Autism Employment: Buckland Review

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Touhig]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they intend to continue the work programme set out in the Buckland Review of Autism Employment.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Sherlock) (Lab)]

My Lords, we believe everyone should have an equal opportunity to work. In Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay, we committed to raising awareness of neurodiversity in the workplace. The Buckland review was independently led and explored the specific barriers that people with autism face when seeking employment and remaining in work, and it made some helpful recommendations to remove those barriers. We are exploring how to expand this to meet our commitment to provide the right support for all neurodiverse people to enter, remain in or return to employment.

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, just three in 10 autistic people are in employment. A report for Autistica found that doubling the employment rate of autistic people could boost the economy by £1.5 billion. I am sure that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, whose key mission is to kick-start economic growth, would welcome that. The Buckland report showed us a way forward, but recruitment of the task force to put forward the recommendations of the report was put on hold when the general election was called. Can the Government confirm that they will now go ahead and commence the recruitment?

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend is absolutely right about the shockingly low level of employment of autistic people. It is shocking to find that only about 35% of autistic employees feel able to be really open in work about being autistic—how can they develop, and how can the employers learn? We very much welcome the report from Sir Robert Buckland. The process had begun, in the sense that informal expressions of interest had been made about the task force, but the process was stopped by the general election. Ministers are meeting with Sir Robert Buckland next month to discuss the report’s recommendations and to look at expanding the scope to cover neurodiversity in general and not just autism. Recruitment for the task force is paused for the moment, but my department is working with colleagues across government to look at each of the recommendations under the five themes and to find ways in which we can apply that learning to neurodiversity in general.

People with Disabilities: Access to Services

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, I join others in the Chamber in thanking my noble friend Lady Hughes for securing this debate, which has given us an opportunity to raise a whole range of matters that affect people with disabilities. No one took greater advantage of that than the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson; so many of the things she talked about, which many of us in the Chamber take as quite normal and natural to use, present challenges to people with disabilities. We are grateful to her for that hugely important contribution.

In Britain today, fewer than three in 10 people of working age with learning disabilities are in employment. That means that seven in 10 are denied the opportunity of an independent life and the sense of life-fulfilling achievement that work can bring. Businesses across Britain are denied the benefit, enthusiasm, skills and commitment of this group of our fellow citizens. And it is not as if we are not aware of this injustice. It has been on our agenda for decades; Governments, including the present Government, have genuinely committed to reducing the disability employment gap. In 2017, the Government set the goal of helping 1 million disabled people into work by 2027 and, to be fair, there has been progress as a result—but it is simply not enough.

A year earlier, in 2016, the National Autistic Society, of which I am a vice-president, an honour I share with my noble friend Lady Browning, produced a report on the autism employment gap. The image on the front cover bears the words:

“I’m not unemployable, I’m autistic”.


This image makes me despair because, despite the Government’s good intentions, millions of people with learning disabilities and autism are still without a job. No matter our ambition to make a seismic change to help disabled people into employment, people with learning difficulties and autism still find it hugely challenging. I passionately believe that the right to a life with a job—an opportunity to be independent and self-supporting—is a basic human right. Those who are denied that are being denied their human rights.

In February, the chair of the Autism All-Party Group, Sir Robert Buckland, published a most detailed review of the employment of people with autism. Robert was my Conservative opponent when I was elected to the other place in a by-election in February 1995, and I have nothing but admiration for his commitment to supporting people with autism. For me, the recommendations in the report can be summed up in one sentence that Robert wrote:

“These recommendations are mostly aimed at changing employer behaviour”.


For me, that is the essence of the challenge we face—changing employer behaviour. If we want to reduce the level of unemployment among people with learning disabilities and autism, we must change employer behaviour.

I have spoken to many businesspeople about this and in almost every case there is a willingness to help, but also a reluctance. “How will my staff cope with working with a person with a learning disability?” I am asked. “What if they don’t fit in?” “What support do I have to provide for them?” “Is there any financial support for me to help employ a person with a learning disability?” “Are there any examples of where employing a person with a learning disability has worked out?” These are perfectly reasonable questions—and, in answer to the last question, yes, there are good examples of employers who have employed people with learning disabilities. I will mention two.

The Fair Shot Cafe in Covent Garden is well worth a visit. It is a social enterprise charity that aims to change the lives of young adults with learning disabilities and autism. It offers a year-long hospitality programme, training skilled baristas and cafe assistants. The cafe is an accredited London living wage employer. At the end of the year, it finds paid employment for its graduates and continues to support those graduates and the employer for a further six months. Since it was set up in December 2021, 36 young adults have been trained and are now in employment. More than 10,000 hours of training are completed each year, and the Fair Shot Cafe has 15 employment partners dedicated to creating inclusive opportunities for people with learning difficulties and autism. Its 2023 impact report estimates that the employment programme it is offering has saved the taxpayer £210,000 in benefits; 80% of their employment partners state that they would now employ another neurodivergent person; 100% of the graduates report increased confidence and improved mental health; and, moreover, the Fair Shot Cafe has a 4.8-star rating on Google. To learn more, look at its website or, better still, go there, have a cup of coffee and find out for yourself.

The phs Group is the leading hygiene services and commercial cleaning services provider in the UK. I visited its headquarters in Caerphilly a while ago. With help from Hft, an amazing learning disability charity, it operates the Project Search scheme. It recruits interns with learning disabilities and autism and offers training, with a view to them gaining full-time employment in a job at the end. The company say it has been a most valuable experience. For the students, what is on offer is life-changing. The phs Group first became involved in the programme as an initiative to give back something to the local community. The company told me that, as the interns learn from phs staff, they in turn provide just as many opportunities for phs staff to learn, develop and understand the problems that people with learning disabilities and autism face. By becoming mentors, phs staff are learning new skills every day, as well as learning about disability in the workplace. They learn how to make reasonable adjustments and remove any barriers faced by the interns. The phs Group says that the scheme brings diversity of individuals and thought, and, as evidenced by how many interns it offers permanent roles afterwards, a fantastic team of people to its staff. The phs Group says it is a better business because of this project, and would recommend that all businesses look into providing more opportunities to students like those it employs.

We need more companies like these two to operate similar work chance schemes, and we need companies such as these to act as mentors to encourage other companies. I believe we need a nationwide scheme to make real progress, and a national strategy with a clear and achievable objective. That objective can be summed up in a sentence: it is to change employer behaviour.

Employment: Disabled People

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Touhig]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have for new initiatives to encourage business and industry to employ disabled people.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)]

My Lords, a range of government initiatives are already supporting disabled people to start, stay and succeed in work. The Government are working to improve and better integrate resources for businesses, helping them to support and manage health and disability in the workplace. The Government are looking in detail at workforce participation, including discussions with business and industry, whose role is key to making the most of the talents of disabled people in the workforce.

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his helpful Answer; I will follow up on some of the points that he just made. Just 5% of adults with a learning disability are in work. One way to change this is by offering more supported internships; the charity Hft tells me that this helps business better understand the benefits of employing someone with a learning disability. However, the problem is that supported internships are available to people only up to the age of 25. Will the Government consider extending this scheme to include learning-disabled people over the age of 25, which would enable many more to get into work?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I appreciate the noble Lord’s question and the work that he does in this area. I can assure him that the Government are committed to reducing the disability employment gap, including in relation to the young and interns. It is important that those who have a disability are given every chance to start on the path to a career. What I cannot do, I am afraid, is commit to the noble Lord’s point about extending the scheme beyond the age of 25, but I have noted it and will take it back to the department.

Disabled People: Impact from Policies and Spending Cuts

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

We certainly keep this under review. The noble Baroness will know that SSP is administered and paid entirely by employers, at a rate of £99.35 per week. Employers are required to pay it, but as I say, this matter is kept under constant review.

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, we all know that the cost of living crisis and pressures on public services are affecting families across the country, but the impact on families with disabled children is particularly acute and often not well highlighted. What assessment have the Government made of the effect of their current spending plans on the level of support for disabled children and their parents?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I do not have any figures on disabled children but I can say that, in the year 2022-23, we will be spending around £65.7 billion on benefits to support disabled people and people with health conditions in Great Britain, including children. This is around 2.6% of GDP. Spending on the main disability benefits—PIP, DLA and attendance allowance—will be more than £7 billion higher in real terms than it was in 2010.

Covid-19: Youth Unemployment

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord that young people today face an unprecedented challenge in accessing the world of work, as well as the skills they need to help them succeed. We are working closely with DfE to clarify the relationship between skills and employment provision. The DWP and DfE have put guidance in place to ensure that young apprentices made redundant due to Covid-19 can continue their learning. I thank the noble Lord for raising the excellent work of the Fashion Retail Academy. There are many other sector work-based academies doing great work to help young people in these difficult times.

[Lord Touhig (Lab) [V]]

I declare an interest as a vice-president of the National Autistic Society. Just 15 in every 100 people with autism get a job, so good education is vitally important. Since the Covid outbreak, seven in 10 autistic children are having difficulty understanding or completing schoolwork and around half—half, my Lords—will see their academic progress suffer. Can the Minister say something about what the Government are doing to mitigate this, so that in the years ahead we do not see even fewer people with autism getting a job?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

The noble Lord is well-known and well-respected for his commitment to this particular difficulty that people face. I would like to assure the House that we are committed to helping everyone into work, including those who need extra and intensive support due to autism. In respect of educational input, I will speak to my noble friend Lady Berridge, and we will jointly come back to him to answer the specifics of that question. However, I can tell noble Lords this: we have recruited 150 employability coaches across Great Britain, and I have heard a number of success stories. These work coaches work particularly with vulnerable people. I can tell noble Lords that a youth employability coach in Dartford has supported a claimant with Asperger’s syndrome, helping him to secure an apprenticeship in tech support. We understand the challenge and we are on the case.

Disability Employment Gap

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Touhig]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made in reducing the disability employment gap.

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, in begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the National Autistic Society.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)]

My Lords, the employment rate for disabled people stands at 53.2%, having increased by 9.8 percentage points over the past six years. The employment rate gap between disabled and non-disabled people has fallen by 5.6 percentage points over the same period.

[Lord Touhig]

I welcome, as I am sure the whole House does, the improvement the Minister just told us about, but there has been no increase whatever in the number of autistic people in work—for the last 10 years. Just 16 in every 100 people who are autistic are in full-time employment. Addressing the lack of understanding about autism across business and industry is key to trying to solve this problem. Will the Government establish an information hub, providing employers with support and information to improve recruitment of autistic people? Could I tempt her to be even more daring and perhaps consider creating an autism accreditation scheme so that participating companies get full recognition for the efforts they put in?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

The noble Lord makes very accurate and real points. I spoke to the National Autistic Society this morning. Some 16% of autistic adults are in work and 32% of them are in some kind of paid work, but the real statistic is that 77% of unemployed autistic adults want to work. The noble Lord rightly pointed out that we must get to that figure. The disability hub is a great idea. I will go back to the department with yet another idea—their eyes roll now when I walk in, but I will do it. I will not be put off by that. I can confirm that the Government are also working with the Supported Business Alliance and the British Association for Supported Employment to help them develop a new quality mark for supportive businesses and develop a long-term element of access to work to continue the support. However, there is no doubt that we have a lot more to do and I will take both those ideas back to the department.

Employment and Support Allowance

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, let me make it clear that we do not believe that this is attributable to staff reductions at the Department for Work and Pensions. We still have over 70,000 employees. We have also been working hard to do more since 2010. Since this Government came to power, we have spent £5.4 billion a year more than we were doing in 2010 to support people with disabilities. We continue to do so while upping our game and, yes, demanding more from our employees, who are working extremely hard. That is to ensure that we have the proper resource and the staff to make sure that we can review all these cases at pace. We have already started making payments—over £40 million in arrears so far—so we are doing everything we can to ensure that people get the support they are entitled to and at pace.

Based on my meetings with the Minister of State for Disability and our Permanent Secretary, who made a robust case for delivery by our department in front of the Public Accounts Committee last week, I can say that the department is working hard. Yes, we are doing more, so noble Lords could say we are a little stretched, but we are proud of what we are doing and delivering. We want to get this right. On passporting benefits over to UC, we are making sure that people will not lose out in what they are entitled to.

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, in the part of Gwent where I was born, the letters “dwp” form a word. It is pronounced “dup” and means stupid or daft. Could that account for why the accounting officer at the Department for Work and Pensions says that he does not understand all the letters that his office sends to claimants? If the author of the letters does not understand them, how on earth are the claimants supposed to do so?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I hear noble Lords laughing but this is no laughing matter. I take great exception to the suggestion that I am working for anything that could be described as a dump. I am the lead Minister for the correspondence that goes out to claimants and we work through that correspondence with a fine-toothed comb to make sure it is in clear English, polite, responsive and on time. Since I have been in office, we have been at 100% in terms of our timing. We are doing everything we can to support so many people, particularly those with disabilities and health conditions, to improve and transform their lives. I therefore will not listen to the noble Lord talking about—

[Lord Touhig]

The department admitted it.

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, no, somebody in the department may have said something but, as far as I am concerned, I am proud to work for the Department for Work and Pensions.

Universal Credit

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister will remember the comments made last week by my noble friend Lord Low of Dalston and myself about the impact of universal credit on people with disabilities and autism. I am sure she will be familiar with it because I have also tabled some Questions. Can we live in hope that there will now be something positive to benefit people with disabilities and autism, because we certainly have not heard anything in the Statement today?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I want to make sure that I say the right thing. All I can say is that we are spending over £50 billion on disability, which is a record, and expenditure is going up. We spend over £50 billion a year on benefits to support disabled people and we are proud of that. Spending on people with health conditions is up by more than £7 billion since 2010. As a share of GDP, this is the second highest in the G7.

Almost 3.5 million disabled people are now in employment, which is really fantastic. We want to help as many disabled people as possible into work. They want to work and to be part of the world that they inhabit—that has to be our ultimate goal. But the noble Lord is right: we closed our debate last week with the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, saying that this is a work in progress. I entirely agree with her. It is a work in progress and it will continue to be until rollout in 2022.

Disabled People: Access to Work Fund

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Touhig]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of the Access to Work fund and what plans they have to help people with disabilities into work.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Altmann) (Con)]

My Lords, last year Access to Work helped more than 35,000 disabled people to work, including almost 2,000 into self-employment. Disabled people and stakeholders consistently tell us of the effective support that Access to Work offers. A wide range of employment support programmes underpins our success. We are building on this by launching specialist employability support, expanding the Disability Confident campaign, extending work choice and expanding the use of our Access to Work mental-health support service.

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, an Access to Work grant is a lifeline helping disabled people to find a job and stay in work, so I am sure I was not alone in being surprised last week when the Minister for Disabled People seemed almost to boast about the fact that his department had underspent the fund’s budget by £3 million last year. In those circumstances, will the Minister tell the House why the Government are cutting the grant that disabled people can receive under the fund and why they have failed to publicise the fact that the fund even exists? How will this help the Government to honour their pledge to cut the number of unemployed people by 50%?

[Baroness Altmann]

My Lords, Access to Work is not being cut. We are introducing a cap, which means that the resources available can support growing numbers of people. We are determined to reduce the disability employment gap by half and to spend more money on these programmes. It is a demand-led programme. The cap will ensure that we can reach far more people, and, indeed, we did just that over the past year.

Personal Independence Payments

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Touhig]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many people are awaiting assessment for personal independence payments.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)]

I am pleased to update the House that the average claimant is waiting 14 weeks for an assessment. This is within the 16-week target set by the Secretary of State. In any high-volume business, we would always expect to have a significant number of cases moving through the system at any one time.

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, anyone making an application for a PIP assessment today will have time for 16 return journeys to the moon or 35 flights around the world before they will get their assessment. In fact, they would be back in Britain a week before their assessment was due. The timeframe announced by the Minister is simply not acceptable. However, when this was debated in the Commons in January, a number of Members of Parliament said that when they intervened the process was reduced considerably. Is the system so broken that the best way to get a short and quick interview for a PIP assessment is to involve a Member of Parliament? What does he say to his own independent reviewer, Paul Gray, who said that the delays were doing a disservice to disabled people and their families?

[Lord Freud]

The backlogs that we suffered earlier have been reduced very substantially. The 14-week wait I referred to is down from 30 weeks in June 2014. We are now putting through 52,000 cases a month.