Work, Health and Disability

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her question and pay tribute to the work that she does on autism, including the work that she has done for many years now as chair of the all-party autism group. Yesterday she published a very good report on the issue and we are studying its contents closely. She highlights this issue. That is the challenge: we have made progress across the board, but is there more to do? Absolutely; there is more to do. She highlights the employment gap for those with autism. That is something that we do have to address as a society.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance notice of the statement.

The SNP is extremely disappointed in the statement and the Command Paper that have been produced today. We believe that the UK Government, as a priority, need to reverse the cuts they have made to these benefits and need to scrap the freeze on benefits, because they are harming people.

Mencap has released a statement that says:

“We are alarmed that the needs of hundreds of thousands of people with mild or moderate learning disabilities have been overlooked.”

The Government seem to have abandoned their pledge to halve the disability employment gap, and the gap is even worse for those people who have learning disabilities.

The Disability Benefits Consortium has said:

“We are extremely disappointed that they have chosen to focus on the design of ESA, instead of the broken Work Capability Assessment.”

Sixty-eight per cent. of those challenging their work capability assessment results are successful in that challenge. The system is discredited and broken. We want to see the UK Government committing to scrapping the work capability assessment. We want to see them committed to putting in a new system that puts fairness, dignity and respect for disabled people at the absolute heart of the system.

[Mr Gauke]

First, in response to the hon. Lady’s comments on behalf of the SNP, I know that the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), has spoken to Scottish Government Ministers today and got a much more constructive response. It is the launch of the innovation fund for the Dundee gateway today and we look forward to working closely with the Scottish Government in a constructive manner.

We have consulted on the work capability assessment. It is not clear that there is consensus at this point as to the way in which the work capability assessment should be reformed, but we acknowledge that there are improvements that should be made. We have indeed made improvements in how the work capability assessment works; for example, those with severe long-term disabilities will not be reassessed in the way that they were previously. So we continue to make improvements on that. If we can reach consensus on the way in which the work capability assessment should be reformed, I will be happy to proceed with that.