years”. But, as the report notes, there have been concerns within the sector that the current Government are not committed to the programme. Will the Minister today take the opportunity to allay these concerns and confirm that the Government remain fully committed to rolling out the programme? Specifically, I hope they will take forward the recommendations to

“set out clear timelines and targets for improving the regional and national availability of Universal Support, as well as metrics focused on employment outcomes for the disabled people who participate in supported employment programmes”.

Will more be done to link the universal support offer to the supported internships that I spoke to earlier?

Helping more people to find the security and fulfilment of work has always been at the heart of my politics. This should apply to everyone but, sadly, too many disabled people are still written off. We need to build on the progress already made, reverse the post-pandemic decline in progress and, in doing so, remember the sentiment of this report: Think Work First.

16:44

[Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho (CB)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to contribute to this debate on an important and extremely thoughtful report from the House of Lords Public Services Committee. I thank the committee members and their chair for this great publication.

I read it through both a personal and professional lens. After my accident nearly 30 years ago, I was lucky: I had access to resources, mental and physical support, and people in business who believed I could still contribute. Many young disabled people do not have that combination today. That is what this report challenges us to change.

The scale of the issue is sobering, as we have already heard today: the figures have barely moved in a decade. If we halve that gap, the Government estimate an economic benefit of £50 billion a year through higher tax receipts and reduced welfare spending. This is not just a social challenge—it is a national economic priority, particularly at this time of growth focus.

The committee identifies several structural problems: low expectations in schools, careers advice that is too generic, weak co-ordination between education, employment and health, and employers who want to help but do not know how. It also spotlights what works: internships, vocational profiling and integrated services. I agree wholeheartedly with all these points; the evidence base is strong. But I want to go further in three areas where we can act faster or think differently: co-design, partnership through business networks and entrepreneurship.

Too often, systems are built for young disabled people, not with them. One in four told the committee that they received no careers advice relevant to their disability. Too many described leaving education as “falling off a cliff.” That is a design failure, not a resource one. Co-design means embedding lived experience from the start: shaping programmes, testing ideas and feeding back on what works.

I want to expand the report’s framing. The committee highlights physical and learning disabilities, but we must also confront the mental health dimension. Around 60% of young disabled people experience a diagnosable mental health condition. Support too often ends when they leave school, and there is a well-documented cliff edge between CAMHS and adult services.

If you are trying to find work while managing anxiety or depression as a result of disability, you need joined-up help, not fragmented systems that treat “health” and “work” separately. Expanding individual placement and support models, which integrate mental health and employment services, is right; these programmes deliver employment rates up to 30% higher than conventional job search. I would go one step further: embed mental health co-design panels within local employment and skills partnerships so that young people help shape the services meant for them.

Sara Weller, a disabled entrepreneur and one of the very few disabled FTSE non-execs, who runs ActionAble, shows that co-design is not a “nice to have”—it is the biggest predictor of sustained success in changing services. Evaluations of co-produced programmes show 25% to 30% higher sustained-employment outcomes than standard models.

The committee is also right that local co-ordination is often missing. It calls for stronger partnerships between education, employers and local authorities. We already have a ready-made structure that could deliver this alignment—here I declare an interest as the president of the British Chambers of Commerce; its local skills improvement plans have already been touched on today. There is now one in every region, bringing together employers, FE colleges and local authorities to match training with job demand. Yet few LSIPs currently address disability inclusion, and that is a missed opportunity. Imagine if every LSIP identified inclusive employers ready to host supported internships, mapped FE colleges and linked SMEs to the Access to Work scheme. The infrastructure exists: 400,000 businesses have engaged through the chambers and more than 200 FE colleges are involved in LSIPs.

Research for the DWP shows that when local business networks engage, young disabled employment rates rise by around nine percentage points within three years. Making disability inclusion a mandatory strand in every LSIP, with measurable targets, would turn a general skills plan into a genuine inclusion plan—owned by business, informed by evidence, and aligned with “Think work first”.

The committee focuses on employment and supported internships. I fully endorse that but I want to add, perhaps unsurprisingly, entrepreneurship. For many disabled people, self-employment is not a fallback but a natural path. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, 19% of working-age disabled adults in the UK are engaged in early-stage entrepreneurial activity, compared with 11% of non-disabled adults. Disabled people are nearly twice as likely to start a business, yet the system does not even meet them half way.

Only 3% of government start-up loans go to disabled founders, fewer than one in 20 accelerator or incubator programmes have accessibility designed in, and only 5% per cent of venture capital firms report collecting any data at all on disabled young founders. The barriers are practical and structural: inaccessible workspaces, inflexible benefit rules, opaque funding routes and low representation in networks.

Yet the potential is extraordinary. The Disabled Entrepreneurs Network found that 72% of disabled founders say their experience directly informed the product or service they created. They saw the problem and they tried to fix it. You can see it in adaptive technology, accessible fashion, inclusive design and health innovation, sectors where experience drives commercial and social value. Scope’s Future Innovators pilot, for example, supported 60 disabled founders and generated £3 million in revenue and 120 jobs in just two years.

We are seeing a new wave of organisations also backing entrepreneurs in disability. CREO, launched by Founders Forum, is building a national ecosystem to support disabled and neurodiverse entrepreneurs, connecting them with investors, mentors and accessible resources. It is a brilliant example of private-sector energy being matched with societal change. CREO’s early work shows that when disabled founders have access to mainstream networks and capital, their ventures grow 30% faster. Alongside CREO, initiatives such as the Disabled Entrepreneurs Network, the Disability Rights UK’s Leadership Academy, and UnLtd are proving that targeted mentoring, modest seed funding and inclusive design can unlock extraordinary innovation.

These efforts need to be scaled and connected, joined up with national policy and local delivery—with the LSIPs perhaps—linking local business networks with inclusive investment and mentorship. Let us make entrepreneurship a formal third route in every education-to-work strategy; that means embedding enterprise education in further education across the board, supporting internship and growth hubs and prompting the British Business Bank to report annually on participation rates. We could even pilot regional inclusive innovation funds—small-scale capital pots designed with disabled entrepreneurs to test what works. That is not just an inclusion policy, it is an innovation policy. If we removed half the barriers facing disabled founders, the Federation of Small Businesses estimates that up to 250,000 new disabled-owned businesses, which would add billions to GDP and transform representation in the UK’s innovation ecosystem. This is not charity—it is economic sense.

I am patron of Day One Trauma, a charity helping people at the point when they face massive physical trauma. It works in hospitals providing invaluable support to patients and families. One of the first and most requested pieces of advice is always about work: “What will happen now that I am disabled? How will I go back to work? What future will I have?” When I became disabled, I had resources: I had networks and opportunities, which meant that I could dare to believe that I would be able to embark on one of my crazy ideas for a new business—most of them terrible. I thought “work first” because, before it was clear that I was even going to leave hospital, I knew that was what would help me to carry on. But the combination of factors that enabled that mindset for me should not be luck—it should be policy. I urge the Government to turn Think Work First from a report into reality.

16:52

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, report was, for me, slightly depressing but also reassuring. It was slightly depressing because I have either said or agreed with everything said in this report over the past 20 or 30 years. A series of themes here have dominated government ever since it has looked at this area, particularly in the education field. It comes down to the fact that you have X number of people who do not fit the education system that well who are still going through it.

Then we come to a series of roadblocks, such as level 2 English language. The president of the British Dyslexia Association, who is dyslexic, of course would say this, would he not? But you suddenly bump into things that get in the way. The one battle that I won partially was thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Nash— I give him eternal credit for taking on his own department—who turned round and said that a recognised dyslexic should not be made to pass functional skills English at GCSE level with a C, as it was at the time, to get their apprenticeship. It was inspired by meeting people like carpenters and hairdressers, who could not get a job that would allow them to be employed properly because they had a disability that meant they could not do something. That took a long time—and that degree of rigidity in standards is something that we must resist. To go through all the dys’s, a dyspraxic just will not fill out the form in time. For a dyscalculic, it is often even worse. I recently met somebody who had failed maths 14 times in trying to get an apprenticeship. The degree of black humour builds, does it not? We get around it; we do not address it. The Government have to interject here, to remove the traps on the way through.

I hope we are about to hear—the Minister is being threatened by a piece of paper from her officials—that we will try to remove this with a little common sense. It is just one of the things I think we have to do. We have to adapt the education and training programme to get through. I hope this will come forward. I was ignorant before I started this that Scotland has the Compass tool; apparently it works. I hope the Government will tell us how they will integrate this, or something very like it, into our own system, guiding people through.

Then it goes on about the fact that, as anyone who has dealt with the system knows, you are in education, then you are employed, then you are an adult and then you fall off the cliff. The one thing the Children and Families Act got right was that if you are identified as needing an EHCP it goes on until 25. That is the best thing about it. Maybe it should go on for longer, and maybe there should be more structural change. If you think about it for two seconds, it is obvious that you will need support and guidance to get through in a system where you do not fit. It has been designed for the 75% of the population that it does fit so you will have to make some adaptations or some ways through to make it relevant to everybody else. It is no-brainer, really. But you hit bureaucratic walls, structures and stereotypes all the time and you are hitting them damned hard. You have to try and make a place where the Government take action and actively overcome.

It is time for another declaration of interest that is relevant under the rules. I am chairman of Microlink PC which puts together packages for people going into employment. Assistive technology is usually part of this but sometimes it is just organisation. We find when dealing with employers, often big employers, that they just want to get the best out of their people. Big employers sometimes feel confident and structured. They need PR. They decide, “Yes, we’ll do this. We’ll get in early and deal with the problem. We don’t need a definition”—and it makes sense. The problem is that most small employers, as this report makes quite clear, do not know this. They think they can avoid it. Someone has a condition: if they cannot do this, what happens?

There can be small changes and small structures. In my case, I have to talk to a computer as opposed to tapping a keyboard. I have never met anybody who objected to me word processing by talking to a computer—if someone did, I think they probably have bigger psychological problems than the person talking to the computer. How are you going to encourage not only the support systems but the knowledge that these things are easily dealt with if you have the willingness to go forward?

When the Minister comes to reply to this debate, I am sure she will agree in principle with all these points. It is about driving things forward and saying that you have to do things slightly differently. As has been pointed out by virtually everybody here, the employment gap and the economic benefits are self-evident. If you are employed, then you are not claiming benefits and are an economic benefit to everybody else, so pure selfishness comes into it. Dyslexics have a stereotype that we are all entrepreneurs. I think quite a lot of us are but often that is through necessity and not through choice. You have to do something different or you will sit and rot. We have to embrace these things, and if we do not start to address the basic thrust of this report we will simply carry on as we are at the moment.

Also, I would hope that the Minister will say what the Government thought was good about the work done by the previous Government. What has worked and how will they carry it on? We all know what has not worked because we talked about it for a long time. But how are we going to continue the good work and get that drive? How will we say, “This has worked”? Where is the continuity?

If people need support and structure, how will that work? Access to Work is often talked about, but it is slow and linked to certain jobs. How do we take that through if we decide that we need that support and structure? Let us face it, people do not usually radically change the type of jobs they do; they are usually in a pattern, at least for long periods of time. How are we going to make sure the support is always there? It would be a very good thing if the employer did not have to go through the hassle of saying an employee must wait to get their new support system. It is about support, structure and information. I go back to the beginning of this, in schools. If a school’s careers adviser does not know that people from various disability groups can have careers in X number of lines, they cannot help. Where is the expertise coming in?

As the noble Baroness will undoubtedly be finding out when she deals with the special educational needs report, these are not easy things to do. We all look forward to that report; only one delay in that report will be quite good by governmental standards, but I hope it is just the one delay.

Extra knowledge is needed across a variety of structures. There are three disabled people in this room—that I can recognise, although I am probably missing someone—and they all have different problems. How will the Government make sure that people can get that expertise? Are we making sure that the professional involved can go and ask for help? They need to know that if they need to ask for extra help, it is not a negative but a positive. If we are doing this in teaching, we should be doing it for careers advice—it should be the same thing. If you have not met a certain condition before, you need to have knowledge. Having a central pool of support, having access to it, and saying that it is okay to get something through—and doing it reasonably fast—would make life immeasurably easier for everyone involved in the system.

What we really need is a change of tone; we need to say, “We are supportive and we will inform you”. The employer’s fear about employing somebody who works differently in their office must be overcome. That is very important, and the report is wise to draw attention to it. The fact that people are frightened about extra costs and the structures will always be there until we get a hold of it, shake somebody pretty hard and tell them not to worry. After that, we can show them how it is done. The Government need to say that they are taking these steps and that they will work on the other stages.

On getting special educational needs right, unless we are getting to another cliff edge—I think the noble Lord, Lord Laming, was the first one to say this—the Government are still just pushing the cliff edge slightly further down the road. They have got to go out there and say how they will address the whole problem. It is a big challenge, and the Government will not get it right in one Session. But, if they embrace it and get the tone right, future Governments of whatever colour will probably find it easier to go forward. It is a big challenge. I wish the Government well, and I look forward to what the Minister has to say.

17:04

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have made such valuable contributions to this discussion. At a time when provisions for disabled students are further stretched and needed more than ever, this debate is incredibly important.

His Majesty’s loyal Opposition welcome that the Government appear to be following the committee’s advice and that they have prioritised vocational qualifications in their recent reforms. The previous Government understood the importance of a vocational pathway that aimed to provide opportunities to every schoolchild in this country and, as such, were committed to achieving parity between vocational and academic qualifications. The devil is always in the detail, so we await further clarification on the Government’s newly announced V-levels but, if they prove to be a continuation of the previous Government’s commitment, they would be a welcome step in the right direction.

However, simply offering a more streamlined qualifications system is not enough: particularly with young disabled people, it is incredibly important that sufficient guidance is offered. The committee’s recommendation of vocational profiling would provide this and we hope that, when the Government lay out their V-level plans in detail, they will follow the advice and wise counsel of the committee that was so ably chaired by the former Secretary of State for Education, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris.

His Majesty’s loyal Opposition are also grateful for the Government’s honouring of our commitment to double the number of supported internships. Allow me to repeat the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris: “supported internships work”—and work and work. My noble friend Lord Mott highlighted his personal experience as chief executive of the Conservative Party. It remains our firm belief that supported internships are one of the best pathways into work for the people furthest away from the job market. It follows that continuing to scale them up should be a priority for any Government, regardless of their political persuasion, whose aim is to get young disabled people into work, give them the opportunities that they both need and deserve and watch them flourish in an inclusive and team-orientated environment. I hope that the Minister will assure noble Lords that the Government will continue to proactively update your Lordships’ House on this issue.

A key element of providing these very opportunities, however, is the successful co-ordination between the Government and local authorities. We understand that the Minister for School Standards in the other place confirmed that the Connect to Work programme has begun in a quarter of areas, but please let us not have a postcode lottery. If initiatives are not rolled out countrywide, we risk perpetuating inequalities based purely on peoples’ addresses. Capacity for delivery varies dramatically across local authorities and it must be the Government’s responsibility to ensure that different needs are equally met. We trust that the Connect to Work programme will continue to be rolled out, but it must be done regularly and equitably. We would welcome a watertight guarantee from the Minister that this Government are committed to ensuring that that will be the case.

The more worrying issue is the co-ordination of education, health and care plans. The noble Lord, Lord Laming, highlighted a cliff edge or the need to start again after leaving school, as did the noble Lord, Lord Addington. The completion rate of EHCPs ranges from below 10% in some authorities to over 90% in others. The changes introduced by the Children and Families Act 2014, coupled with a surge in applications post Covid, mean that there are now over 600,000 children on plans. That is one in 20 pupils, with a further 150,000 awaiting assessment. With such a disparity in delivery already evident, a potential 25% increase in that number could mark a tipping point that is, indeed, a serious cliff edge.

Reflecting on this critical issue, the committee was clear that reforms are urgently needed to reduce application and delivery times and improve the provision of EHCPs. We understand that these are within the scope of the wider reforms to be announced in the department’s upcoming White Paper and, therefore, it may not be possible to comment on any changes right now. But, despite this, perhaps a reflection on another recommendation of clear timelines would provide much-needed clarity to both students and teachers.

We have been told that the White Paper is to be delayed, but, in the meantime, local authorities and schools are left guessing about what the future of EHCP provision will look like. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is entirely correct when he says that prevention is better than cure. We know that early intervention is among the most effective ways of assisting disabled children into the workforce, but drastic changes will need to be made to ensure that this is available to all schoolchildren, regardless of where they live, and we look forward to hearing the Government’s proposed solutions.

This should be a non-partisan subject—a common goal, echoed by many noble Lords, to do everything possible for those who have found, and may still find, themselves in challenging circumstances. The Government appear to be taking many of the committee’s recommendations on board, but regular updates on reasonable adjustments, vocational schemes and equal provisions are most welcome. An evidence-based approach is being taken and the successes of the previous Government are being built upon. We very much hope that the pathway from education to work for young disabled people will remain on an upward trajectory into the future. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, so eloquently put it, if we do not get this right, we all lose out.

17:12

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, for securing this important debate on this report. We are grateful to the committee for its work and its report, which found that young disabled people, as we have heard during a good debate today, face systemic barriers that prevent progress.

I am sorry about the delay that the committee experienced before the Government’s response. I will not identify a particular department because this is a cross-government responsibility, and it is a cross-government responsibility to respond to the committee in a timely manner. The tardiness of that response does not reflect the work that the Government are doing, and I will say something about that in responding to the debate.

We know that the SEND system in this country is broken, which is why we are taking time to review the system and to get our reforms right. We agree that there needs to be a cultural shift in how we support young disabled people, and that success is dependent upon raising aspirations, challenging discrimination and ensuring co-ordinated support from school through to sustained employment.

The recently published Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper sets out our vision for a world-leading skills system that breaks down barriers to opportunity for all; meets learners’ and employers’ needs; widens access to high-quality education and training; supports innovation, research and development; and improves people’s lives. The Government are committed to helping young disabled people to access and stay in work when they leave education, with a focus on early support and intervention. The Government have considered the committee’s recommendations and changes are already taking place.

The report made valuable recommendations regarding education and careers support, including improving careers adviser training, which we have done, first by embedding vocational profiling for young people with SEND into the careers leader and online training modules aimed at special educational needs co-ordinators and the wider education workforce to support careers conversations. This will help individuals identify their skills, interests, aspirations and support needs for employment.

On the important point about careers advice being appropriate and supportive for young people with disabilities, the government-funded careers support for young people is inclusive, with an emphasis on working with our delivery partner, the Careers and Enterprise Company, and with key partners, including special educational needs organisations and local government, to ensure that careers provision is tailored to the needs of young people. Careers hubs across the country receive SEND training as standard, which informs their work with schools and colleges. There are now SEND-specific co-ordinators in the network. All new enterprise co-ordinators have SEND induction training by default through CEC’s strategic partnership with Talentino. Among them, there are 38 SEND-specific enterprise co-ordinators across the hub network. Training is also available for employers, to make sure that their outreach programmes are as inclusive as possible, because those programmes, and of course work experience, need to be available for all young people, particularly for the young people we are talking about today.

CEC’s employer standards framework embeds inclusion as a key measure of quality in business outreach work. We are aligning adult skills provision and careers advice with the Jobcentre Plus network, building a new unified public jobs and careers service. We will review the vital role that adult essential skills provision plays in supporting people with learning difficulties and disabilities into work. Recognising the report’s recommendation to improve the post-16 qualifications framework, which my noble friend Lady Morris focused on at the beginning of her contribution, we will simplify and strengthen vocational pathways, introducing new rigorous qualifications so that all learners, including those with special educational needs and disabilities, will have access to high-quality study pathways and a clear line of sight to employment or further study.

My noble friend makes an important point about the focus at level 1 and level 2, not just at level 3. That is why our reforms will include two new pathways at level 2, including a further study pathway for students aiming to progress to level 3 but needing a period of time for extra preparation, and of course new English and maths qualifications at level 1, which will provide a gradual route for learners, helping them build knowledge and confidence before resitting full GCSEs where appropriate. My noble friend also makes an important point about broader consideration of qualifications at entry level and at level 1. I accept her challenge that more work needs to be done there.

On vocational courses, I think there is now a clearer route for students. On the point about apprenticeships, the Government’s introduction of foundation apprenticeships in August this year provides another route into apprenticeships that is more inclusive and available.

The soon to be published curriculum and assessment review led by Professor Becky Francis will set out plans to ensure that every learner, including those with SEND, receives a high-quality education supported by a curriculum that gives them the knowledge and skills they need to thrive. Improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream education settings is a key part of the Government’s ambition to ensure that all children and young people receive the support they need. The noble Lord, Lord Willis, emphasised this and talked about his important experience, during his time in education, in developing that. We know that good schools are already able to develop that type of inclusive education. We need, as the challenge has rightly been put, to make sure that that happens everywhere.

On our reforms, we are working closely with experts, including appointing a strategic adviser for SEND who is playing a key role in convening and engaging with the sector, including leaders, practitioners, children and families, as we consider the next steps for the future of SEND reform. The proposals that result from this co-production will be set out as part of a schools White Paper early next year and aim to restore confidence in the SEND system and deliver improvement so that every child can achieve.

However, we are not sitting and waiting for that to happen. We have already taken important steps, including the creation of 10,000 new school places for children with SEND as part of a £740 million capital investment to expand specialist units and adapt mainstream settings. Multimillion-pound programmes, such as the partnership for inclusion of neurodiversity in schools and early language support for every child, are being delivered in collaboration with central and local government schools and parents to test and learn new approaches, and inspection frameworks have also been updated to ensure that Ofsted holds school leaders to account for inclusion, with a new explicit focus on inclusion embedded in the framework.

The report also rightly called for more work experience opportunities and activities which prepare young people for employment. It identified the fantastic experience offered by supported internships and work placements and recommended that these are expanded to a larger non-EHCP cohort. At this point, perhaps I can go back 15 months to the point at which I chaired Barts Health, where the committee was able to go and see the fantastic work being done by Project SEARCH. It always inspired me when I was able to see that in the hospitals and across the trust, and the young people who then became important and productive members of the NHS staff in that trust.

The Department for Education is continuing to invest in building the capacity and quality of supported internships by providing up to £12 million to March 2026. Through this funding, the department is also expanding our pilot—to take up the point that my noble friend made—that is testing supported internships with young people who have SEND but do not have education, health and care plans, and who are furthest from the labour market, to support hundreds more young people with SEND to transition into sustained paid employment.

Through the youth guarantee, we are addressing the issue of young people not in employment, education or training by bringing together adult skills training, support to find work, and apprenticeships. The youth guarantee trailblazers are still in their first year of delivery, but already interesting examples are emerging of local approaches, focused specifically on young people with SEND. The trailblazer in the west of England, for example, has designed a programme to support young people with SEND to move into paid employment through tailored eight-week placements and structured support. By focusing on individual strengths, career coaching and inclusive employer engagement, the programme aims to build confidence, support transitions and enable sustained progression into the workplace.

The report also focused, as did the debate today, on the workplace, recommending steps which would promote workplace rights and inclusion, including measures to improve transparency, provide guidance and build awareness of disabled employees’ rights and employers’ obligations. At this point, I want to strongly support the case made by the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, about the contribution that disabled people make to the workforce and therefore to the economy, and to agree with him that, where people are short-sighted enough to see disabled people as a burden, they are doing not only disabled people but themselves and their businesses a disservice as well. The noble Lord, Lord Laming, through his excellent example, made that very clear.

There is an enormous win-win here for employers who are able to provide the working environment for young people with disabilities to shine in the way in which the noble Lord outlined. As the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, also made clear, to have opportunities for entrepreneurship and innovation is a further opportunity. Her points were important, and I will undertake to make sure that they are shared with my colleagues in the Department for Business and more broadly in relation to the points about entrepreneurship.

The Government agree that it is vital for both employers and employees to understand their rights and responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010, particularly around disability and reasonable adjustments. Existing measures already support this goal. The Equality Act 2006 established the Equality and Human Rights Commission and gave it the responsibility to promote and encourage awareness and understanding of equality and human rights across society. The commission also provides guidance and publishes the employment statutory code of practice, which serves as a key resource for employers and employees alike.

On the particular point made by the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, about the disability confident scheme, which is a UK Government-backed voluntary initiative designed to help employers to recruit, retain and develop disabled people and those with health conditions by aiming to challenge negative attitudes, promote inclusive practices and close the disability employment gap by providing free guidance, resources and a structured framework for organisations, we are exploring how to make the scheme more robust, as the noble Lord argued for. We are working with employers, disabled people and disabled people’s organisations to realise the full potential of the scheme.

However, the Government are not complacent. We are taking steps to strengthen equality in the workplace through initiatives such as the Employment Rights Bill, which will require employers to produce equality action plans outlining actions on equality. We are also committed to build on the success of gender pay gap reporting and legislate to make it mandatory that all large employers publish their disability pay gap.

As the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, outlined, the disability pay gap has remained stubbornly high for many years and shows that disabled people too often face additional barriers to getting into work and thriving in the workplace. This pay gap sits in the context of disabled people in general earning less than non-disabled people and being twice as likely to be unemployed. That is why the Government are taking action to improve employment support for disabled people and supporting British businesses to make workplaces more inclusive of disabled people. We are committed to building on the success of gender pay gap reporting and legislate to make it mandatory that all large employers publish their disability pay gap.

I understand that reasons for the disability pay gap can be complex, and I am grateful to the many disabled people, representative organisations and businesses that shared their views in our recent consultation on the topic. I do not suggest that publishing pay gap data alone will resolve this gap, but it will provide large employers with a clear and measurable indicator to help to identify where issues might sit and take action accordingly. These measures will help to create a fairer and more inclusive workforce.

In response to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Mott, about the universal support scheme, this Government’s £1 billion connect to work programme uses the funding originally planned for universal support and keeps the same important principles of high-fidelity supported employment provision for around 300,000 disabled people, people with health conditions and those with complex barriers to support by the end of the decade. Importantly, we worked with local authorities and mayors to increase flexibility in how this can be delivered. It is being rolled out across England and Wales and is already seeing people being supported into work, being as it is the largest supported employment programme in Europe.

I repeat my gratitude to the committee for bringing forward this debate, which has highlighted how essential it is that we provide the right support and training for young disabled people. Whether through high-quality apprenticeships, colleges or universities, skills give people the power to seize opportunity and gain the work that will make such a difference to them, our economy and our society. By working together across government, education settings and employers, we will provide a system whereby all young people will be able to follow the pathway that is right for them. As I suggested earlier—it has been a key theme for today’s debate—that will be good for those disabled young people, but it will also be good for our economy and society.

17:29

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will briefly reply to the debate and thank the speakers for their contributions. There has been a lot of unanimity and there is no need to go over the points again, but there was a good balance between optimism and concern. I think that, for somebody listening in, the optimism won out. This is a moment, because the opportunity for really fundamental change does not come around often. If you miss it when it is there, you sometimes do not get another chance for a decade or longer. With the SEND review, with the vocational qualifications framework being changed, with further education becoming a priority for government, with the skills White Paper and with the evidence of what works, quite honestly if we do not grasp this now, we should not be in the job. It is that important.

I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, who were not members of our committee. They brought different perspectives, and we had not looked at the angles that certainly the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, guided us to, in terms of entrepreneurship. If there is another iteration of that, I would be pleased to hear the Minister say that she would take that back. The noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, always brings, with his connections, a lot of information that we miss. If we can gather that information and add it to what we have done, we will have something helpful for the Government.

I thank the Minister for her positive, thorough, thoughtful and optimistic reply to our debate. I am encouraged by some of the things she said, particularly on supported internships, where there has been a degree of concern in the sector. That can build and build unless something is said, so I very much welcome the comments made on that. I finish by saying that the wish of our committee would be to see our recommendations embedded in the documents and policy frameworks to be published by the Government in the weeks and months to come. Then it really will have been a report that was worth its while.

Motion agreed.