Disability Employment Gap

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

How can I say no to the noble Baroness? That is another great idea. It fits very well with the national disability strategy, which will, I am pleased to say, be developed with disabled people and disability charities and organisations, and will cover the areas outlined by the noble Baroness—housing, education, transport and jobs—so that people can improve their lives. I will be delighted to go back to the department, not to suggest a round table but to say that we are having one.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, can I add another idea to my noble friend the Minister’s list? It is testament to the influence of your Lordships’ House that only last week I introduced a Bill on exactly this issue, which already has the backing of major corporates such as EY and Enterprise Holdings. They know that there must be a level playing field for rewarding and incentivising best practice. Will the Minister take this idea back not just to her department but to the Government as a whole, for incorporation in the forthcoming employment Bill, so that the mandatory gender pay gap reporting duty is extended to other protected characteristics, including disability?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

I am going to start singing “I’ve Got a Little List” in a minute. I congratulate the noble Lord on his tenacity in this area. His work on Able to Excel and his Private Member’s Bill were excellent. In 2018, the Government published a voluntary reporting framework on disability, mental health and well-being in the workplace, aimed at large employers—those with more than 250 employees. In November, we announced the new level 3 of Disability Confident. We must work with businesses to crack that 77% of people who want to work. Employers create jobs; we must work closely with them. My noble friend’s work will help with this. I will arrange for him to come in and do the sell on that one.

Universal Credit

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, in all that we are doing with universal credit we constantly question and consider issues of substantive policy, because we want to make sure that the system works for the long term. The Government want to support people to be self-employed but it is right for them to be financially self-sufficient. Key to this is continuing to support people in, or considering, self-employment to progress to a level of sustained financial self-sufficiency. We recognise that it takes time for new businesses to grow and that even established businesses can experience difficulties. We will therefore provide all gainfully self-employed claimants with an equal chance and support from specially trained work coaches to grow their earnings, and to prepare and adjust for the application of the minimum income floor. We were going to move the minimum income floor to six months after migration, but have decided to introduce a grace period of 12 months.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend mentioned the severe disability premium and the serious implications of not getting these regulations through. Will she confirm that these regulations support the most vulnerable claimants moving to universal credit and that, moreover, voting against them would deprive 500,000 claimants of that premium?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My noble friend is entirely right. I could not put it better myself. We have to make sure that we get these regulations through. If we do not, that support for half a million vulnerable people will be lost. The regulations provide transitional support for recipients of the severe disability premium while removing the complexity of dealing with different rules for seven different disability additions. We want to make sure that we take special care of those people when migrating them on to UC. As the CEO of Citizens Advice, Gillian Guy, said,

“improved protection for people who receive the Severe Disability Premium is a welcome move that will mean better financial security for many disabled people who move onto Universal Credit”.

We must have these regulations.

Benefits: Reductions

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, for securing this debate. I will focus my remarks on universal credit as it affects disabled people. However, first I join other noble Lords in paying warm tribute to Baroness Hollis of Heigham. No one could doubt her passionate commitment and her expert knowledge of the system. I think the House misses her deeply.

More than one-third of claimants moving on to universal credit—UC as it is more generally known—through a process of managed migration will be disabled people, so it is crucial that the Government get the regulations governing managed migration right, and I look forward to seeing the recommendations of the Social Security Advisory Committee on the regulations and the Government’s response shortly.

Notwithstanding that, it is important to reassure disabled claimants that the Government are determined not only that UC should be a success, but that UC should help most those who need most help. That is why I welcome the fact that around 1 million disabled people will gain, on average, £110 more a month through UC. I also welcome the fact that the severe disability premium transitional payment rates reflect the extra financial support provided through the more generous limited capability for work-related activity component. Indeed, the rate for these UC claimants is significantly higher, at £328.32 a month, than £163.15 per month on the equivalent employment and support allowance support group. Targeting support to the most vulnerable through the severe disability premium will benefit 500,000 people.

I also take comfort from the way the Government are listening and acting in response to issues raised by colleagues in the other place, such as the well-respected champion of social justice Iain Duncan Smith, who has publicly welcomed the Budget announcements on UC. The Government’s “test and learn” approach is surely wise because it allows them to make improvements to the system as it gradually rolls out. Changing the start date of the process of managed migration from January to July 2019 and focusing initially on a limited number of claimants should also provide reassurance to those who may be under the misleading impression that change will happen overnight. It is not.

As I spent nearly all of my working life in the charity sector before I entered your Lordships’ House, I have seen first-hand the excellent work that it does. I was therefore pleased to learn that the DWP is going to fund Citizens Advice to provide universal support to help those claimants who find the transition to UC challenging—for example, if they struggle to use online services. This is an excellent idea, and I encourage my noble friend and her fellow Ministers at the DWP to explore how other charities with a recognisable, trusted brand can help mitigate disabled people’s concerns about transition—for example, by contacting those who have not responded to successive communications, whether written or by phone, from the DWP.

I shall finish with a general point, which I have arrived at having listened to various contributions from the Benches opposite which I found really depressing because they were made in a vacuum of ideological deficit denial and a total inability to accept responsibility for the high level of debt that the profligacy of Gordon Brown visited upon this country as an enduring legacy of his spending. I simply say that that would become so much worse under the Marxist McDonnell Chancellor if Labour were to win the next general election.

My final point is that a failure to tackle that and to reduce the deficit poses the single greatest threat to disabled people’s security. When the welfare system becomes unsustainable, those who need the most help are the most vulnerable. Disabled people like me do not have the most to gain from reckless debt-creating spending. We have the most to lose.

Disabled People

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, for securing this debate and I look forward to the right reverend Prelate’s contribution.

At a time when everyone has had to tighten their belt to get the British economy back on its feet, it is important to acknowledge the immense generosity of the Great British taxpayer in helping disabled people like me to face the challenges that go with living with a disability. The latest data from the independent OECD shows that the UK’s public spending on disability and incapacity is the second highest in the G7 at 2% of GDP—a record £54 billion.

But if our message to taxpayers is “Thank you”, what might taxpayers’ message be to Government? I can hazard a guess: “Give us value for our money”. For me, that means honouring the promise of the Disability Discrimination Act in time for its 25th anniversary in 2020. We on these Benches claim to be the party of business, so let us enforce the DDA and ensure that the immense market opportunities of tapping the purple pound—disabled people’s spending power—are realised. Let us shift the dynamics of the disability debate and break the unsustainable cycle of dependency. To echo the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, and my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, let us optimise opportunity and help talented disabled graduates to emulate the success of their BAME and women counterparts by realising their potential in corporate boardrooms up and down the country.

What, then, is the message to disabled people about the challenges we face in 2018? Of course, every Government could spend more on benefits but that is by no means the biggest challenge we face. I realised that in the Republic of Ireland last month, I saw it in Argentina earlier this month and again on the Isle of Man only yesterday. In all three, the conspiracy of silence while majority votes were cast to make it easier for non-disabled people to terminate our existence before birth was shocking. So I say to colleagues, especially those with responsibility for women and equalities issues: do not patronise us by making it easier for non-disabled people to kill us simply for the crime of being diagnosed with a disability before birth, and then claiming it is all about equality. If equality has become so distorted that it now justifies a stronger group of human beings condemning another, weaker group to death for disability, right up to birth, we really are in trouble. I believe that this distortion of equality is the single biggest challenge we face because the statistics show that our very survival is under threat.

In conclusion, I ask my noble friend to convey to the Prime Minister and her ministerial colleagues that the Government are right to insist on devolution in Northern Ireland being respected because no human being is ever less human or less equal for being disabled—at any stage of their existence.

Family Relationships (Impact Assessment and Targets) Bill [HL]

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 23rd February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Farmer on securing a Second Reading of his Bill. The subject matter could not be more important, for the simple reason that without families there is no sustainable society. A breakdown in family relationships leads to, as some would say we are witnessing, a breakdown in society with massive, indeed unsustainable, financial, social and painful human costs. My noble friend Lord Farmer has already outlined this and the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, and the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope, alluded to it.

As I said in my noble friend’s debate on strengthening families in November 2017, I was delighted to be a co-signatory to A Manifesto to Strengthen Families. The measures that it advocates, of which this is one, are not just eminently sensible but essential. The family impact assessment is particularly important because, as has been explained, the voluntary nature of the family test and the rather haphazard way in which it has been applied suggest that it is unlikely to achieve the cultural change in policy-making that was originally intended.

That is surely the key point. We are embarking on positive, beneficial and non-judgmental cultural change, which recognises the family’s pivotal role as the foundation of a stable society. I stress that I completely accept the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, that families now come in all shapes and sizes. That is covered by paragraphs (a) to (g) of Clause 1(5) and by Clause 4. For the reasons set out, this Bill provides a crucial cornerstone to that process of cultural change because, without family impact assessments being conducted consistently across central and local government, establishing a cross-government family strategy, which is fundamental to strengthening families, is just not possible

The question is not so much why we should have family impact assessments on a statutory basis. It is, surely, why not? Indeed, how can we make measurable, cost-effective and sustainable progress towards stronger families and the stability that they bring without the measures proposed in the Bill? We only have to look at, for example, the mental health costs to teenagers of family breakdown to see that the growing instability caused by a systemic devaluation of the family comes at an extortionate price. The figure of £51 billion was mentioned by an earlier contributor to this debate. On the other hand, reversing that trend by strengthening families would be an extraordinary prize, which I thank my noble friend Lord Farmer for pursuing through his Bill. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The Bill deserves our wholehearted support.

Universal Credit

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Wednesday 21st December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I join in thanking my noble friend Lord Farmer for securing this timely debate. For me, perhaps the two greatest strengths of universal credit are its simplicity and flexibility, which my noble friend Lady Jenkin has already identified. Indeed, I have been struck by how much those two characteristics have been singled out for praise—for example, by the recruitment agency Blue Arrow and by individuals whose testimonies to the Department for Work and Pensions I have read.

It occurs to me that Parliament is often seen as a place where we tear bits out of each other, although, of course, never in your Lordships’ House. I wonder, therefore, whether it is all the more important that we give credit where it is due. By credit, I do not mean just the approximately 1,800 Parliamentary Questions that the House of Lords Library estimates my noble friend has answered, or the approximately 400 Statements that he has made, or even the countless hours he has enjoyed at the Dispatch Box during his time as a Minister since 2010. No, what I mean by credit is his record as a proud Conservative social reformer, who, along with Iain Duncan Smith, has translated the vision that work must always pay into reality, and as someone who has recognised that identifying the political imperative on its own is not enough. That is because the political impetus is also essential—the impetus that translates a vision from recognising that a policy is necessary to seeing it being implemented and rolled out. That requires political will. Therefore, there is much that we can, and should, learn from my noble friend because the Freud model of government so obviously works. Change is actually happening, and in the face of systemic inertia and, I suspect, sometimes denial that change is even necessary. That is surely a remarkable achievement.

I believe that just as the Disability Discrimination Act was the Conservatives’ greatest social reform of the 20th century, so universal credit will come to be seen as one of the Conservatives’ greatest social reforms of the 21st century. We should take pride in both and look to draw on my noble friend the Minister’s example of applying the political will and the drive so essential to implementing and rolling out our political and social reforms, whether that be universal credit, or, indeed, the Disability Discrimination Act—both matter. We should also appreciate that only when we roll them out and they are fully implemented can their benefits be fully realised. Surely that will represent a fitting and lasting tribute to my noble friend the Minister.

Poverty

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

There is a huge amount of work being done on the educational side, which is where this has to start—but clearly there is an element of remediation and later support beyond the school years. That is where, for instance, the apprenticeship programme, which is growing quite steeply, is really important.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, as someone who welcomes the Prime Minister’s commitment to social justice and improving life chances, and believes that he will leave a significant legacy to his successor, may I ask my noble friend what plans the Government have to help the most needy and vulnerable benefit recipients in future?

[Lord Freud]

One of the most valuable things I got from this House was during the passage of the Welfare Reform Act 2012, when we debated what to do for the most vulnerable in the context of UC. That led to the creation of universal support, whereby we join up with local authorities to try to provide services that join together. We have done that now for two of the barriers people face, in budgeting and in digital competence, and we are now exploring how to expand that approach, which shares information, data and support in relation to other barriers. We have some trials going on at the moment, one in Croydon and one in the London Bridge area, on how to do that most effectively.

Personal Independence Payment

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann]

The noble Baroness obviously makes a very well-informed point. I can assure the House that the Minister for Disabled People is actively working on this; we want to get it right. We are trying to improve the original assessment. Obviously it is in everyone’s interest to get the correct decision as early as possible, so we are now giving assessors an extra 10 working days to help applicants gather their information. Many appeals succeed because they produce new evidence that was not available at the time of the original assessment.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the fact that the Government recently facilitated a meeting between Atos, Capita and the Royal British Legion, where I was privileged to work as its head of public affairs. Will my noble friend join me in congratulating Charles Byrne on his appointment as the new director-general of the legion? Will she undertake to explore how more disabled people, such as injured veterans, might be encouraged to apply to be PIP assessors?

[Baroness Altmann]

I certainly join my noble friend in congratulating the new director-general. I have already been working on his excellent suggestion and have made inquiries about how many of our assessors are disabled. I am assured that applications for assessors are open to people regardless of disability. Indeed, we would welcome disabled people applying to be assessors as they would be very well placed to make these assessments, but we do not have the figures at the moment to be able to report to the House how many of our assessors are disabled.

Life Chances Strategy

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Farmer on securing this important debate. I thank him very much for the opportunity it gives me to put on record how heartened I was by the Prime Minister’s speech on life chances, to which other noble Lords have already referred. I particularly welcome the Prime Minister’s declaration that we need to think big, opening ourselves up to new thinking.

As someone with a severe disability, I would encourage those developing the strategy not just to include disabled people within it but also to think big about disability, especially on how we challenge the enduring, institutional prejudice which all too often makes disabled people victims of low expectations—both society’s and their own. In short, the strategy needs to be inclusive, because, as we all know, disability remains a major cause of disadvantage. An effective life chances strategy therefore has to include measures for how the life chances of the UK’s 11 million disabled people, particularly younger disabled people, can be improved.

I agree wholeheartedly with the Prime Minister that seeing through our long-term plan is not optional, because, for me, reducing the deficit is about protecting the long-term sustainability of the support on which many disabled people’s life chances depend. I think of schemes such as Access to Work, on which the Government currently spend around £100 million a year and through which approaching 40,000 disabled people are now helped through, for example, payments towards equipment needed at work. I welcome the fact that the recent spending review awarded a real-terms increase over the course of this Parliament to 25,000 new customers—almost 10,000 of them in the 18 to 34 age group.

It is that age group that I am particularly interested in because they are the ones who need to be helped to break the attitudinal glass ceiling which frequently holds them back. So often, disability is seen as synonymous with dependence; I dream of a time when, for those disabled people with the intellectual aptitude and potential, disability is seen as synonymous with excellence. Yes, Access to Work is crucial in the workplace, but so is thinking big on how we help ensure that talented young disabled graduates can take the practical steps necessary to live close enough to work and to get to work.

So my questions, not so much for my noble friend the Minister but for those drafting the life chances strategy, include: will the strategy include a package of cost-effective measures to empower disabled graduates to realise their professional and earning potential and their contribution to the economy and society? Will it identify non-workplace related barriers, such as parking outside their place of work in central London—an issue that local authorities could do so much to address?

The Prime Minister rightly argued that,

“children thrive on high expectations: it is how they grow in school and beyond”.

Talented disabled children are no different, but they need to be identified early on so that they can be given support and encouragement to excel as early as possible.

The Prime Minister touched on the important issue of equality when he said that a part of the strategy,

“must be to make opportunity more equal”.

But for that to happen, life chances must mean that babies, non-disabled and disabled, are given an equal opportunity, an equal chance to live. I ask my noble friend the Minister to read Dominic Lawson’s powerful article in Monday’s Daily Mail about his daughter who has Down’s syndrome and to urge her colleagues, who are currently considering whether to make it even easier for children with Down’s to be denied the chance to live, to read his article as well.