Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Lord Suri Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support Amendment 65 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, and Amendment 67 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, which would legislate for a disability employment gap reporting obligation.

If we are to take the Government at their word—that the measures in the Bill reducing benefits for the disabled are about incentivising work, rather than simply cutting the cost of the benefit budget—I freely applaud the intention, if not necessarily the execution. The disability employment gap is, of course, a sad indictment of a society that has for perhaps too long been willing to ignore the aspirations of the disabled to engage fully in society through work. As the Government’s own impact assessment found, 61% of those in the work-related activity group want the opportunity to earn a living. It is quite right that the Government have committed to this laudable aim of halving the disability employment gap. We all applaud that.

There are, of course, measures within the present Bill that the Government claim will contribute towards reducing the employment gap by incentivising paid employment; the WRAG cut is the obvious example. However, as was evidenced in this Chamber last week, there are quite a few people with a great deal of experience in this area who have grave concerns about the effectiveness of the measures. This kind of carrot-and-stick approach cannot be a substitute for the proper strategic, joined-up thinking across the departments that will be required if we are to help disabled people overcome the considerable challenges they face in entering or re-entering the workplace.

I acknowledge that the Government are making good progress on this issue on some fronts. For example, I welcome the announcement in the spending review of the new work and health programme. However, a proper reporting obligation will bring much needed clarity and transparency to the issue of disability employment, as well as allowing the Government to think more strategically about how best to allocate resources in an effort to close the gap. This obligation is made even more essential, given the seriousness of the implications of measures like the ESA WRAG cut for those who currently rely on such benefits. If the WRAG cut does not facilitate increased numbers of disabled people moving into work—or, even worse, makes it harder for them to find employment, as a number of charitable bodies have suggested—we need to know about it. These amendments would cost the Government almost nothing, but would give them a sound platform going forward as they seek to fulfil this excellent pledge to close the disability employment gap. I therefore hope that they will support some form of these amendments as we go forward.

[Lord Suri (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to be able to support Amendment 67, which is crucial. At present, the disability employment gap means that disabled people are over 20% less likely than their counterparts to be in full-time employment. Employment has many benefits other than the obvious one of economic advantage. The recognition of your employment acts as an important societal signal, improving your reputation among your peers. Furthermore, in what the Prime Minister has termed the “global race”, the cost to the country of having unutilised human capital is immense. Quite simply, high levels of unemployment for the disabled are not something we can afford.

The new clause which Amendment 67 would introduce would nudge the Secretary of State into dealing properly with this issue, and laying out a clear strategy to close the disability employment gap. The current Secretary of State has made significant strides towards helping the disabled into work. It would also allow Members of Parliament and Peers to scrutinise the work done in this field separate from any other scrutiny of employment statistics which goes on. Some might argue that this is not required or that it is impracticable to have a separate report for disabled people but, as the amendment says, these people are,

“marginalised from the labour force and require a specific focus”.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, before I get to Amendment 62, I will comment on the range of amendments which other noble Lords have spoken to. Each of these has the aspiration of getting appropriate reporting requirements from the Government, particularly to address the challenge of closing the disability employment gap. We heard from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans about the importance of reporting, particularly in the context of something such as the ESA WRAG. If that is going to challenge closing the employment gap then reporting is needed to make sure it is better addressed. He said that we have ignored for too long the aspiration of disabled people to work.