People with Disabilities: Employment

Debate between Baroness Sherlock and Baroness Uddin

Tuesday 28th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I share the noble Baroness’s desire to find more opportunities for people with learning disabilities, severe autism and other conditions to get the benefits of work, of which money is but one. I pay tribute to the work she has done in creating Team Domenica and the work it has done in supporting learning-disabled people into work. I am sure the whole House would share in that.

Having said all that, successive Governments have taken a view that the best way to support disabled people into work is not necessarily by changing the rules around national insurance or the minimum wage. The noble Baroness is absolutely right that the level of employment for disabled people is only around 50% and for those with autism around 30%, and, as she says, it is vanishingly small for those with learning disabilities. We believe passionately that disabled people are vital to the UK’s workforce. The way we have approached this is with the priority of providing opportunities and support for disabled people to thrive in work. That is why we commissioned the independent Keep Britain Working review, which will be published shortly, to understand how we can create and maintain the kind of workplaces that want to support disabled people and enable them to thrive. It is why we are reforming employment, health and skills support, to tackle rising economic inactivity and get people into good jobs. We want the same thing; we are doing it in different ways, but we are determined to make things better.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, for her important Question. I declare my interest as having a 46 year-old son with a learning disability and autism. I am currently mentoring a highly educated 38 year-old young man, who has four degrees, including a master’s and a PhD. He still cannot find a job. Is the Minister satisfied that the local authority allocation for Connect to Work will be ring-fenced for that precise purpose? Will she consider apprenticeship schemes specially designated for people with autism?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for sharing her circumstance with us. I am really optimistic about Connect to Work. For noble Lords who do not know, Connect to Work is a specialist voluntary support and employment programme. It is for anyone who is disabled or who has a health condition or other barrier to work, such as homelessness. Local authorities, supported by DWP, are developing programmes. The reason it works—there is international evidence that shows what works in this space—is that it incorporates helping someone to work out what they want, engaging with employers and job-finding. A specialist adviser works with an individual and with local employers, and connects an individual to an employer, gets them into conversations, and then gets them into work and carries on supporting them in work. Crucially, they help the employers know how best to support people. Recently, I was talking to the head of this programme at one of the south coast councils. She said that lots of employers want to do the right thing but often they do not know how to —they may lack knowledge or be worried about how to have the necessary conversations. We have to tackle this on both fronts, but I am positive about it.

Autism Employment Review

Debate between Baroness Sherlock and Baroness Uddin

Monday 12th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for highlighting some of the conditions. It may reassure him to know that the academic panel we have pulled together is looking at a number of specific neurodivergent conditions. Those include ADHD, autism spectrum condition—with the acknowledgments made—dyslexia and dyscalculia. They also include DCD—developmental co-ordination disorder, also known as dyspraxia—and developmental language disorder, among other conditions. The noble Lord is absolutely right. The job of the panel is to review what is known and then to look at what can help. There will be some things, some steps employers could take, which may be of benefit to people with more than one condition, but there are some that will be quite specific, and we need to understand the evidence before we can make good recommendations.

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lord Touhig in his entire assessment of how different it is for autism and neurodivergent issues. I declare that I have an autistic son who is 44 years old. I just came back from a meeting chaired by Samantha Niblett MP on this specific subject of underemployment and employment of people with autism. I agree with the Minister that the gap is unacceptable, but what are the Government doing to ensure that job coaches, in particular those of the DWP, are attuned to their needs and directing them properly?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes a really good point. There are a number of different forms of support available to people with a range of disabilities or other conditions, if they come forward. Our job coaches have extensive training in a wide range of conditions to work with people who come in who need help, but there are also all kinds of schemes available. We can refer people to different kinds of help, to programmes where they can get voluntary support and work with whatever their particular needs are. We are trying to make our service out there increasingly tailored. There is not a generic range of barriers to employment. People often need quite specific understanding of what is getting in their way and help to overcome it. I hope that, in time, if the noble Baroness’s son ever comes to a jobcentre, he will find the help he needs, if, indeed, he needs it.