Access to Jobs: Disabled People

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Ian C. Lucas]

Thank you, Mr Chope. It is always good to be described as a key player.

I was quoting Mencap:

“Work Choice, the Government’s specialist employment support programme, is ineffectively targeted and offers support to a small number of disabled people with just 17 percent of referred customers claiming ESA. This represents only a small proportion of disabled people who are looking for work and it is unlikely that many people with a learning disability are benefiting from it.”

Incredibly, between 2011 and 2015 the number of jobcentres employing a full-time adviser to help disabled people fell by more than 60% from 226 to only 90, with reductions in every recorded year. It is only going to get worse. Under the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, which is being considered in the Lords, employment and support allowance for those in the work-related activity group will be cut by almost £30 a week for new claimants from April 2017.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

Given the context that the hon. Gentleman is describing and the shocking statistics that he is giving us, is it not not in the least surprising that 3.7 million disabled people in this country live in poverty? That number increased by 300,000 last year and will only get even worse in the light of the issue that he is raising.

[Ian C. Lucas]

Absolutely. We want to get people into work. The irony of Margaret’s case is that she was put out of work. The responsibility must rest with the Government. I am not talking about a private sector job, but about a job taken away by a Government led by our current Prime Minister. He must take full responsibility for that, and it makes me angry.

Seventy per cent. of respondents to a recent survey carried out by the Disability Benefits Consortium said that the £30-a-week cut would affect their health and more than half said that it would mean them returning to work later. So constituents are now approaching us. Margaret is only one example, but it is important to refer to individual cases—one of the benefits of being a Member of Parliament, having constituency surgeries and getting to know our constituents, is learning from them how they are directly affected by Government policy. I want the Minister and everyone in the Chamber to be aware of how Margaret has been affected by Government policy, because if the Government really want to address the situation that they have created for someone such as her, they must give proper support to those who are unemployed.

The mentoring scheme that the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) mentioned sounds like a good one, but we need more of them. We need to find placements for disabled people to give them experience of work and to give them the opportunity to be in a workplace. If someone who has worked somewhere for 26 years has that job taken away by their own Government, that Government have a responsibility to persuade employers to ensure that such people have an opportunity to go to a different workplace and to have proper support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

The reason I was so keen to speak in the debate is that 22% of my constituents in North Ayrshire and Arran aged 16 to 64 are recognised as disabled under the Equality Act 2010 or have work-limiting disabilities. It is therefore very important that I participate in the debate in order to represent my constituents.

We know that a compassionate and decent society dictates that halving the disability employment gap, which the Conservatives pledged to do and which is an extremely laudable aim, requires the correct amount of support to be provided, not the withdrawal of support, which is causing so much concern. The reduction of the ESA WRAG payment from April 2017 will force many sick and disabled people backwards and further away from getting the help that they need to get back to work or, indeed, to enter the workplace for the first time. That is despite the fact that the WRAG was created specifically to support the ill and disabled back into work, rather than simply placing them as jobseeker’s allowance claimants. The Chancellor of the Exchequer himself acknowledged in his recent Budget statement that ESA WRAG payment recipients are usually—very often—actively seeking a sustainable place in the workforce, but there is a credible argument in the community and voluntary sector that instead of incentivising work, the Government are actually disincentivising it. Many hon. Members have touched on that today.

Many sick and disabled people find the prospect of the demands of the workplace increasingly challenging, especially in terms of how employers will react to them. According to the Disability Benefits Consortium, one third of disabled people live below the poverty line; I also mentioned that earlier. It is the case that 3.7 million people who are disabled are living in poverty, and that figure is increasing. We know that because the figure increased by 300,000 last year. What is needed to enable those living with a disability to enter the job market is to treat disabled benefit claimants with personalised and compassionate care, instead of implementing reforms that ignore the complexities and challenges of these people’s lives. If we want to support disabled people into work, the benefits system designed to achieve that end must reflect that.

We have all heard in our constituencies anecdotal evidence of the shocking treatment of some claimants since the introduction of the work capability assessment, with “fit to work” decisions being made that seem to defy all logic and reason. Thankfully, many of those decisions have been overturned, but the stress and trauma that they cause the claimants in the first place is simply not acceptable. Far too many disabled people continue to face barriers that deny them the chance to find fulfilling work opportunities. What a tragedy that so many of those barriers have been erected and—looking into the future—appear to be continuing to be erected by the Government themselves, marginalising a group that is already excluded in so many ways. I urge the Minister to reflect on those concerns in his response.