Access to Jobs: Disabled People

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas) for securing the debate. He spoke powerfully about his constituent who has been personally affected by the decision taken in the last Parliament to close the Remploy factories. As many of us predicted at the time, that move has had a devastating impact on the lives of those directly involved, the vast majority of whom have been unable to move into alternative employment. That has been the case for Margaret and others we have heard about today.

Few would disagree with the aspiration of the Sayce review of supporting disabled people into mainstream employment, but that has proved much easier to hypothesise than actually to deliver. Too many disabled people who are seeking work find it difficult to enter the labour market or to access the kind of support that they need to help them to sustain employment.

Let us not forget, however, that about half of disabled people of working age are in work, most of them in mainstream jobs. Obviously, there are some disabled people whom we cannot expect to work, but there are also disabled people currently not in work who could, with the right support and workplace adjustments, overcome the disadvantages that they face in the labour market, and we have heard about many of them today.

We should also remember, though, that access to employment for disabled people takes place in a wider economic context. For instance, I do not think that the closures of the Remploy factories really took account of the economic situation at the time, or the local economies in those areas where the factories were based. In most cases, there have been scant opportunities for those people since the factories closed.

Disabled people are far more likely to be in work in times and places where jobs are plentiful. It is always easier to find a job in an area of low unemployment than in an area where many people are chasing every vacancy. The barriers facing disabled people are sometimes related less to their disability than to prospective employers’ preconceptions about what they can and cannot do. We therefore need to acknowledge that although disabled people have certain legal protections in work, getting a job in the first place is often much more difficult, especially for those who disclose invisible or fluctuating conditions, like those alluded to by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), or for those whose health conditions have left them with a patchy work history. We need to be honest with ourselves in this place about the extent of the disadvantage affecting disabled people in the labour market.

It is very difficult in a short debate such as this to do justice to such a broad topic, but as the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) reminded us, the Government had a manifesto commitment to halve the disability employment gap and now need to bring forward a credible strategy on how they intend to do so. At present, disabled people are disproportionately employed in the public and third sectors. Many are in organisations that have active equal opportunity policies in place and monitor the recruitment and retention of disabled staff. Unfortunately, parts of the private sector have not always kept pace with that, but one way for Government to make a difference, proposed by Disability Rights UK, is to ensure that businesses above a certain size monitor and publish data on the numbers of disabled people they employ. Many good employers do that already, but it would be a proportionate and effective way to improve access to work and would possibly help to tackle the direct and indirect discrimination that too many people who are disabled experience in the workplace.

The barriers to work for disabled people mean that the support that we offer through the social security system is all the more vital, but unfortunately the record of the last few years has been pretty abysmal in that regard, as we have heard, particularly in relation to the Work programme. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) pointed out, one third of disabled people in the UK live below the poverty line. That is about 3.7 million people. At a time of improvement in the labour market, the number of disabled people living in poverty actually increased last year. The shift from disability living allowance to personal independence payment has also meant that people with significant disabilities are losing eligibility for support. For many disabled people in low-paid jobs, such support enables them to stay in employment, so the clawback is counterproductive. Meanwhile, the Government’s plan to cut £30 a week from the support given to people in the work-related activity group—people who are not currently fit for work—is just vindictive.

This has been a timely debate, with substantial contributions on both sides. The Government are not doing enough to support disabled people’s access to employment, and I hope that Ministers will take on board the concerns raised today and bring forward the promised disability employment strategy as soon as possible.

I have a final request for the Minister. Will he reintroduce the “access to elected office” fund to enable more disabled people to enter political life? We have heard this afternoon that around one in five people in our society are disabled according to the definition in the Equality Act 2010, and it would be better if this place reflected that fact more accurately.