Employment for People with Disabilities

Robin Walker Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an important speech, and I apologise for missing the first few minutes of it. One option for community organisations working with employers is to set up their own enterprises. ASPIE in my constituency set up Wits End Wizardry, a web design company that was designed to employ people with autism. Does he agree that when community organisations have expertise in dealing with a particular condition, they can bring real value to designing the workspace and supporting employment for people with conditions such as autism?

[Derek Thomas]

I agree. Such organisations can also encourage progression and create bespoke opportunities for people with a learning disability. I completely accept that. As the Government put new money into this—the £60 million and the £100 million a year—I hope it will go down to organisations that really understand the opportunities and challenges and their local communities. That is hugely important.

I have found that families of vulnerable people are understandably anxious about how their loved ones would cope in the world of work. We have already heard about the challenges and lack of support as they go through school. It is understandable, then, that as their children go towards that transition, parents will be equally anxious. The organisations with which I am familiar are not seen as part of the system and they have the trust of the families they support. That helps to overcome a real barrier to meaningful employment for those who can otherwise find themselves on seemingly endless day placements and college courses. I have met people with learning disabilities who have done every course available to them and continue to go round and round. That is not giving them full lives.

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[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) on securing this debate. Many of us are reminded every day in our constituencies of the lack of services for disabled people, especially when young people leave full-time education. Today, as we focus on employment for disabled people, we must look at the shortage of careers advice available, which in itself leads to low numbers of registered disabled people engaged in paid employment.

Like other hon. Members, I appreciate all the excellent efforts of various Government Departments, outside organisations and, most of all, carers and volunteers, but there is still a vast gap when meeting the needs of disabled people and getting them into employment. The Equality Act 2010 has gone a long way in protecting the rights of disabled people. Included in the Act is the provision that employers must make “reasonable adjustments” to avoid a disabled person being put at a disadvantage compared with a non-disabled person in the workforce, but we cannot ignore the fact that that there are over 6.9 million disabled people of working age, which represents 19% of the working population. Of that, 1.3 million disabled people in the UK are available and want to work. Only half of disabled people of working age are in work compared with 80% of non-disabled people.

What we are seeing is a very clear difference in the employment statistics for disabled persons and non-disabled persons. I do not want to appear to be having a go at businesses but those figures suggest that non-disabled people are being favoured for jobs. Why is that happening? Is it because of the level of training required, the lack of qualifications, poor social skills or apprehensive employers? I believe it to be a cocktail that includes all those factors. That is why Government need to increase the accessibility of jobs for disabled people.

[Mr Robin Walker]

The hon. Gentleman is making some excellent points. One thing that has changed and improved in many ways is assistive technology, particularly for people with conditions such as blindness or deafness. Does he agree that disseminating information about the assistive technologies that are available and making sure that businesses are aware of them and how easy they are to use is an important part of this?

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People (Justin Tomlinson)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas), not only for his 20 years of experience, but for his powerful and well respected speech today. I met with him previously to learn at first hand of his experiences and knowledge in this area, and I was incredibly impressed in that meeting. I want to make it clear that as we work towards the Green Paper, and then the White Paper, he has to be very much at the heart of that, drawing on his vast experience, and also the experience of his very popular mother-in-law.

I pay tribute to Manna’s Diner, to the Mustard Seed charity, to Cornwall People First—just to reassure the gentleman who was concerned about using the bus before 9.30 am, that is an example of where Access to Work could help, so it is worth looking at that—to Rebuild South West, to Helston and the Lizard Works and to Cheshire Homes. I trust I have remembered all the organisations my hon. Friend mentioned, and I put on record my thanks for all the great work they have done. He summed up his own speech perfectly with the three phrases about brilliant organisations. We need to empower those organisations to ensure they are at the heart of helping disabled people to find work, and they are well placed to help because they have the local knowledge, connections and goodwill, which are absolutely integral, and are familiar with the challenge of accessing cash.

I will whistle through some of the questions asked by other Members and then set out what the Government aim to do. I thank all the speakers in this proactive and positive debate; if I miss anything raised today, I will be happy to meet any individual MP face to face, as I have already done with a number of colleagues. The hon. Members for South Down (Ms Ritchie) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon) highlighted the importance of employers recognising changing circumstances and opportunities. They also touched on funding, which was picked up by many other speakers. The Government are increasing funding to support people with disabilities and long-term health conditions every single year of this Parliament, right through to 2020. We are currently spending £3 billion a year more than when we came into office. The hon. Member for Strangford highlighted the importance of Mencap, which is at the heart of the work we do; its policy team is very proactive.

The hon. Member for Glasgow East (Natalie McGarry) and others mentioned disability advisers. The situation is now being changed: we are rapidly re-recruiting and are looking to get to 500 disability advisers.

I thank the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) for committing to hold a reverse jobs fair. More than 50 MPs across the parties have signed up for that—I had one in my own constituency. I will return to that shortly.

[Mr Robin Walker]

The Minister and I have discussed reverse jobs fairs before, and I want to give him some feedback from my reverse jobs fair in Worcester. When I opened the new Waitrose in Worcester the other day, I was introduced to one of its partners, who was completely deaf and who was hired as a result of that Disability Confident initiative.

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is one of the most proactive MPs in supporting our initiatives. He is a real credit to his constituency.

I understand the point made by the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) about the Green Paper; I will come back to that later. He and others raised the issue of Motability cars; we have increased the number of people accessing the Motability scheme by 22,000. I reassure him that Parkinson’s UK, who I met again yesterday, and Leonard Cheshire are two major stakeholders who are very much involved in the work we are doing.

The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) mentioned the Resolution Foundation report. I attended and spoke at the launch, and the foundation has asked some important questions and has made its own suggestions and recommendations, which can be considered in the Green Paper.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) on stepping up to be my shadow today. As I said, we are increasing funding. The work capability assessment is not perfect. It was introduced by the Labour Government, who made tweaks to it themselves. The coalition Government made tweaks and we have tried to make tweaks. We all accept that it has to change; that is a given, and we will look at that in the Green Paper. It is important to remember that the personal independence payment is not work-related—it is separate. It is ESA that is work-related. On the change from the disability living allowance to PIP, only 16.5% of claimants accessed the highest rate of benefit under the DLA; under PIP the figure is 22.5%. As a benefit, the PIP is far better at accessing the most vulnerable in society and providing them with adequate support.

Access to Work helped 37,000 people last year. I understand that, as an absolute number, that is a relatively small percentage, but we must remember that not everybody on Access to Work has a lifetime award—sometimes it is a one-off adjustment or an occasional adjustment—so the scheme actually helps far more than that. We have had confirmation of an increase in funding for an additional 25,000 places, and we are actively doing all we can to let small and medium-sized businesses in particular, which are responsible for 45% of jobs, know about the scheme. I will come to Disability Confident, and I have already covered the disability advisers.

The Government are committed to halving the disability employment gap. That was announced personally by the Prime Minister, which gives me some extra bargaining tools when I talk to other Departments, to the public sector and to the private sector. Disability Confident is an important part of that. Some 690 organisations have now signed up; we are making changes to the scheme, with greater asks of larger employers in particular, and are recruiting more than 100 organisations a month now, so it is beginning to accelerate quickly.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives made the very powerful point that employers are nervous and we need to build trust. That is absolutely right. Disability Confident is part of that process, with signposting and sharing best practice, along with reverse jobs fairs, which I am encouraging all MPs to get involved in, particularly those who are most critical of the Government. They can do their bit to be proactive and host their own reverse jobs fairs. The way it works is that I got 22 local organisations in my constituency—the sorts that my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives highlighted in his examples—into a room. Working with local media, I got more than 70 small and medium-sized businesses that were looking to recruit people to come into that room and say, “These are the skill gaps that we’ve got.” We introduced them to those organisations and lots of job outcomes came from that.

Building on that, we decided to carry out a pilot of small employer officers, who literally doorstepped local employers and, over a cup of tea, discussed the huge hidden talent that could be matched to those employers’ skills gaps. Those pilots have been really successful, and I am pushing hard for them to be rolled out nationally, as part of the summer Budget funding. Working with the disability advisers in the jobcentre and all the support organisations, whether national providers or local charities, we can get the busy small and medium-sized businesses that are lacking confidence and knowledge of the talent that is out there, and hook them together.

That is crucial, because I have seen so many disabled people who are playing by the rules, engaging with the Work programme, the Work Choice programme or the different charities, and doing their bit to find work. Without opportunities at the end of that, they will continue to loop round the system, getting ever less confident and ever further away from the jobs market. Everything we do has to be underlined by matching that up to employers. I am really excited by what a difference that can make, and I have seen from working with employers how tangible that difference can be.

Learning disabilities were at the heart of the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives. Those with a learning disability have a 6% chance of having a meaningful and sustainable career. As a group, they are the furthest away from the jobs market. All Governments of all political persuasions have tried and have tweaked, but have not budged that figure.

I recently visited Foxes Academy near Bridgwater, which had set up an old hotel. In their town, the opportunities are in hotels, restaurants and care homes, so those are the skills they provide for their young adults—the equivalent of sixth form—as well as teaching skills for independent living. In their third year, students go and have a supported year in industry, after which 80% of them remain in work, of which 45.6% are in paid work. Even the conservative figure of 45.6% is so much better than 6%.

I challenge officials in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to say “The Government are committed to 3 million more apprenticeships. Why are we not doing more to open them up, particularly to those with learning disabilities?” We set up a taskforce, which has now concluded, and we will shortly be announcing its recommendations. If we can open up access to those 3 million places, that will make a huge difference.

The Green Paper is a priority for the Government. It is well supported by stakeholders, who understand that, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives set out so clearly, when we use their experience and knowledge, we can make real and good decisions. But it cannot be rushed; we have to do it as and when we get all the right questions answered and the right information. It will come this year and will be done in the right and proper manner with the full support of the stakeholders who I regularly engage with.

We will continue to work with the jobcentre network to upskill. Universal credit will give individuals the opportunity, for the first time, to have a named coach who will support them both in getting into work and once they are in work. I am proud of our record: 360,000 more disabled people in work in the last two years. It is right that local best practice should be integral to that.