Access to Jobs: Disabled People

Richard Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Ian C. Lucas]

Part of the reason why I secured this debate is to point out the failure of Government policy and the way in which it affected Margaret, who worked for Remploy for 26 years. Since the Prime Minister and the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government decided to close Remploy, making Margaret redundant, she has not been in employment for a single day and has not been offered a job.

Rather than being a taxpayer, Margaret now lives on benefits. She has an income from the disability living allowance, and she receives an enhanced level of mobility allowance—£57.45 per week—and the middle-rate daily care component of £55.10 per week. She has even been refused employment and support allowance. When the initial assessment was made, she received no points. Even on appeal, she was given only nine points. She needs 15 points to qualify for the allowance. How can the disability benefits system present a case such as Margaret’s? She wants help to work and has been disabled from birth, but does not qualify for the benefit put in place by the Government supposedly to support her into work. What does the fact that the taxpayer is not supporting Margaret in her attempts to find work say about the Government’s policy?

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is telling a powerful story about his constituent, Margaret. Is he aware that in Gloucestershire we recently launched a programme called Supported Internships? Remploy was a partner, as were the local authority, the local further education college and two employers. Supported internships are an effective way for people with significant disabilities to get back into employment.

[Ian C. Lucas]

I have no doubt that they can be, but I am afraid they are not happening.

The 2014 labour force survey recognised that,

“disabled people remain significantly less likely to be in employment than non-disabled people.”

There is a 30.1% gap between levels of employment for disabled people and non-disabled people. I welcome any efforts to find internships and support individuals into work, which is what we all want. Margaret was in work when the Government decided to close Remploy factories, and we were told at the time that they would support those disabled people into jobs in the mainstream. When Remploy in Wrexham was closed and Margaret was put out of work, we received all sorts of assurances about how disabled employees would be helped into the mainstream jobs market.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas) on securing this timely debate. Like him, whenever I think of Remploy, and particularly its Croespenmaen factory in my constituency, I feel anger, because I remember standing in the factory canteen on the day when it was announced that the Remploy factories were going to be closed. Some people were in tears and many were angry, begging me to save their jobs, but there was nothing I could do. That was one of my worst days as a Member of Parliament.

When that factory was under threat in 2007, the Remploy workers and the management did not sit back and protest. They went out and found business in the market. Indeed, one of the last acts of my predecessor, Lord Touhig, in 2010 was overseeing the signing of a contract between the blue chip company BAE Systems and Remploy to provide packaging.

What made me even more angry during that period was not only all the hard work that had gone to waste, but, as I mentioned in my intervention, what happened when the Welsh Assembly asked whether the Westminster Government would consider devolving the budgets so that it could provide a future for Remploy. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) raised the issue at Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister gave a commitment to look at it. Unfortunately, the question was met by the Department with a big fat “no”.

The comment by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions at the time that Remploy workers were only good to make a cup of coffee rubbed salt into the wounds and was absolutely damning. I try to hold back my anger when I think of comments like that. There was never an apology, and I am ashamed to say that that man is still in post.

I will, however, say this: there is nothing that can be done about Remploy now. It is no good looking back to the past. Those factories are gone. The workers unfortunately do not have a job, as in the case of Margaret, who my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham spoke of. She has no future and is parked, like many of my constituents who worked in Remploy on employment and support allowance.

The worst thing is that, according to the solicitors firm Leigh Day, one in five people who have disabilities and find themselves in work still believe they are under pressure and under duress, and are fearful of announcing that they have some sort of disability. People who have short-term disabilities, such as those who have been diagnosed with Crohn’s or colitis, find themselves in disabling situations where they cannot work and find it difficult to come back to work. They rely on understanding employers, but many of them do not have that. Many of them find themselves out of work because of that.

I always want to give the Minister some suggestions, as the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) did; he made a very good speech and spoke from the heart, with great knowledge as a member of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions. I think the Minister knows what I am about to say, as I have said it to him on a number of occasions until I am blue in the face: the main tool for getting people back into work—Jobcentre Plus—is not fit for purpose. I am basing that not on anecdotal evidence but on the fact that 80% of people who gain a job through Jobcentre Plus are back out of work in six months. The fact is that statistical evidence shows that the most effective systems are not provided through Jobcentre Plus but based in the community. A job club or a training scheme based in a local library or supermarket is more effective.

Anybody who has ever had to walk into a jobcentre will know that it is akin to walking through Pentonville prison. There is a security guard on the doorstep. The seats are screwed into the floor. If someone is not there on time, the adviser will sanction them. They are not good places to look for jobs. What jobcentres are essentially doing when they sanction people is reaching at the most vulnerable. Those who are stuck in the system are being pushed further into it, and they are not being provided with the help and support they need. I have said over and over again that it does not matter how many schemes we have.

[Richard Graham]

Has the hon. Gentleman had the experience I have had of a really good Access to Work programme provider—in my case, Pluss, which has had considerable success in helping people with disabilities back into work? Does he agree that one thing we might do is put together some films of agencies and businesses that have had real success, so that we can show them in Parliament and spread the word about some of the great success stories, to encourage other employers to do more?

[Chris Evans]

I have come across Pluss. As the hon. Gentleman will know, I was once the unsuccessful candidate in the constituency of Cheltenham, right next door to his constituency. The work that Pluss does is absolutely fantastic, and I agree that we need to do more inside and outside Parliament to promote such training organisations.

The point I was coming to, which ties in well with the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, is that since the 1970s we have had 43 schemes in this country, introduced by Governments of all colours, and all of them have failed. Long-term unemployment is still stubbornly high, particularly for young people and those with disabilities. We now have to think outside the box. We can rebrand all our schemes—whether it is the youth training scheme, employment training, the new deal or even the Work programme—but they are not getting the outcomes we want.

I expect the Minister to defend Jobcentre Plus, which is a Government scheme; that is his right, but I want him to give people some hope that we will start thinking outside the box more.