Supporting Disabled People to Work

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely spot on. We can help to raise the awareness of Disability Confident. We can do our own Disability Confident events, and we can write to employers to encourage them to sign up and to work with local organisations that support disabled people to find job opportunities. It should be a real priority for all of us.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

The National Audit Office makes it clear that there is no evidence that the £386 million spent on Disability Confident has resulted in a single disabled person getting into work. Would it not be better to devolve that resource and extra responsibilities for employment programmes to local and regional government—such as in Southwark, where we have a Labour council committed to becoming a full employment borough—to allow them to innovate to get more disabled people into work?

[Justin Tomlinson]

To be fair, I think the figures speak for themselves: 930,000 people in the last five years have gained—[Interruption.] However, I accept the thrust of the point about looking at local solutions and empowering local communities, because they know their job market and where the skills gaps are. I accept that principle. We are moving in that direction through the personalised support package so that work coaches can look at local initiatives. There is a lot more work in that area. I very much welcome that question.