Improving Lives: Work, Health and Disability Green Paper

Cheryl Gillan Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

The hon. Lady makes a reasonable point. GPs will play a significant role in the system, and we want the role they play to be as constructive as possible. We have looked at ways of changing the system so that GPs can be involved earlier. The reason for the consultation on the changes to the fit note is precisely to find a way of making the fit note help the person concerned back into work without adding to the burden on GPs. We want everyone involved in the system to feel they are playing a part in helping someone to get back into work.

[Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

I too extend a warm welcome to the Green Paper. Within the next hour, we will launch, with the National Autistic Society, a report entitled “The autism employment gap”, which shows that only 16% of people on the autism spectrum are in full-time employment. That gap is bigger than the disability employment gap. I welcome the personalised support to which my right hon. Friend has referred. Will he say more about how he will tailor it to meet the individual needs of autistic people in particular?

[Damian Green]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for her kind remarks. I congratulate her on all the work she has done over many years in Parliament for those on the autism spectrum. I am pleased to tell her that we will have 1,100 specialists in autism services in Jobcentre Plus premises. She is quite right that we should never assume that disabled people are in any way homogenous: people have different needs and different requirements. She will know better than anyone that the needs of those on the autism spectrum are specific, and that they therefore need to be dealt with in a personal and specific way.