Supporting Disabled People to Work Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Work and Pensions
Barry Sheerman
Main Page: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)Department Debates - View all Barry Sheerman's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
Supporting Disabled People to Work
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Justin Tomlinson
Our support for people with disability benefits is now at £55 billion, up £10 billion in real terms since 2010. That is a record high. The amount that we are spending on employment support for those with disabilities is showing a real-terms increase following the spending review and will continue to do so.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I hope that the Minister would agree that this is a bit of a wake-up call, but what the Government have been doing is not all bad and I welcome some of the moves that are happening. As chair of the Westminster Commission on Autism, may I offer more of a partnership? The neuro-diverse community and people on the autism spectrum are differently abled. We have some wonderful organisations such as AchieveAbility and Genius Within that are going out looking for people who are a bit quirky in their thinking, who think differently. The gig economy and some of the techy areas are looking for these people. They are very valuable assets and we need to encourage them. Will the Minister meet some of these people, whom I can introduce him to?
Justin Tomlinson
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who has done a huge amount of work in this area. These are the sorts of points that were picked up in the Maynard review. We have worked very closely with a lot of the leading autism charities. They rewrote the training guidance for our frontline staff and fed into the autism toolkit within jobcentres. He is absolutely right: if employers are savvy and look at their skills gaps so that they can match them to the huge amount of talent and potential of people with autism, they will benefit. That is the key message to employers. We are not looking for favours; we are looking for a win-win for the disabled individual and the business.