World Autism Awareness Week

Debate between Jess Phillips and Melanie Onn

Thursday 28th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

I speak as a mother currently on the long waiting list for diagnosis. I thank everybody for their comments today.

I am delighted to speak in this debate. Like everybody else, I commend the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), who is a tireless campaigner on this issue—a subject incredibly close to my heart. So many misconceptions about autistic people get thrown around, such as “Everyone is somewhere on the spectrum”, which I am sure we hear a lot in this place, or my favourite, which is that people with people with autism have some sort of superpower or special gift. I can tell everyone now that they do not.

Last Friday, I watched the newly released DVD of “Star Wars: the Force Awakens” with my sons and their lovely autistic friend. Between us we decided that what appeared as the teenage tantrums of the new Dark Lord, Kylo Ren, was perhaps just him needing a bit of a “time out”. We concluded that perhaps he was autistic and just could not fit into the world he found himself in. Perhaps the new Death Star was just too noisy and made him feel stressed out. We thought he might wear the mask because he did not like eye contact. I am not sure that this was the film-maker’s intention, but it softened us to him. The group of people I was with “get” autism and ASD—they live with it every day—so they can see how a person’s behaviour might alter if things start to kick off. To all of us, it is not the person with autism who has the problem—it is the rest of the world. We have to think differently about people who think differently.

On every street I visit in Yardley, I meet families struggling with autism in adulthood or in their children. My postbag is full of heart-breaking cases of how much autistic people are struggling. In my constituency there is an amazing autism support group called Spectrum, where every meeting is packed with parents who want a break. This is not a minority issue—it is a growing issue, and we are not keeping pace with our provision, our awareness or our attitudes.

Today I want to focus on how the world needs to think differently about employment for people with autism. Only 15% of working-age people with autism are currently in work, according to the National Autistic Society. For any parent with a child with autism, this presents a heart-breaking and bleak future—but it does not need to be. Ambitious about Autism has identified that in fact 99% of young people with autism want to work.

So what can we do? The Department for Work and Pensions has made some impressive commitments over the past few years in saying that Jobcentre Plus will implement autism awareness and autism networks. I welcome all this, but in reality it is not what people in my constituency are experiencing. One constituent told me: “I do not blame the staff, but it comes down to a lack of understanding of autism. The support the jobcentre claim to be providing is not there. I was treated as though I had no disability and left to my own devices. That is the problem of having an invisible disability.”

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

At a meeting last week, somebody raised the issue of jobcentres specifically regarding the personal independence payment and self-assessment of people with autism or Asperger’s as being incredibly difficult. Why does that continue to be part of the process?

[Jess Phillips]

I could not agree more. Another of my constituents told me just this week how the jobcentre had failed to recognise the need for his mother to be able to attend meetings about his PIP arrangements and to change his benefits. That has resulted in frequent incidents of faltering benefits, which has made him incredibly vulnerable and left him with totally insecure finances.

On another occasion I heard of a mother who wanted to access a bus pass from the local authority for a home-to-school scheme, in order to get her son travel-ready for when he leaves school in a few years’ time so that he will be able to go on the bus on his own. She was given a “computer says no” answer and told to come back in the few years when it would actually matter. However, because she is a mum with an autistic child, she knows it is going to take time and training.

We have got to be bold and flexible. We have got to think differently about how we make our services and the world’s jobs available to people on the autistic spectrum. Although things are not perfect, we have come a long way from the days when a person in a wheelchair could not have a job because they could not access the building. Autistic people may not face a physical barrier like a staircase, but the barrier effect is exactly the same.

Not providing fair and equal access to these people is not only wrong; it is also illegal, and we have got to make sure that employers know that. We need employers to understand how an interview might feel to somebody with autism. It is terrifying enough for somebody who is neuro-typical, so I ask Members to imagine for a second that they do not want to look someone in the eye, find talking in front of strangers impossible, or find it impossible if two people speak over each other.

Ambitious about Autism has just launched its “Employ Autism” campaign to transform the employability of young people with autism. I ask everyone in this place to do as I have done and offer to provide work experience to young people with autism. I imagine that I will learn as much as my placement, possibly more. I also encourage Members to ask our local business improvement districts, chambers, local enterprise partnerships and businesses to offer tailored work placements and apprenticeships. That will help us all to think differently.

I want to stand here and say with confidence to every young person with autism and every parent with a child on the autistic spectrum: you can do anything. I want to say: your future is bright. I want to say it to myself, for my son. I want to say it to my son’s “Star Wars” fan friend. But I can’t. I don’t know what the future will be like for them. So let’s try to change it. Let’s think differently.

Equal Pay and the Gender Pay Gap

Debate between Jess Phillips and Melanie Onn

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Melanie Onn]

I could not agree more. Low pay concerns me, particularly as it is in all areas. If those who are public facing, with whom people interact more, can demonstrate the necessity of closing the gender pay gap, it will become a more prioritised issue among the general public.

I can now confirm that I was referring to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry). I thank my colleagues for reminding me. It is quite embarrassing to have such a public brain fade.

[Jess Phillips]

You are only a woman!

[Melanie Onn]

Yes, how can I be expected to remember such complicated information?

I was just reflecting on accessing justice, and the difficulties faced by people from across the board. This is about not just women finding it difficult to access justice through the employment tribunal system, but those who are suffering from any kind of discrimination, particularly that relating to their pay. The Equal Pay Act was a milestone in the fight for equal pay, but, clearly, the Act in itself is not sufficient to close that gap altogether, especially in today’s world of casual employment, of people working multiple jobs and of increasing levels of self-employment. I am incredibly proud that the previous Labour Government made equal pay a priority and closed the pay gap by one third during their time in office. I say again that, over the past five years, we have seen almost no progress on this issue. In their manifesto, the Conservatives made no mention of putting in place any measures to try to tackle the pay gap, even though they have accepted that it exists. Today is about Labour challenging the Government on this important issue and trying to get them to change their mind.

We have heard quite a lot today with regard to how much women earn. In my constituency of Grimsby, women earn just 77p for every £1 brought home by men. I heard today that the figure in Coventry is as low as 60p. That is a significant difference. If we do not think that that affects the home lives of the children in our country, we are deluding ourselves.

Why is this such a significant problem in my constituency compared with some other areas in the country? As I noted earlier, there has been a surge of low pay and insecure work in this country over the past few years, and that has particularly been the case in my constituency. I know, from speaking to my constituents, that it tends to be women who have to work two or three different jobs, often on casual or zero-hours contracts, because they receive such low pay. Since 2010, one in three women’s jobs has come from women registering as self-employed. That is a problem that, again, the Equal Pay Act cannot address. On average, self-employed women earn less than half the money earned by self-employed men. Women are far more likely to be in jobs that pay less than the living wage. We heard my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) talking at length and most passionately about the fact that the labour undertaken by women is given such scant value by our society.