People with Learning Disabilities: Employment

Lee Anderson Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

I thank the House for allowing me to have this important Adjournment debate on a subject that is close to my heart and those of my constituents and my family. When the welfare state was introduced in 1949, just a few years after the second world war, probably over 90% of disabled people in this country had a job—they went to work. There were a number of reasons for that. I think it was mainly because we were short of labour after the war—a lot of men did not come back—and there was a need for people to rebuild the country, so lots of people had to go into the workplace. But there was also a lot of support in place for people to go to work under the new welfare state system.

We have some similar challenges right now. We have probably got over a million vacancies, and we have lots of people out there who are quite prepared to do the work but need a little bit of extra support in getting the skills and doing the job from day to day. Nowadays—the Minister may correct me later—the proportion of disabled people in the workplace is probably about 60% to 65%. That is a lot less than back in the 1940s, so maybe we could learn some lessons from the past.

We can talk about physical disabilities because we can see them. We can see people who are injured—those who have got a bad back or a bad leg—and all sorts of physical disabilities. Governments and employers have come on a long way in the past 20 or 30 years to make reasonable adjustments in the workplace to ensure that people can do a decent day’s work, have a decent job and play a part. In this debate, I want to concentrate on people with learning difficulties.

Whenever I talk about stuff like this, I always think about this young lady in Ashfield. Her name is Jossie. She is seven, and this month—I think on 17 December—she will be eight. Jossie has Down’s syndrome. Jossie is not alone—she will not be alone, because probably 900,000 people of working age in this country have learning difficulties. Jossie’s mum tells me that although great strides have been made in our educational system throughout the years, there are still a lot of problems and barriers when it comes to transitioning from education to the workplace. She says that more needs to be done.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this matter forward. I spoke to him before the debate. He is right that there are 870,000 working-age adults with a learning disability in the UK. Only 26.7% of them are in the workforce, so less than a third are in paid work. There is often a stigma whereby those suffering from certain types of disabilities feel that they are not capable of applying for certain jobs. Does he agree—I am sure he will say yes—that more can be done in schools to instil in young people with disabilities that their future career choices are not limited just because they have a disability? That could be taught through work experience opportunities. In other words, give them a chance to do better—we can do that.

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[Lee Anderson]

I thank the hon. Member—my friend—for that. He makes, as usual, an intelligent contribution, and I totally agree. I am a strong believer that everybody in this country, regardless of disability or background, is good at something and that they can make a contribution to this great country of ours and to society. They can go to work, or they can work from home—they can do something.

Historically, far too many people with learning difficulties have had a label given to them. I have seen—a lot of people in this place have probably seen this—people who have been called “stupid”, “thick” or “not worthy”, or it has been said, “They can’t have a job like the rest of us. They can’t communicate properly.” That is just wrong. Like I said before, everybody can make a contribution. Everybody can do something and have a stake in society.

Jossie’s mum Steph told me that the most important thing for young people with learning difficulties is that each person be individually assessed to ensure that the right opportunities are provided in accordance with their abilities, and she is right. She said that it is important to get the balance right, not to under or overestimate a person’s capabilities and to make sure that the right opportunities are available. That is right; we should ensure that the right opportunities are available, especially for young people, to make the transition from education to the workplace. There has to be more support for those people. People with a learning disability have a right to work and to have a stake in society. They have a right to equal pay, opportunities, career progression and support at work.

As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, more than 870,000 working-age adults in the UK have a learning disability, but less than a third—26.7%—are in paid work. That is the lowest employment rate for any health condition or disability. Many people with a learning disability want to go to work. On a weekly basis, I see people who want that extra bit of support to go into the workplace. Mencap, a charity I support, does some great work in this area. One of its surveys found that 86% of unemployed people with a learning disability wanted a paid job. That is a staggering number of people. They do not want to stay at home and do nothing; they want to make a contribution.

Some 45% of respondents who did not have a paid job cited worry about their benefits as a barrier to getting one. I completely understand that. Some 35% of respondents who did not have a paid job cited lack of support to look for work as a barrier. Some 23% of those without a paid job who would like one identified inaccessible application forms as preventing them from getting work. It is terrible that people with disabilities who want to go to work find barriers in the way. Hopefully, the Minister can address that in his speech.

[Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

I am listening with great interest to my hon. Friend’s speech. He is right to talk about the barriers, which include interview processes and retaining people with disabilities. Does he agree that common-sense changes to interview procedures, such as practical, show-and-tell interviews rather than an inquisitorial ordeal, would suit the talents of people with learning disabilities far better than the old-fashioned, conventional ways, which are real barriers to fulfilling their potential?

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[Lee Anderson]

My right hon. and learned Friend is spot on. People of any age with learning difficulties face barriers. When we interview people, we should not always treat people equally; we should treat them fairly. What might be a fair interview for one person is not always fair for another.

We have some great initiatives in this country. I do not agree with the idea peddled by certain groups and some politicians that people with any disabilities will be forced into a certain group and forced into paid employment, or have their benefits sanctioned or income reduced. That is scaremongering and political point scoring. We need to rise above that, because this is about encouraging people with disabilities to be in the workplace. Work is not a punishment; it gives us all a stake in society and is a good thing. On the whole in this country, people might not enjoy their job so much some days, but they enjoy getting up in the morning, going to work and having the routine. Why should people with disabilities be any different? Why should we treat them differently?

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

The hon. Member is making a powerful contribution. In my constituency, we have a number of good examples of companies and organisations that have embraced the spirit of employing those with disabilities. Café IncredABLE is a social enterprise that is leading the way in facilitating training, employment and meaningful daytime activity for individuals with a learning difficulty or autism. Given the benefit that social enterprises bring to the lives of those who participate in them, does the hon. Member agree that the Government should further support them so that more can be rolled out across our constituencies?

[Lee Anderson]

The hon. Lady makes a valid point. There is always more that Governments and local authorities can do, and thank goodness for the charity sector. Charities that support people with learning disabilities do great work.

We have a project called Rumbles in Nottinghamshire that runs two cafés, one outside my constituency and one in Ashfield on Sutton Lawn. It has been running for about 15, 16 or maybe 17 years and was set up to help people with learning disabilities. There are a couple of paid staff who train young people with special educational needs or learning difficulties in cooking, cleaning, doing the washing, serving people and operating the till. Those are great skills for young people with learning difficulties. It gets them out of the house, and gives their parents and families some respite. They get out and learn new skills and mix with people, making new friends. It is absolutely brilliant that we have these initiatives locally.

However, we have a slight problem and the Minister might be able to help me with it, because he came to visit the café earlier this year. This service, which is a lifeline to people and their families, faces the axe. This brilliant facility is facing closure after about 17 years in operation. The charity was paying the council a peppercorn rent of just a few hundred quid a year, I believe it was, but the council decided that it is such a good business it wants to put the rent up to £7,000 a year and it also expects the charity to maintain the public toilets next door at a cost of £10,000 a year. The charity has agreed to pay the £7,000 and it has some extra support to do that, but that is still not good enough for the local authority. The local authority does not realise that if this place closes and goes into the private sector, the young people with learning disabilities will have nowhere else to go. If this place goes, they cannot do their training and their work or meet their friends. I hope the Minister might be able to help and steer me in the right direction on how to convince our local authority to keep this lifeline open.

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a really good point. Rumbles café—there are several across Nottinghamshire—does fantastic work with young people with learning disabilities, getting them into the workplace and supporting them. Does he agree that it is slightly strange that Ashfield District Council says that the closure of the café and kicking them out of the building is about the money, when only a few years ago the councillors spent five or six times as much to give themselves extra cabinet jobs and put it in their own pockets?

[Lee Anderson]

My hon. Friend is quite right—I forgot about this—that just a few years back, this same bunch of councillors created five extra cabinet positions when they first got elected, at a cost of about £60,000 and then created a political officer position at a cost of another £30,000. That is £80,000 or £90,000 there, so their maths do not stack up. In fact, their maths do stack up when it comes to giving themselves hefty pay rises, so maybe they should take a long, hard look in the mirror. I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.

Rumbles café has helped literally hundreds of people across Ashfield over the years. I want to give a special mention to a lady called Helen Storer. She is 60 years old, bless her, and she lives in Selston. She has special educational needs—she says herself that she has her own difficulties—but she lives independently, on her own. She relies on the support of good neighbours and good friends in the community—it is a cracking community—and she worked at Rumbles. She volunteered there, learned new skills and made friends. She learned how to cook and other life skills, such as how to do housework and stuff like that, and she absolutely loved the place. It brought her on leaps and bounds.

Places like this are a lifeline. It should not be about making huge amounts of money. We should put people before profit in these sorts of situations. Look—it does make money, but it goes back into the caff to help support people to learn those new skills to live independent lives. It has no shareholders, just honest hard-working folk who are doing the best for people with special educational needs in the community.

I have said it before, and sometimes I get a little bit of opposition to trying to get people into work, especially disabled people. It is not cruel to get disabled people back into work. Most people, as we know from Mencap’s own figures, want to work and want to get into the workplace. It is up to us as a responsible society to try to give the support they need to get in the workplace and have a stake in society. I often think about little Jossie and her mum and dad, and the challenges they face. When parents have a little girl of six or seven who has got her difficulties, they are always thinking, “What’s going to happen to that little girl when she leaves school?” They want that little girl to have lots of opportunities. They want her to live independently and to be able to make some of her own decisions and just do the simple things in life—to go out and shop, run the house, budget, have friends and have a social life. That is so important. Not everybody like Jossie can live an independent life, but a lot can, and it is important that as a society we support these people.

We are very good at giving benefits away in this country to people, and rightly so—people need that financial support. With rent and council tax support, personal independence payment or disability living allowance, employment and support allowance and other bits and bobs, a single person with learning difficulties can maybe get up to 25 grand a year through the benefits system. I always say that if we can pay somebody on benefits 25 grand a year for being sat at home, surely we can pay them that for going to work, whether the support is from a charity, a Government-funded agency or whatever.

I am going to close on that. Once again, Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. This is a subject close to my heart, and I know from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) that it is close to his heart as well. I look forward to seeing what the Minister has to say.

Work and Pensions

Lee Anderson Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2023 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from the Work and Pensions questions on 13 November 2023.

[Lee Anderson]

I visit businesses on a weekly basis, and one thing they tell me in Ashfield is that they struggle to recruit apprentices. One of the barriers is the requirement for English and maths, because a lot of these young people would make great apprentices but they either messed about at school or have not had that support. What more can we do to get those young people into apprenticeships, and then support them with their maths and English at a later stage?

[Mims Davies]

We fund apprentices to achieve English and maths qualifications by the end of their apprenticeships. We understand how important they are for people’s long-term career prospects, and we are boosting the rate for those qualifications by 54% from January. We are also piloting flexible English and maths requirements for young people with learning difficulties or disabilities, to ensure that they are not overlooked when it comes to apprenticeship opportunities.

[Official Report, 13 November 2023, Vol. 740, c. 366.]

Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies).

An error has been identified in my response to my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson). The correct response should have been:

Oral Answers to Questions

Lee Anderson Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for her question, and for her robust championing of Conservative values and support for businesses and jobs in her constituency and across Essex. We at the DWP are working across Government to ensure that we consider different ways of supporting jobs, investment, childcare support, higher-paid skills and pathways into work. The views of my right hon. Friend are strongly put, and I am quite sure that Treasury Ministers and the Chancellor will have taken due notice.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

11. What steps his Department is taking to reduce youth unemployment.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)]

The level of youth unemployment is down by 43.8% since 2010, and this Government remain committed to delivering targeted support to young people through our expanded DWP youth offer, providing comprehensive employment support for 16 to 24-year-olds claiming universal credit. That offer includes intensive support through the youth employment programme, youth employability coaches and youth hubs across Great Britain.

[Lee Anderson]

I visit businesses on a weekly basis, and one thing they tell me in Ashfield is that they struggle to recruit apprentices. One of the barriers is the requirement for English and maths, because a lot of these young people would make great apprentices but they either messed about at school or have not had that support. What more can we do to get those young people into apprenticeships, and then support them with their maths and English at a later stage?

[Mims Davies]

We fund apprentices to achieve English and maths qualifications by the end of their apprenticeships. We understand how important they are for people’s long-term career prospects, and we are boosting the rate for those qualifications by 54% from January. We are also piloting flexible English and maths requirements for young people with learning difficulties or disabilities, to ensure that they are not overlooked when it comes to apprenticeship opportunities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lee Anderson Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

The Rumbles café in Sutton-in-Ashfield does marvellous work with people with Down’s syndrome, helping to train them and get them back into the workplace. People with Down’s syndrome are living longer and more independently, but they are struggling to get into the workplace, so what more can the Government do to help people with Down’s get into the workplace?

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Perhaps we could organise a visit so that I can see this organisation for myself. I had a really rewarding visit to Bristol just before Christmas, where I saw the huge difference made by work experience opportunities organised and facilitated by charitable organisations. I would be delighted to visit.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lee Anderson Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

The right hon. Gentleman is inviting me, in a whole host of areas, to break with what has been a very long-standing and quite correct convention that Ministers simply do not provide a running commentary about what may or may not be in a major fiscal event. However, he has my personal assurance that when and as it is appropriate to pass him information of that kind, he will be the first to know.

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

T6. Now then: last week in Parliament, I met a young lady called Florence who has Down’s syndrome. She told me that she has five paid jobs and three voluntary jobs, because she is trying to get into the workplace, and she is coming across lots of barriers. Does the Minister agree that we should do more to help people with special educational needs, like Florence, to get into the workplace? What better place to start than right here in Parliament?

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Tom Pursglove)]

I strongly agree. Programmes such as the Access to Work scheme have supported the Government in meeting five years early their commitment to see a million more disabled people in work in the decade to 2027. We want to create more of those opportunities—in which spirit, I commend Florence for her determination. As a Government, we are determined to help her to succeed.

Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill

Lee Anderson Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me so early in the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker; it is a great privilege.

There will be no surprise that I welcome this Bill, which will help millions of families during these very difficult times. The Labour party thinks that the only way to help families is to just keep increasing benefits, but working-class people in places such as Ashfield are a bit more savvy than that. They realise that we make families better off by increasing opportunities through the job market, and education and training, which leads to promotion and better job prospects.

For the purposes of this debate, we need to go back in history a bit, to the end of the ‘90s, when Tony Blair came into government and introduced something called the tax credit system. Although at the time it seemed an incredibly kind thing to do, we are now feeling the unintended consequences. It has damaged businesses and damaged the prospects of millions and millions of people throughout the UK. I will give the House a good example.

A friend of mine refused to work more than 16 hours for over 10 years because she was a single parent. However, that backfired when her daughter got to 18 and my friend lost all her tax credits, her child benefit and her child support. Now we have a lady in her 40s who has, overnight, just lost half her weekly income, and she is stuck in a low-skilled, low-paid, minimum-wage job. She has never upskilled, despite her employer wanting her to upskill for years and years, so she has missed out on that career development, which could have led to a better job and less dependency on benefits, all because she did not want to work more than 16 hours a week.

This Government are trying to fix things like that with the universal credit taper, which will now allow people like my friend to work more hours and get a better paid job without it affecting their income as much as it would have affected hers all those years ago. That is the way to tackle poverty and help to people achieve their goals, but what Labour did is trap people—millions of people—into just having 16-hour—[Interruption.] Opposition Members can shake their heads and chunter away, but it is true. I know hundreds of people in Ashfield who were trapped in 16-hour-a-week jobs, and what good has it done them, years later? Ten years later, they are still in a minimum-wage or living-wage job, they have not upskilled and they have not moved any further, and they lose all their benefits when their children leave school. That is not progress.

The answer that the Labour party had, when all these people were stuck in 16-hour jobs and we could not get them to work a full-time job, was simple: open the floodgates and import cheap foreign labour, which is what happened. Twenty years later, we have a failed migration policy and a failed benefits policy, which has led to millions of people being trapped in a poverty cycle. We have spent the last 12 years trying to put right this mess and it is not easy when people are trapped in a poverty cycle —[Interruption.] Lots of Members on the Opposition Benches are grinning, but I will crack on.

Our benefits system in the UK is very generous—[Interruption.] It is generous. I will give an example. If my friend was a single parent now, living in Ashfield with two children and working 16 hours a week on the living wage, she would be getting £18,000 a year in universal credit and £6,000 or £7,000 a year in wages, which is an income of about £24,000 a year. She would not be paying any income tax, which is a bonus. To have that sort of income, a person would have to earn about £30,000 a year, which is a good wage in Ashfield.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

If the hon. Gentleman thinks that is very generous, how does it compare with benefits systems across the EU, for example, that are significantly more generous?

[Lee Anderson]

I will tell the hon. Lady what is generous: a single parent, like my friend and I were all those years ago, getting £24,000 a year for working 16 hours a week. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady can shake her head, but I think that is a pretty generous payment. That person would not be paying any income tax. Come to Ashfield and ask if £24,000 net is a good income. It would be a struggle to find people who are earning that sort of income so, yes, it is a generous income.

As we level up the country, we need to level up the skills of people who are trapped in this life of benefit dependency caused by the Labour party—I will stick to my words. In the meantime, this caring Government realise that families need extra support, which is why we are providing £37 billion to support families. Remember this is taxpayers’ money. There is no magic money tree, so hard-working people are having to pay for this.

This Bill will ensure swift action by providing the power to make two cost of living payments of £650 to 8 million households throughout the UK. This is real, targeted help for real, vulnerable people. The £200 rebate on energy bills has been doubled to £400, and it is now a grant, so it will not be paid back. The living wage is up, the national living wage is up, the universal credit taper rate is up and national insurance has been cut, so 70% of those who pay national insurance will pay less and more than 2 million people will pay no national insurance at all. We are doing all we can to ensure we help to keep people’s head above the water by spending more than £80 billion on universal credit and legacy benefits, which now represent 3.8% of our GDP.

We cannot keep asking the hard-working taxpayer to put their hand in their pocket to pay more and more. We must all do our bit. Although I welcome that the Bill will get immediate support to families, we must all work hard to make sure every single person in this country has the chance to support themselves. The benefits system should be there to help people in their hour of need; it should not be a way of life.

If it were left to Labour, everyone would be sat at home feeling sorry for themselves, but I am different. I want people to have a good job, to earn more money and to enjoy the fruits of their labour.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson, Kirsty Blackman.