Employment for People with Disabilities

Natalie McGarry Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Natalie McGarry (Glasgow East) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) on securing this very important debate and on the manner in which he started the debate, which has continued with other Members. This issue is of supreme importance to Members right across political parties, right across the divide, and we have to work constructively together to address it. It is particularly important to me in Glasgow East, which has a higher than average rate of disability—disabilities that have transpired throughout life, not just birth impairments.

As I have said before in the House, ours is a disabling society. Some are born with impairments whereas some acquire them, and those can be visible and invisible. From time to time, we all get a glimpse of the invisible agency of a society that is organised for the convenience of non-disabled persons. Ours is a society that adds to disabilities; we must endeavour to change it, and employment is at the heart of that challenge.

Today in the UK, the disability employment gap stands at 33%. Of course, the Government have pledged to cut the disability employment gap in half—to put 1.2 million people living with disabilities into work. I thoroughly applaud that target but feel, as many hon. Members across the House may feel, that the Government sadly do not appear to be doing enough to make that aim a reality.

For example, in a speech in August 2015, the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), criticised employers for the persistence of the disability employment gap. There is criticism due in that respect but, less than two months later, it was reported that the Department for Work and Pensions had cut the number of specialist disability employment advisers in jobcentres by over 60% between 2011 and 2015. Instead, the UK Government wish to replace those specialists with general, non-specialist “work coaches”.

In jobcentres in my constituency, where there are higher levels of disability, that one-size-fits-all approach has stripped services and advice to the bone. In a constituency such as mine, where unemployment is almost double the national average and competition in a flat jobs market is fierce, people with disabilities are not on an even playing field. Competition for jobs without education for employers in how to support people with disabilities in finding work further economically disadvantages people and deprives the job market of their unique talents and skills.

Charities have said that cutting specialist advisers from jobcentres will undermine the UK Government’s goal of halving the disability employment gap. Will the Minister address those concerns and tell us what assessment the Government have undertaken to ascertain the impact that the changes will have on recipients of the benefit?

The UK’s rhetoric of supporting disabled people does not necessarily reconcile with the reality of the closure of Remploy factories. In 2013, the Government closed nine Remploy factories, with hundreds of disabled people losing their jobs across the UK and Scotland, including in Leven, Cowdenbeath, Clydebank, Stirling, Dundee and Springburn, which is in the neighbouring constituency to mine.

A constituent of mine who worked for 25-plus years as a seamstress has since been put into work experience jobs and inappropriate and short-term employment. She has now been shoehorned bluntly into the care sector, which is completely inappropriate work for her. When the Government made the decision to close the Remploy factories, they pledged an £8 million package to help those who had lost their jobs to transition to mainstream employment. However, figures reported in 2015 show that, of the 1,507 Remploy workers who lost their jobs, 733 had still not secured employment. Will the Minister update the House on the Government’s progress on helping Remploy workers to secure mainstream employment? Is he satisfied with that progress?

Stereotypes and stigma still persist in contemporary society. ACAS found that for 42% of disabled people seeking work, the biggest barrier to getting hired was misconceptions about what they could do. Indeed, Geoffrey Wright, a former Remploy worker, described his experience of this. He said:

“I was looking for a job and now I’m not. They take one look at you, you hand them your CV and they never call.”

Last week I visited a wonderful school in my constituency, Cardinal Winning Secondary School, which educates children with a range of additional support needs or spectrum disorders. They learn valuable life skills and skills that will enable some of the pupils to achieve employment when they leave school. The nurturing environment of the school can be contrasted with the fears of some parents that their children will not be given the support when leaving education to continue to fulfil their potential—in employment, the voluntary sector or other areas.

An ageing population, coupled with an increasing pension age, will mean that more people are available and willing to work. People with disabilities have many valuable assets that we are missing out on by failing to break down barriers. The economy loses, society loses and people with disabilities lose. We must rise to the challenge together. It is an opportunity not only for our economy to be more diverse and our society to be more enabling but to break down barriers and to smash stigma and stereotypes—together, across the House, we must rise to that challenge.