Autism Employment: Buckland Review
Viscount Younger of Leckie Excerpts(2 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I confess that I have learned a lot about this in the last week. There is a huge range of schemes and support out there. For example, DWP has specialist coaches—people who can support our work coaches and work with people with autism who want to move into jobs or develop them. We have schemes of all kinds, such as internship schemes for young people with autism and other disabilities. We have ways of working directly with people and supporting them. We have schemes with employers, and there is Access to Work, through which people can apply for support directly. DWP is trying to make all the work we do as tailored as possible to individuals, so that we can give people the support they need to get them into a job, keep it, progress in it and stay there.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, the previous Government saw it as a vital priority, on the back of the key recommendation from the Buckland review, to work with employers to encourage more employment of autistic people, which has been mentioned. How will the Government’s recent decision to change the PIP and WCA assessments under the new Health Assessment Advisory Service affect such progress, particularly as the Minister’s letter of 6 September states that there will be “an impact on service levels”?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, as I took over as Minister from the noble Viscount, I am sure that he is quite aware of the contracting issues that led to the decisions that were made in the department.
Probably the single most important thing when dealing with somebody with autism or another disability coming forward is that the person who assesses the health condition is properly trained and has the resources needed to make an appropriate assessment. As of yesterday, we have brought the educational material for all our healthcare assessors in-house, so that we can control the quality, make sure we train people well and support them well, so that when they are making these important decisions about whether someone is entitled to support or not, they are able to understand what they are hearing, and the person can come forward and get the best possible support at the next stage. We are committed to supporting disabled people of all kinds into work, and we will make that a reality.
Pension Credit
Viscount Younger of Leckie Excerpts(2 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
The noble Lord makes an important point and I am grateful to him for doing so. Certainly, a significant number of pensioners do claim pension credit—1.4 million have managed to claim and do get it as a result. So, our job is to get the next surge of people to do that. DWP has a big campaign on: we had a week of action last week, and we work with partners such as charities and local authorities to go out and promote the campaign. From next week, we are running a national marketing campaign on a range of channels, including national print and radio. We will be targeting people of pension age but also friends and family, who can encourage them to apply. It can be tough, but sometimes we need to make people understand that there is lots of help out there. They can call the department free of charge and get charities to help them. If people are really stuck, we have a DWP home visiting team, which will visit the vulnerable and help them make a claim. So I urge all noble Lords: by all means let us have the fight in here, but please put the word out and let us get people to claim what they are entitled to.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, allied to pension credit, the Government find themselves firmly between a rock and a hard place on this ill-judged decision to cut the winter fuel payment. On the one hand, if there is a substantial increase in the uptake of pension credit—and of course, we are all for that—the figures show that the increased costs will all but wipe out the net gain of £1.4 billion that the Treasury expects through the cut. On the other hand, with a poor or low uptake, it is apparent that many more of the most vulnerable pensioners will be hit. What mitigating measures are the Government looking at to reduce the impact of this decision, and when will they be announced and introduced? Mitigating measures there will need to be—and even better would be to see a reversal of the whole policy.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord is talking about take-up. As I said, the best estimate of pension credit take-up as a whole is 63%: that is 63% of the number of people who could be claiming pension credit who we think are getting it. The amount of pension credit that is taken up is quite a bit higher than that, nearer to almost three-quarters of the total amount claimed. The challenge for us is to make sure that those who do not claim it do get it. However, the big difference this will make is this: if you are on the basic state pension and not claiming pension credit, you will get not just an extra £200 or £300 in winter fuel payments; you could get thousands of pounds in pension credit itself. Our job is therefore to make it as easy as possible for people not just to get this smaller amount, but to get the bigger amount as well, so let us all try to do that.
European Social Charter
Viscount Younger of Leckie Excerpts(3 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
Nice try. Just to clarify, I should say that I was not talking about resources in terms of ratification. To ratify a treaty is to agree to be bound by its provisions. If UK domestic law and practice will not meet those provisions, the UK cannot ratify a treaty only to find that it would be instantly in breach of it. That is what this is about; it is not about resources. However, on the question of pension credit, we are in the middle of a week of action in which the Department for Work and Pensions is working with local authorities and other partners to encourage pensioners across the country to apply for pension credit. We are developing new plans to go further through the winter. We want everybody who is entitled to it to get pension credit, and will be out there working to make sure that they do.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
The noble Baroness mentioned the employment rights Bill. Many businesses are already facing uncertainty given these government plans to introduce French-style employment laws. The additional protocol of the European Social Charter is supposed to be a human rights protection system for social and economic rights, organised on a collective basis, providing a fast and effective procedure to support the charter. Will she agree that it is actually slow, very bureaucratic, expensive and acts as a chilling factor for businesses, which are struggling to raise their productivity?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, if the noble Viscount is talking about the additional protocol, I should say that the UK is one of a majority of about two-thirds of states which are party to the European Social Charter that have not adopted the additional protocol. I expect he will know that, having done my job until about 20 minutes ago. It is not because we have any objection to engaging with social partners, but because we regard the current system, in which reports are made by national Governments indicating their compliance with the provisions of the charter, to be adequate.