Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chloe Smith and Stephen Crabb

Monday 11th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her new position on the Front Bench. Given her work in the Select Committee, I am sure she will do an excellent job in the shadow role.

The 200,000 figure that the hon. Lady mentioned exactly points to what was wrong with the previous relative income approach, which her previous Government took to tackling poverty. When real wages grow, poverty rates increase, despite people’s incomes not falling. It is much more important to tackle the underlying causes of poverty—worklessness, educational failure, family stability, problem debt and addictions.

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will know that Norwich is challenged by social mobility as per the social mobility index of earlier this year. Does he agree with me that it takes all parts of the community to come together to address these kind of problems, including the private sector and the third sector, and that constituency MPs can also play a key role in leading these things?

[Stephen Crabb]

I agree absolutely with my hon. Friend. The work she has championed in Norwich is a good example of local action, showing where local MPs can indeed be the champions. Much as we might want to talk about national levels of poverty and social mobility, it is much more important to understand what is going on at a local level and to drive local action with effective partnerships.

Disability Employment Gap

Debate between Chloe Smith and Stephen Crabb

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

My right hon. Friend, a former Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, makes a really important point and that is an organisation that I would love to hear more from. That period of transition is crucial. Those charities—we all have them in our constituencies, do we not, Madam Deputy Speaker?—often have more expertise than anybody else and work day by day in local communities, supporting people with disabilities. We need to hear far more from organisations like that.

The pride and passion that I saw displayed yesterday among the staff at that social enterprise, employing people with learning disabilities in that wonderful community of Bermondsey in south London, was a model of motivation for supporting people with disabilities. These positive experiences are reflected in the figures. Over the past two years alone, 365,000 more disabled people have gone into work, and that is a huge achievement. However, that progress has not translated into a narrowing of the disability employment gap, largely because of the enormous growth across the labour market in general. The gap will close only when we see a faster increase in the rate of employment growth among people with disabilities than across the economy generally. That is how we close the gap.

The shadow Secretary of State lauded the fact that, on paper at least, the disability gap was narrower under Labour, but that was because unemployment was soaring across the economy. That is not the way to close the disability employment gap. We need to harness the positive progress across the economy and ensure that people with disabilities and long-term health conditions are at the front of the queue to benefit from those changes in economy.

[Chloe Smith]

I am very pleased that my right hon. Friend has come on to this point. Does this not echo the broader point about what we need to do about life chances, which is not to focus on transfers over an imaginary line but instead focus on the real underlying factors?

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend makes an important broader point about how we think about poverty and disadvantage. I think that we have come a long way as a Government and across society in understanding poverty. It is not just about chasing after a target on paper; it is about understanding what is going on behind the scenes and drilling down into root causes.

The disability employment gap is national but the support and solutions are, I believe, often local. Many Members on both sides of the House are doing excellent work to encourage and support disabled people in moving into work in their constituencies. One example of that is the holding of reverse job fairs, which are important events to link local employers with specialist disability organisations and help to create long-term job opportunities for disabled jobseekers. Jobcentres up and down the country are also on the frontline, supporting disabled people’s move into work, and we are more than doubling the number of disability employment advisers in jobcentres to provide specialist and local expertise to help disabled people enter employment.