Employment for People with Disabilities

Debate between Robin Walker and Justin Tomlinson

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[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.

Disability Employment Gap

Debate between Robin Walker and Justin Tomlinson

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Commons Chamber

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

It is a great pleasure to conclude this debate, which has been a positive and constructive debate on a very vital subject. I think it is fair to say that on the majority of the issues there is genuine cross-party consensus. We have identified the challenges that we face and we are looking to find as many opportunities as possible to move forward. I am proud to serve in a Government where the Prime Minister personally committed us to halving the disability employment gap. Our Secretary of State has shown a genuine passion to understand, listen and engage with the stakeholders—those with the first-hand experience of how we can identify the opportunities and overcome the challenges. I am confident that we will continue to make a real difference in this vital area.

In the past two years alone, 365,000 more disabled people have entered into work. This is crucial for a number of reasons, as I find when I engage with stakeholders, particularly young stakeholders. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) mentioned his nephew who is taking his GCSE exams—I join in the good luck messages to him. That summed up exactly why this is so important. Disabled people rightly wish to be judged on their ability, not their disability. I say that as an individual who has not only employed disabled people but benefited from doing so.

We have to look at businesses. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) highlighted one of the key areas, which is that we have a skills shortage in this country. If businesses have the confidence to make the necessary changes—often, they are small ones—they will benefit. If more disabled people can get into work, disabled people and businesses will benefit. It is a genuine win-win situation. Key for the Government, and key in my role, is to make sure that we showcase talent, share best practice and create genuine opportunities.

I will quickly whizz through some of the highlights of the work that we are already doing. There is a real-terms increase in support to help those with disabilities and long-term health conditions to seek work. We are reforming Jobcentre Plus. We have the hidden impairment toolkit and additional training. We have doubled the number of disability advisers. We have commissioned the £43 million mental health pilots, including the collocation of improving access to psychological therapies.

The new Work and Health unit rightly brings together the greatest minds in DWP and the Department of Health —something that has been greatly welcomed by our stakeholder groups. In that, we have already commissioned pilots on the innovation portfolios with a real focus on mental health support, the personalisation pathfinders and the peer-to-peer support that our stakeholders repeatedly highlight as crucial. Disability Rights UK has helped to lead on those pilots. The hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron), who does great work as the chair of the all-party group on disability, also recognises the importance of peer-to-peer support.

With the reforms and the introduction of universal credit, the area that I am most excited about is having a named coach for the first time. As individuals navigate their way over the challenges of getting into the workplace, they will have a named coach to support them to find work and to get additional support. When they are in work, for the first time they will have continued support to help them to achieve genuine career progression.

I welcome the increased focus from the Health and Safety Executive, for which I am also responsible. Its title includes health and safety, and on safety it is world leading—foreign countries and foreign businesses pay for our expertise in improving safety—but there is also a real focus on the health side, recognising that we lose 131 million days a year to ill health. There will be a huge amount of additional work in that area. The HSE has fantastic business engagement. Businesses of all sizes—small, medium-sized and large—proactively engage with it, and we want to utilise that.

[Mr Robin Walker]

While my hon. Friend is on the subject of health, does he agree that disability sport can play a huge role in not only supporting the health of people with disabilities but building their confidence and helping them to prepare for work? Does he agree that we should do all we can to support initiatives such as the International Centre for Inclusive Sport at the University of Worcester?

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that helpful intervention. I absolutely agree, and it was a great pleasure to join my hon. Friend in visiting Worcester arena, which showcased how inclusive design right from the beginning has made a genuine difference and created more opportunities. That was one of my favourite visits as a Minister.

The new employment allowance has helped more than 16,000 disabled people to start their own business, and with Access to Work we have secured funding for an additional 25,000 people. We are close to launching the digital service to bring Access to Work online, which will please employers and those who seek to claim. We have introduced specialist teams. We have the mental health support service, and we are doing further work to support apprentices, particularly those with mental health conditions. My hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) highlighted the need to increase awareness, and she is absolutely right. All too often, this has been Government’s best-kept secret. I commissioned work through KPMG to look at how we can better increase awareness so that we can, as quickly as possible, fill the 25,000 additional places. As many speakers have highlighted, it is not just about the Government; we have to look at employers, because employers will create those opportunities.

Access to Jobs: Disabled People

Debate between Robin Walker and Justin Tomlinson

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Westminster Hall

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

As your parliamentary neighbour, Mr Chope, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas), who made a passionate speech on this incredibly important subject. I have already have some dealings with the hon. Gentleman in the course of his work on the all-party group on spinal cord injury. It was a real credit to him that he took time out of his busy schedule to come and engage on that.

I will cover the Remploy issue, and I would be happy to meet to discuss what more can be done in the specific case of Margaret and on the broader subject of disability employment. First, I want to answer some of the questions asked by various Members in what I thought was a constructive debate. As a Government, we are very much in listening mode. We are looking at ways in which we can make changes to improve the situation, and there are many ideas that we will look to take from today’s debate.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) for his kind words, and I would be happy to continue in this role. He demonstrated a huge knowledge of the proactive work that needs to be done. It has been a real pleasure to work with him on a number of different areas of my role, and he is a real credit to his constituency.

It was a pleasure to attend the all-party group on disability, which the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) chairs so ably. We crossed paths on several occasions that day, when we went to a number of different meetings. She mentioned the work of Changing Faces. I met that organisation, which is doing a huge amount in a very important area. I am a big supporter of its “What Success Looks Like” campaign, which is an important part of the wider work that we need to do.

I echo the comments on self-employment. I had my own business for 10 years, and the careers advice that I always give to sixth-formers was, “If you are good at what you do, do it yourself. If you are not very good at what you do, be paid to be not very good.”

My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Drummond) is doing a tremendous amount of work in her constituency. I was excited to hear about the work of the Beneficial Foundation, and I would be interested to visit and see that at first hand. I think that there are some lessons that we can learn.

It is always a pleasure to listen to the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans), who is easily one of the best speakers in Parliament. His suggestions about Jobcentre Plus were constructive. We are bringing forward a White Paper, which gives us an opportunity to look at how we can improve the situation. What he said about thinking outside the box was crucial. Some brilliant ideas have been put forward, and I encourage him to be very proactive, because there are some lessons that we need to learn.

It is also always a pleasure to hear from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I do not think that I have responded to a single debate to which he has not contributed, and I am glad that he has not had another meeting that has clashed. It is good to exchange ideas, because if there are areas of best practice anywhere, we need to look at them. As I have said, the White Paper gives us a huge opportunity to change the support we offer, and I will discuss that further.

The personal passion of the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) shone through. I am grateful for the huge amount of work that was done in the Disability Confident event. I was disappointed to hear some of the negatives but it is important to raise them. We have addressed some of them and I will talk about that a bit more later. I would appreciate an opportunity to discuss them further because it is an important part of the work we are doing.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I apologise for missing some parts of the debate but I was listening closely to the feedback of the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) on his Disability Confident event as I want to ensure that we have a Disability Confident event in Worcester. I ask the Minister to engage with the issue of the follow-up to the events to ensure that we make the most of the opportunity they represent.

[Justin Tomlinson]

That is perfect timing because later in my speech I will highlight our drop-in event for parliamentarians. We are also producing a pack, which I will discuss later, and I would be delighted if my hon. Friend engaged with this because I know that he has done a huge amount of work engaging with employers, particularly with apprentices and at jobs fairs. We definitely need to recruit him to the campaign.

A comment was made about the role of the media and role models. I am doing a huge amount of work on that because it makes a big difference. The hon. Members for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) and for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) covered relatively similar points regarding the ESA work-related activity group. Let us not forget that only 1% of people in the ESA work-related activity group were coming off that benefit each month. Rightly, it was highlighted that people want to get into work. Clearly that system was not doing that right. We can discuss in another debate how it will be done.

We will be spending an extra £60 million providing support this year, rising to £100 million by 2020. We should remember that no existing claimants will lose out on the cash. The proportion of people in relative poverty who live in a family in which someone is disabled has fallen since 2010. Without opening up a debate on disability living allowance and the personal independence payment, let us not forget that under DLA, 16% of claimants were on the highest level of benefit whereas, under PIP, the figure is 22.5%.

I turn to the issue of Remploy before moving to the broader issues. In March 2012, the Government confirmed that it accepted the Sayce review’s recommendations to focus support on individuals through services such as Access to Work, and away from specific workplaces or facilities such as Remploy in order to significantly increase the number of people who could be supported to access the labour market—it is that point about being in the mainstream. I understand that that is not what Margaret wishes to hear but I will come to more specific points.

The background to the case is that the 54 Remploy factories operated at a loss of £49.5 million, amounting to about £22,500 a year to support each disabled person working in a Remploy factory. That is in contrast to the average Access to Work award to support a disabled person in mainstream employment at £3,100. I understand that it is a lot more complicated than that. That debate took place in 2011 and 2012, and there was clearly a disagreement on what should happen. Following that, all disabled Remploy staff affected by the exit of Remploy factories had access to tailored support from an £8 million people help and support package for up to 18 months to help with the transition.

The final statistics of 21 August 2015 confirmed that just over 1,500 former disabled employees had received support through personal caseworkers, 867 were in work and a total of 1,182 jobs had been found. I accept that the point is what has happened since then. I do not know whether I can find that information but I will look into it.

In broader terms, ultimately we want as many people as possible to have the opportunity go into work. The Prime Minister personally committed the Government to halving the disability employment gap, and that was widely welcomed by all. In the past two years, there has been significant progress with 339,000 more people with disabilities going into work. A number of strands will help to make the aim a reality.

First, many Members have mentioned Access to Work. There is roughly a £100 million budget at the moment helping a near record 37,000 people. We have had four years of growth. Following the spending review, by the end of this Parliament we are looking to spend about £123 million and we would expect a further 25,000 people to be supported through that. We now have record numbers of people with learning disabilities, people with a mental health condition, and young people.

We have more specialist teams providing specific advice, including the visual impairments team, and other teams for hearing impairments, self-employment, large employers, and the hidden impairments specialists. Broader unique opportunities are also presented. We are looking at further ways to improve Access to Work, particularly raising awareness among small and medium-sized businesses, which would most benefit and could remove the most barriers. We are also looking into how we can simply provide more advice through that service. A number of speakers said that employers would be worried about whether they had the skillset to support somebody with a disability. Access to Work could be an opportunity to provide that.

Today we had our first Disability Confident taskforce. The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) has rightly asked what more we can do to push that. We had a number of the great and the good from a huge wealth of backgrounds including recruitment agencies and groups that support people with disabilities to get into work, including the Federation of Small Businesses, Clear Company, the Business Disability Forum, the Shaw Trust and a number of others. There was a collective brilliance around that table. I told them that I am very much in listening mode and I want them to challenge us and to identify ways in which we can take advantage of the Chancellor increasing the funding.

The whole point is to make more businesses aware of the huge wealth of talent out there. That is being underpinned through our Disability Confident campaign, which is there to share best practice, bust myths and signpost businesses and potential employees to the help and support that exists. Underlying all this is ensuring that people understand that it is a positive benefit. We are not asking businesses to do something that is not right, but to take advantage, often through making small changes, having greater recognition or understanding that a huge network of support is available. We will push that, with a real emphasis on small and medium-sized businesses.

Apprenticeships

Debate between Robin Walker and Justin Tomlinson

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the Chair of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey), who made an excellent speech.

Apprenticeships are working for business and more young people are taking up apprenticeships in Worcestershire than ever before. In that context, I warmly welcome the start of another national apprenticeship week. Like many other MPs, I have employed an apprentice to work with me in my constituency office, and I will be meeting local employers in my constituency this week to discuss how we can strengthen the roll-out of apprenticeships, widen participation by businesses in supporting them, and continue to drive up quality for employers and apprentices alike.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

I know that my hon. Friend is a real advocate of apprenticeships. One of the ideas I hope he will push in that forum and with Ministers is to use the mailing of business rates. We already pay for those to go to every business every year. Simply inserting a leaflet setting out the benefits of apprenticeships would provide a real boost, and would serve to open the window for many other businesses and future apprentices.

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend comes up with an intriguing, and very creative, suggestion, and I am sure Ministers will respond to it in due course.

Although I welcome the fact that the Opposition have chosen apprenticeships as the topic for this debate, and I particularly welcome their support for the excellent report from the BIS Committee, which I was proud to join shortly after its inquiry into apprenticeships, I am afraid that their motion is very narrow and self-congratulatory and misses most of the important recommendations of that report, as the Committee Chair eloquently explained in his excellent speech.

As a proud member of the all-party group on apprenticeships, I have met a wide range of employers who want to take on apprentices and who value the opportunity to have people earn while they learn. I have also met some enormously impressive young people from all over the country who are undertaking apprenticeships and who recognise the huge opportunity they offer. It is very easy for a debate such as this to be dominated by statistics, and I am sure other Members will introduce plenty of them into the debate, but the overall story is undoubtedly one of strong growth under the coalition Government. A big rise in the number of apprenticeships in Worcester helps to explain the sharp fall in youth unemployment, which today is around 18% lower than it was at the time of the general election, and down more than a quarter since its peak under Labour.

However, I want to focus on quality, not just quantity, and on people, not just numbers. Suffice it to say, I welcome the fact that the numbers keep rising, which is testament to the Government’s commitment on apprenticeships. Apprenticeships are often seen as the first step in a career, but it is important to recognise where they can lead. We should see them not just as a route into the lower end of the jobs market, which they have sometimes been misrepresented as in the past.

When I look at local manufacturers in my constituency, I see that many of the bosses are former apprentices. Both the current and previous managing directors at Worcester Bosch, the biggest private sector employer in Worcester, started out as apprentices. In smaller local engineering firms, one reason why the bosses and owner-managers are so passionate about making today’s apprenticeships work is that they started their careers in old-fashioned apprenticeships.

We should not see apprenticeships as an end in themselves, but as a conduit into learning about work, good careers and wider opportunities. For many young people, staying in school or college until 18 or going to university are not necessarily enticing prospects. Some of the brightest young people can be disengaged from classroom study by the time they reach 16 and many would relish the challenge of being able to learn in the workplace.

In the past, apprenticeships served generations well as a means of entry into work, particularly in the manufacturing sector, but with the number of apprenticeships increasing across the advanced manufacturing, cyber, computer and service industries, I believe that they can serve the current generation of school leavers even better. Many young people are better suited to learning in the workplace, rather than the classroom, and will thrive best given the opportunity to succeed, work hard and learn in a working environment. I am glad that apprenticeships now offer a progression that can take people right up to degree level and provide an alternative route to that valuable level of qualification.

I was pleased to hear the Prime Minister say that apprenticeships should be seen as the “new normal”. In order for that to remain the case in the long term, however, we need to make some changes. We need to get the message through, as the Select Committee Chair has shown strongly, to all those in our education system who provide careers advice that apprenticeships are here to stay. I was shocked to hear from apprentices at BAE Systems that many of them, who had achieved that gold-standard apprenticeship, had been actively discouraged from applying for it by their teachers. My hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle), who unfortunately is not in the Chamber, has previously given the appalling example of one candidate whose teacher tore up their application for an apprenticeship with that fantastic employer because they did not want to see them “wasted there.” I have seen some of the outstanding facilities available to those apprentices.