Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Monday 9th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

The hon. Gentleman says that work does not pay. Let us be clear: universal credit always means that it is worth working an extra hour and worth taking a pay rise. It is always worth working more under universal credit, which was not the case with the legacy benefits. That is why the evidence is suggesting that people do work more and do work more hours than they do under the legacy systems.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the reasons why more people have gone out to work this morning than ever before in our nation’s history is that we as a Government have not ducked the challenge of welfare reform, we do not let people languish for years on out-of-work benefits, and universal credit is an essential part of the welfare reform programme?

[Mr Gauke]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It has been the consistent policy of this Government—including under my predecessors, such as my right hon. Friend—to ensure that we have a welfare system that puts work at the heart of it. That is one of the reasons why we have record levels of employment, as he so rightly says.

Personal Independence Payments

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

Let me deal with the hon. Lady’s questions in turn.

We will of course respond to the letter from the Social Security Advisory Committee. Obviously, we take everything that it has said very seriously. We will also maintain the practice—in which the Government have always engaged—of continuous improvement in the PIP guidance. The assessment guidance is freely available, and can be viewed on gov.uk. We are constantly changing it, and the way to do that is to make parliamentary regulations, which is precisely what we are doing in this case. I am conscious that the hon. Lady has personally prayed against these regulations, which gives Parliament a chance to scrutinise them. That process will go through the normal channels, as it always does.

The hon. Lady asked a number of other detailed questions. I can only repeat what I have said before, and what has been said by my hon. Friend the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work: no claimants will see a reduction in the amount of benefit that they were previously awarded by the DWP. The Committee says that a tribunal may have lifted the awards of some people, and it is indeed possible that that has happened. We will not claim back money that those people have received during the period before the new regulations come into force, and no one will receive less than they were awarded by the DWP. That is what I have said all along. [Interruption.] As the hon. Lady knows, reassessment happens regularly in the case of PIP and other benefits.

Let me now respond to a very serious point made by the hon. Lady. I want to clear up the position and reassure people, because I think that millions would be put into a state of unnecessary distress if they thought that PIP was not fair to those with mental health conditions. The truth is that PIP is a much better benefit for people with such conditions than its predecessor, disability living allowance. Under the regulations, people with a cognitive impairment alone can receive the highest rate of the mobility component of PIP. It is simply not the case that people with mental health conditions will not be able to do so. If the hon. Lady reads the regulations, she will see why that has happened.

Even if the hon. Lady and other Opposition Members are not willing to accept what I have said, may I please ask them to go away and look at the facts? The facts are these: 65% of PIP recipients with a mental health condition received the enhanced-rate daily living component, whereas 22% used to receive it under DLA. As for the specific mobility aspect, to which the hon. Lady referred. 27% of PIP recipients with a mental health condition receive the enhanced-rate mobility component, whereas 9% received it under DLA. It is perfectly clear from the facts that the regulations restore PIP to its original policy intent, and that that policy intent is better for people with mental health conditions than earlier benefits were.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

Can my right hon. Friend name any other country that spends as much in direct cash payments for people living with as wide a range of physical, mental and psychological disabilities and illnesses as we do here in the UK? Is that not something we should be proud of?

[Damian Green]

We should indeed. My right hon. Friend previously did this job, and he and I share the passion to make sure that the benefit system is as fair as possible to those who deserve to receive these benefits. That is why we spend £50 billion a year on disability benefits and why PIP is an improvement on previous benefits, particularly for people with mental health conditions.

Personal Independence Payments

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I thought every part of that question was based in error, if I may say so. Nobody is losing money compared with what they were originally awarded by the DWP, so that part of the right hon. Gentleman’s question is simply factually incorrect.

Far from being slipped out, the Department made a huge effort to let people know that this was happening. I left a message for the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), and I spoke to the Chairman of the Work and Pensions Committee, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field). I know that my hon. Friend the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work also spoke to a number of colleagues, so the idea that this was slipped out is simply ridiculous.

The right hon. Gentleman talks about individual conditions, and I can only repeat what I said earlier: PIP is awarded not for conditions, but for the living or mobility difficulties that result from such conditions. All that the regulations do is to restore the situation to what it was in late November, before the two court judgments. This is not a new policy or a spending cut; this is simply restoring the benefit to what was intended when it was first introduced under the coalition Government.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that any welfare payment, especially one providing a tiered range of cash payments to people living with enormously diverse physical and mental conditions, requires clear assessment criteria and clarity in law? The new regulations will restore precision to the law, which will benefit all users of the system.

[Damian Green]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend, who obviously has huge expertise in this area, that we need clarity. In particular, the vulnerable people receiving PIP deserve clarity. I reassure them and the House that all the regulations will do is to restore us to the situation that everyone knew they were in late last year, and in which they have been ever since PIP was introduced.

Jobcentre Plus Offices: Closure

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

As the hon. Lady will have heard me say, the vast majority of our UC claimants now access services online, and we welcome and encourage such a relationship. We have made it very clear that vulnerable claimants will be able to make claims by post in some circumstances, particularly where they find it difficult to access a jobcentre or have childcare responsibilities, and it is very important to make that distinction. The hon. Lady talked about accessibility. Where there is a difference under the ministerial criteria of more than 3 miles or of 20 minutes by public transport, we will seek to hold a public consultation, which will then feed in to our equality analysis so that we can best understand the impact on claimants.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

One of the things that really impressed me during my spell at the DWP was the quality of the work coaches and their capacity for supporting real, positive change in people’s lives. If there is an opportunity to spend less on near-empty bricks and mortar and to invest more in a greater number of work coaches, is that not exactly the right thing to do?

[Caroline Nokes]

My right hon. Friend is of course right. Our work coaches are on the frontline of delivering services to claimants, not just helping them into work but helping those who are in work into more and better-paid work. That is why we are recruiting more work coaches and looking to make sure that our DWP estate both best reflects value for money for taxpayers and provides the services we need for claimants.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said at the weekend, the House has already voted for certain benefit cuts. We do not intend to make any new cuts in benefits during the current Parliament, but Parliament has decided on various measures, including the one to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, and we shall be implementing those measures.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

A great many families who struggle to get by each month do not receive universal credit; indeed, they do not receive any welfare payments at all. We should not fall into the trap of defining this issue solely by the benefits system, and we should therefore not commit ourselves to reversing those cuts. Does my right hon. Friend agree, however, that there is a strong case for sitting down with the Chancellor and looking into what more we can do to help people on low incomes, and to support families who struggle to get by month after month?

[Damian Green]

My right hon. Friend is right to say that this is not purely about the payment of benefits; it is about a system that enables and helps people to get into work, or back into work, and to make progress once they are in work. As I am sure my right hon. Friend will have observed, that is the thrust of the work and health Green Paper, which is specifically designed for people with a disability or long-term health problem who have often have found it particularly difficult to find work in the past. We want to find new, innovative ways of helping those people so that they can enjoy the wider success of the modern labour market.

Improving Lives: Work, Health and Disability Green Paper

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Given extensive interest and the pressure on time, I am looking for single, short supplementary questions without preamble, and, of course, for pithy replies from the Secretary of State.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right to take on this challenge. Does he agree that one of the keys to success in ending the enormous waste of human potential is, for the very first time, to get health services and his Department working together effectively at a community level to ensure that people on long-term sickness benefits get meaningful employment support and effective health intervention? At the moment, the system too often provides neither.

[Damian Green]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend, who did good work on the subject during his time in this job. He will see from the Green Paper that we will be carrying out large-scale consultations on precisely the issue that he raises. In specific areas, it is important that we get right the way in which the health system and the welfare system work together. The situation might well be different in various parts of the country, so we will be holding geographically based large-scale trials.

AEA Pension Scheme

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the advice given to AEA pension scheme pensioners.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister, who is indeed honourable and a friend and a Minister. As I mentioned to him outside the Chamber, the gist of what I want to say is more directed towards the Cabinet Office than his Department, but it is useful to have this opportunity to put a flag in the ground. I should say right away that the purpose of the debate from my point of view, and I think that of those Association of Accounting Technicians pensioners who have been affected by what I am to describe, is to lay the grounds for an amendment we will need to move to the forthcoming ombudsman Bill to remedy a particular problem to which I shall come.

For the sake of anyone who happens to read Hansard in due course, I should begin by telling the story in brief. Incidentally, this is a story that has been told by many hon. Members from both sides of the Chamber. My hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) held a debate on a connected subject. Others who have taken a great interest include my right hon. Friends the Members for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) and for Wantage (Mr Vaizey)—the latter is in his place: he has been particularly active on this recently and I have corresponded with him—my hon. Friends the Members for Newbury (Richard Benyon) and for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), and indeed former Members such as Ian Bruce, who represented South Dorset.

I think the story is well known to all present, but, in brief, in 1996 when the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority was spinning off what became AEA Technology, a new pension scheme was created for that company. The employees concerned had been employees of UKAEA and had benefited from a Government-backed pensions scheme there. They were offered the choice either to remain in the existing scheme or to transfer, on two possible bases, to the AEA Technology scheme.

The sequel, which is also well known to everyone present, is that unfortunately the AEA Technology final salary scheme, like many other such schemes, came a cropper and, when AEA Technology went bust, the scheme turned out to be in massive deficit, so my constituents, and I suspect those of other hon. Members present, found themselves in the hands of the Pension Protection Fund, which—thank goodness—had been set up to deal with such matters. In that respect, they are in no different position from many other people who have suffered a similar fate.

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way so early in the debate. He is summarising his case exactly right. Is it not the case that, when the pension holders transferred to the new scheme, they were given strong assurances that they would continue to enjoy benefits identical or “very close to”—that was the wording in some of the literature that they were given—those they had under the Government-backed scheme?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: that is the nub of the problem—and the nub of the solution is related. It is a good idea to have solutions that relate to problems, and I am going to propose a solution to that particular problem, but let me first enlarge on the point both of my right hon. Friends have just raised, because this is where we get to an extraordinary sequence.

At the time when the pensioners in question were choosing whether to transfer their existing accrued rights from the Government-backed UKAEA scheme into the commercially-backed AEA Technology scheme, they were offered advice by all sorts of people. They were told various things by AEA Technology, the new firm. Needless to say, AEA Technology said the new scheme was wonderful because it wanted to attract people into it. It wanted to do that because anybody who knows about final salary schemes—there are people here who are genuine experts on that—knows that it is necessary to have a large number of employees in such a scheme to make it remotely viable, so AEA Technology had an interest.

I do not know, and I do not suppose we will ever find out, but I suspect that the UKAEA employees—who are not just any old set of employees, they are highly skilled professionals; some of them are extraordinarily clever people—would quite easily have been able to account for the undoubted bias in the advice coming from their prospective employer, so let us forget about that piece of advice. They were also, I think, given a certain amount of steer by UKAEA itself. This is where it gets a little trickier, because UKAEA is a Government body and it had some kind of duty to give people dispassionate and neutral advice. However, UKAEA was in the course of trying to spin off AEA Technology, so it had an interest, too. I genuinely do not know the extent to which the employees did or did not pay attention to whatever they were told by UKAEA. Luckily, for the purposes of the debate, I do not want to dwell on that either, because there is a much more serious issue at stake.

The third set of people from whom the employees received advice—we do not have to speculate about this because it was written, and I am going to describe exactly what it said—was from none other than the Government Actuary’s Department. That is not just any old body. It is the most august body, so far as advice on pensions and pension matters is concerned, in our country. It is exactly what its name says on the tin; it is the Government Actuary’s Department.

The Government Actuary’s Department now has a statement of practice, but at the time it issued that advice it did not. It issued a paper, a copy of which I have in my hand, that discussed transfers from the UKAEA superannuation scheme to the AEA Technology pension scheme. In section 3 of that paper, particularly in subsection 3.2, the Government Actuary’s Department listed what it describes on the contents page as “Advantages of preserving”, which means the advantages of remaining in the UKAEA scheme. Another section describes

“advantages of taking a special transfer value”—

namely, the advantages of moving from the UKAEA scheme to the AEA Technology scheme.

The first strange thing about that is, in section 3, in which the Government Actuary’s Department lists the

“Factors to consider in making the decision”,

and was in particular describing the advantages of preserving the UKAEA scheme benefits—looking at what might influence the employees to remain with the public sector scheme—it said:

“Whilst it is unlikely that the benefit promise made by either the UKAEA Scheme or the AEAT Scheme would ever be broken—”,

and it went on to say that it is even more unlikely that both promises would be broken.

The important point is that not just any old person but the Government Actuary’s Department said it was unlikely that the benefit promise would be broken by either the Government-backed scheme, UKAEA, which is undoubtedly true, or the AEA Technology scheme. I have no doubt that, so far as it went, that statement was accurate, if looked at from the perspective of the date on which the Government Actuary’s Department wrote that it was “unlikely” that the benefit promise would be broken by AEA Technology. Incidentally, I hope the Minister and others will trust me; I am sure the Minister has read the whole thing because I know he has been assiduously preparing for the debate.

What is clear is that nowhere in the rest of the document does the Government Actuary’s Department say what was also patently true—that the risk of the pensioners losing a large part of the value of their pensions if they remained with their accrued rights in the UKAEA scheme was zero, or as near to zero as human beings get. A triple A-rated guarantee from HM Government attended that scheme. No such security was available under the AEA Technology scheme. Commercially-backed schemes do not have a triple A-rated Government-backed guarantee that pensioners will get their money as promised. That is a material difference between the two schemes, and the Government Actuary’s Department, in offering advice to pensioners, had a clear duty to bring out that difference in risk. It did not, and that is the starting point for the compelling argument I will make.

[Stephen Crabb]

It is true that pensioners were encouraged to seek the advice of a qualified independent financial adviser, but that adviser could never advise on the overall risk of company failure and, therefore, the failure of the scheme, so my right hon. Friend’s point is exactly right. There was nothing in the documentation that pointed to the risk of the scheme failing altogether.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

20. What steps his Department is taking to improve the life chances of the most disadvantaged children and families.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Stephen Crabb)]

The Government are committed to tackling disadvantage and extending opportunity so that everyone has the chance to realise their full potential. Our life chances approach will focus on tackling the root causes of poverty, such as worklessness, educational attainment and family stability.

[Sir David Amess]

While I welcome my right hon. Friend’s recognition that strong and stable families make an enormous impact on children’s life chances, will he spell out to the House precisely what his Department is doing to ensure that those relationships are fostered and strengthened, particularly in a coastal town such as Southend?

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend is exactly right: family stability is a really important part of our mission to tackle entrenched disadvantage. That is why we have doubled funding for relationship support to £70 million and are significantly expanding support for parents. In addition, through our local family offer, we are working with 12 local authorities, including his own in Essex, to learn how best to strengthen the support they offer to families.

[Oliver Colvile]

As my right hon. Friend might know, there is a 12-year difference in life expectancy between one side of my city of Plymouth and the other. What advice would he give to improve chances and life expectancy in Plymouth?

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend is right that such inequality is unacceptable in Britain today, and that is why our life chances approach includes a set of statutory and non-statutory indicators that will drive action to tackle the wide range of complex and deep-rooted factors that can trap people in poverty, damaging their health and preventing them from making the most of their lives.

[Lucy Allan]

I would like to thank the Prime Minister for his amazing work on the life chances strategy. I hope that every Member, on both sides of the House, will continue to pursue this aim.

The troubled families programme has been a huge success, but does the Secretary of State agree that it could more positively be labelled the “supported families” initiative?

[Stephen Crabb]

I agree very much with my hon. Friend’s point about the leadership role that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has played—it has been critical in driving this agenda forward—and I am delighted that the future Prime Minister also shares his commitment. My hon. Friend is also right about the troubled families programme. It is important that we stay positive about the changes and that we do not stigmatise any particular communities, families or households.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has mentioned support for working parents several times, but those hit hardest by the Government’s cuts to in-work support for parents are single parents—those who least deserve it—so, on this issue and that of helping single parents, will he think again?

[Stephen Crabb]

I share the hon. Lady’s passion for helping single parents. The current statistics all demonstrate and underline that when lone parents are supported back into work, they can achieve remarkable things in bringing children in those households out of poverty. The trends are moving in the right direction. She should welcome initiatives such as universal credit and our support for childcare costs.

[Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that efforts to improve the life chances of disadvantaged children and families will be undermined by neglecting the importance of current income levels?

[Stephen Crabb]

I have always been very clear that income levels are important—a regular income is vital for families in difficult circumstances—but it is important that we look beyond that and, for the first time as a nation, start to tackle the underlying root causes of entrenched poverty.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Last year, child poverty increased by 200,000 as a direct result of the Government’s tax and social security policies, with two thirds of these children living in working households, and it is estimated that by 2020 more than 3.6 million children will be living in poverty. There is overwhelming evidence that child poverty has a direct and negative impact on children’s social, emotional and cognitive outcomes and ultimately on their life expectancy. Given the catastrophic consequences of Government policy implemented on scant evidence, will the Secretary of State do the right thing and repeal the damaging effects of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 and the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016, which threaten the life chances of these children?

[Stephen Crabb]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her new position on the Front Bench. Given her work in the Select Committee, I am sure she will do an excellent job in the shadow role.

The 200,000 figure that the hon. Lady mentioned exactly points to what was wrong with the previous relative income approach, which her previous Government took to tackling poverty. When real wages grow, poverty rates increase, despite people’s incomes not falling. It is much more important to tackle the underlying causes of poverty—worklessness, educational failure, family stability, problem debt and addictions.

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will know that Norwich is challenged by social mobility as per the social mobility index of earlier this year. Does he agree with me that it takes all parts of the community to come together to address these kind of problems, including the private sector and the third sector, and that constituency MPs can also play a key role in leading these things?

[Stephen Crabb]

I agree absolutely with my hon. Friend. The work she has championed in Norwich is a good example of local action, showing where local MPs can indeed be the champions. Much as we might want to talk about national levels of poverty and social mobility, it is much more important to understand what is going on at a local level and to drive local action with effective partnerships.

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

Many disadvantaged families have an older disabled relative, including 2,000 in my constituency who receive attendance allowance. The Government have said that they will scrap attendance allowance and pass funding to councils. When are the Government going to consult formally on those plans?

[Stephen Crabb]

The Government have not said that they are going to scrap attendance allowance. We are looking at options for devolving it to the local authority level, but we have been absolutely clear that this does not mean a cut to supporting attendance allowance. It is about looking at more effective ways of delivering it at the local level to achieve what it is intended to achieve.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

2. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of the UK leaving the EU on British pensioners living overseas.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michelle Thomson (Edinburgh West) (Ind)]

22. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of the outcome of the EU referendum on welfare spending.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Stephen Crabb)]

The British people have voted to leave the European Union, and the referendum decision must be respected and delivered. My Department is working closely with the EU unit that has been set up in the Cabinet Office, and we will be working with the next Prime Minister and the rest of the Cabinet as we forge a new path for the country.

[Alan Brown]

The European Union has provided a number of legal protections involving equality and human rights for disabled people. Given the delay in the publication of the Green Paper on the Work and Health programme, what plans has the Department to protect those rights following Brexit?

[Stephen Crabb]

No one with a disability or a long-term health condition should have any fear whatsoever about what will happen in the coming months and years as we negotiate Britain’s exit from the European Union. We are absolutely committed to protecting rights for disabled people in this country, and the Green Paper, which we will publish in the autumn, will outline our proposals for reforming systems in order to give better support to people with disabilities and long-term health conditions.

[Patricia Gibson]

Last week the Under-Secretary of State for disabled people confirmed that the Green Paper and the long-promised Work and Health programme for disabled people remained a priority for the Government. In the light of the current uncertainty, will the Secretary of State give us an assurance and a clear commitment that sufficient funds for that support are ring-fenced and the programme is guaranteed?

[Stephen Crabb]

The money has already been announced by the Chancellor on successive occasions, and it is there, waiting to be used. When the hon. Lady reads the Green Paper, which we hope to publish later this year, she will see how we will use it to develop longer-term reform options to provide better support for people with disabilities and close the disability employment gap. I think there is cross-party support for that in the House.

[Owen Thompson]

Cuts in support for people who have been placed in the employment and support allowance work-related activity group from April 2017 will leave many sick and disabled people in the dark, and potentially without the protections provided by the European Union. Will the Secretary of State, unlike the Brexiteers, give us some assurance that the Government actually have a plan for the Green Paper to give back, so that those who are affected by these changes are accurately assessed and are recognised and valued by the state?

[Stephen Crabb]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman about the need to recognise and protect people with these health conditions, and we are absolutely committed to doing that. I do not want to repeat the answer that I gave earlier, but we have money set aside, and we will publish the Green Paper later this year. It will set out clear reform options which I hope will command support from Members on both sides of the House, and also from disability organisations.

[Mr Speaker]

Michelle Thomson—not here.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the most important policy developments is the fact that, once we have left the EU, decisions by his Department relating to eligibility for benefits will no longer be at risk of being overturned by the European Court of Justice?

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: there will be that freedom in the future, but there are more options we can develop right now, even while we are still in the EU, for further ensuring that we have a fair benefits system that does not act as an unnatural draw for more migrants. We want people to come here, work and bring their talents, but we do not want the benefits system inflating those migration numbers.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

The impact of uncertainty on the economy following the Brexit vote is already being felt and ultimately will affect jobs, tax revenues and public spending. Before the referendum, the Government predicted that 500,000 jobs might be at risk, so what is the Secretary of State doing to protect these jobs and what is his estimate of the impact on social security spending?

[Stephen Crabb]

It is important that none of us talks up the risks and dangers to the economy. We need to be clear-sighted about the risks and challenges, but we should not be doing anything at the moment to talk down the British economy. The truth is that our economy is fundamentally strong: we have record numbers of people in work and, as we have seen from the announcement by Boeing today, continued investment in creating new jobs in our economy.

[Debbie Abrahams]

The lack of planning by this Government post-Brexit is complacency verging on neglect. The FTSE 250 has already lost 10% of its value since the referendum outcome and that will impact on pension funds. Given that 5,000 of the 6,000 defined benefit pension schemes are currently in deficit and that the pensions regulator has raised concerns of additional risks to these schemes following the Brexit decision, what is the Secretary of State doing to protect the pensions of the millions of people who will be affected?

[Stephen Crabb]

Nothing fundamentally has changed since the outcome of the referendum: the economy continues to perform well and, as I said, we need to be careful that we do not do our bit in talking down the economy at the moment. I agree with the hon. Lady that there is a very real systemic issue with DB pension schemes that we need to look at, and my Department will be discussing it further in the months ahead.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

One thing that we do know has happened is the fall in the pound. That has resulted in making our exports much cheaper and imports more expensive. Employers have already said that that will lead to more business and jobs. Does the Minister agree that that would be helpful to him in reducing the number of unemployed?

[Stephen Crabb]

The truth is that right in front of us now, since the outcome of the referendum, we have a mixture of opportunities and challenges. It is incumbent upon us to turn those challenges into opportunities, and we are determined as a Government to do so. If the Opposition want to do their bit, they can stand up and not talk down the British economy at this time.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

Already during this Parliament the Government’s austerity cuts have taken more than £12 billion out of the pockets of low-income households, mostly through changes initiated by the DWP. With many economists predicting a further recession as a consequence of Brexit, and the pound now less stable than Bitcoin, will the Secretary of State assure me that he will not allow those on low and middle incomes to bear the brunt of further economic downturn?

[Stephen Crabb]

On previous occasions I have set out the broad approach I take to welfare reform. With regard to issues in Scotland, with which I know the hon. Lady is primarily concerned, she should be aware that I had a very constructive meeting last week with her colleague Angela Constance, the welfare Minister in the Scottish Parliament. We remain absolutely committed to giving the Scottish Government the new welfare powers agreed to in the Scotland Act 2016.

[Dr Whiteford]

In the past week, for the fourth year in a row, the Infrastructure and Projects Authority has given the roll-out of personal independence payments an “amber/red” rating, indicating that

“successful delivery of the project/programme is in doubt with major risks apparent in a number of key areas”

and adding that “urgent action” is needed to address the problems. What is the Secretary of State going to do to fix these problems, and how does he intend to protect his Department’s projects from the impending doom of a Cabinet full of Brexiteers?

[Stephen Crabb]

Any big project, whether it is the introduction of universal credit or the roll-out of PIP, carries substantial risks, and I think the IPA report recognised that fact. In the past four months, since I have been in the Department, I have been committed to driving through improvements to the PIP process. PIP still commands broad support across disability organisations, which recognise that it is a much better benefit than the old-style disability living allowance.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

On the one hand, Lush cosmetics has just announced that it is going to move most of its production overseas, because it says that its workers do not feel welcome here, while on the other hand there are those in the food and farming sector, 38% of whose workforce comes from overseas, who are saying that they could go out of business because they will not be able to find people to employ. What is the Department doing to protect jobs in the south-west in the wake of the Brexit vote?

[Stephen Crabb]

The Department has clear plans in place for any significant increase in unemployment, whether in a particular local region or right across the UK. We have contingency plans for dealing with up-ticks in unemployment. However, we need to be really careful that we do not exaggerate the bad news that the hon. Lady might think is out there. There are opportunities for this country in terms of trade deals and of securing new investment, such as the investment from Boeing that was announced today. There are also serious risks and challenges, and we need to be clear-sighted and prepared for those.

[Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)]

6. What progress his Department is making on reducing the number of workless households.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Stephen Crabb)]

The number of workless households is now the lowest on record. Since 2010, it has fallen by more than 750,000.

[Dr Davies]

In Rhyl and district, the number of people requiring support through the Work programme for the long-term unemployed has dropped from 400 to 150 over the past 18 months. That is good news, but jobseeker’s allowance and employment and support allowance claimant rates in parts of Rhyl remain concerning, and the Work programme delivery company has recently closed its principal office in the town. Can the Minister assure me that the new Work and Health programme will take particular account of individuals who are less receptive to intervention and who need more intensive input?

[Stephen Crabb]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The new Work and Health programme is being designed precisely to help those people who face multiple and complex barriers to getting into work. Beyond that, our upcoming Green Paper will look at the additional ways in which we can reduce the disability employment gap in the longer term. Of course, GPs play a key role in supporting those people, and I look forward to meeting my hon. Friend and his GP colleagues to discuss these important issues further.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

Given that the Work programmes have been cut by 87% and that the Secretary of State now knows who the next Prime Minister will be, will he confirm today that he will lobby her to increase the funding for the system that the Green Paper will produce? Will he also confirm the timetable for its roll-out?

[Stephen Crabb]

I am pleased to be able to tell the hon. Gentleman that the next Prime Minister of this country absolutely shares my passion and commitment to a one nation vision of our society, to breaking down barriers and disadvantage and to ending inequalities. We await the specific decisions that the new Prime Minister will take on the important issues we are discussing today.

[Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Building on the point about the significantly reduced amount of funding available for the Work and Health programme, what assurances will the Secretary of State be able to give us if, in the light of Brexit, we see a significant increase in the number of people looking for work generally? How on earth will a reduced programme be able to serve everybody?

[Stephen Crabb]

The important point to make to my hon. Friend is that the Work and Health programme is just one part of a wider package of initiatives that we are taking forward to close the disability employment gap and to provide better support for people with long-term health conditions. I shall not repeat what I said in response to earlier questions, but the Green Paper that we are publishing later this year will outline the full range of reform options that we are interested in taking forward.

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

7. What assessment his Department has made of the effect of recent changes to benefits on the number of children living in poverty.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Stephen Crabb)]

We know that work is the best route out of poverty. The number of people in work is at a record high and the number of children living in a household where no one works has fallen by 450,000 since 2010.

[Shabana Mahmood]

My constituency has the third highest level of child poverty in the country, and 13,600 families currently receive tax credits, leaving them vulnerable to the Government’s cuts to universal credit. In his aborted bid for the Tory leadership, the Secretary of State said that he had a

“strong grasp of…the social and economic divisions in our country”.

If that is true, does he agree that cuts to universal credit will only compound the social and economic divisions in our country? Will he now commit to reversing those changes so that our children do not have to pay the price of his Government’s political choices?

[Stephen Crabb]

I absolutely stand by what I said. There was a massive expansion of tax credits under the previous Labour Government, but it did not do a single thing to tackle the underlying causes of poverty. Universal credit is just one part of what we are doing. There is the national living wage, which the Labour party used to support at one time, and the increase in personal allowances. We are in the business of transforming the landscape for people on low incomes. That is why the figures are moving in the right direction.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

Whatever the recent changes to benefits, they do not seem to have dealt with the big issue of personal independence payments—PIP. I recently had to deal with a horrendous case in which an individual in my constituency should have received PIP, but did not and had to go through the appeal process. I wrote to the Minister and the Government just ignored it. What are the Government doing to ensure that people who should be in receipt of PIP get it early and are not left to wallow while waiting for a long time, as they have been recently?

[Stephen Crabb]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People or I will be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss that specific case. As for the broader principles behind the question, we are improving the PIP process, speeding up applications, decisions and appeals. If the hon. Gentleman has specific concerns, I would be happy to meet him to discuss them further.

[Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)]

8. What steps he is taking to support people with disabilities and health conditions who are looking for work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Stephen Crabb)]

On 6 July I appointed Paul Gray to lead a second independent review of PIP. A call for evidence has been published today, seeking evidence from individuals and organisations to inform the review. The review will consider how effectively further evidence is being used to assist the correct claim decision. It will also look at the speed and effectiveness of information gathering, as well as building on recommendations from the first review. I am today announcing the Department’s intention to conduct an evaluation of PIP, with initial findings to be published by early 2017.

[Richard Graham]

To help deliver our manifesto commitment of bringing a million people with disabilities into work, will my right hon. Friend consider extending the current exemption from employer national insurance contributions for apprentices both to additional apprentices and to full-time employees with disabilities, so that, like the US, the Netherlands and Ireland, our tax system benefits employers who see the abilities as well as the disabilities of all our constituents?

[Stephen Crabb]

When it comes to closing the disability employment gap, I am absolutely clear that no options have been left off the table. We want to look at the widest possible range of solutions, including financial incentives such as our small employment offer, which will support small businesses to increase local job opportunities for disabled people.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

In May, after a two-year fight, the Government finally published redacted reports of 49 social security claimants who had died between 2012 and 2014, revealing that 10 of the 49 had died following a sanction, and 40 of the deaths were associated with a suicide or a suspected suicide. Another nine social security claimants have died since 2014. When will the Secretary of State publish the reports into their deaths, or will we have to wait another two years for those as well?

[Stephen Crabb]

I hear the hon. Lady’s point, but it is important not to infer too many causal links between the factors that she is raising, and she needs to be extremely careful in how she describes those cases at the Dispatch Box. I am happy to discuss the matter with her on another occasion.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

T2. What support is my right hon. Friend’s Department offering to those in later middle age and older who are seeking work?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Crabb]

I totally disagree with the hon. Lady. We are continuing to roll out universal credit across Scotland, and the early results from Scottish jobcentres are very, very positive. As I said earlier, I had a very constructive and useful meeting last week with Angela Constance, the Scottish Minister with welfare responsibilities. I recognise that the Scottish Government have some separate choices and priorities, and we are committed to giving them the powers to take those forward.

[Mr Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)]

T4. Starting a new business is one of the best ways out of worklessness. Will the Secretary of State join me in encouraging entrepreneurial jobseekers from Havant and across the country to apply for the Government’s new enterprise allowance?

[Stephen Crabb]

We absolutely do want to support more people to move into self-employment and to help develop the entrepreneurs of the future. The new enterprise allowance has now successfully supported the start-up of nearly 85,000 new businesses and I look forward to visiting my hon. Friend’s constituency to see some of those businesses in action.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

T8. For obvious reasons, refugee families and children are not usually required to meet past residence requirements when accessing benefits, so why on earth are the Government trying to overturn a recent tribunal decision so as to deny disabled refugees, including children, access to disability living allowance on the grounds of those very residence criteria? Is that not particularly absurd given that many of them will have been resettled here specifically because they have such a disability?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

The Government are trialling distributed ledger technology, or blockchain, for the payment and spending of claimants’ benefits. It is a fantastic new technology, but the Government’s own report says that it needs a regulatory, ethical and data framework. How do we know that vulnerable benefits claimants are not being forced to share their data without giving proper informed consent?

[Stephen Crabb]

I thank the hon. Lady for that very interesting question. This technology is very new, and I confess that I am not an expert on it—the person who is is my noble Friend Lord Freud, who is, of course, in the other place. When it comes to security of claimants’ data, we are absolutely committed to the very highest standards of protection. However, in terms of the wider technology issue the hon. Lady refers to, I look forward to discussing it with her in more detail.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

Currently, children under three are not eligible for Motability benefits. However, during my time in children’s hospices, I saw first hand how critical transport is for children with life-limiting illnesses, particularly given all the equipment they need. Will my hon. Friend agree to look at the issue again to see whether these young people can get the support they need?

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I do not want to upset anybody on the Labour Front Bench by showing passion and anger about the Government’s failure to tackle unscrupulous employers who give no guarantee of employment, no contract, no certainty and no pension—nothing but zero-hours contracts, with people being hired from agencies—but when will the Government take on these rotten employers?

[Stephen Crabb]

Zero-hours contracts, of course, form only a very small proportion of the overall jobs in the labour market. The thing that is particularly pernicious about zero-hours contracts is the exclusivity clauses—that has been recognised as widespread—and we are the Government who actually took action to deal with that.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

In my constituency we have an initiative with the DWP and the Salvation Army food bank whereby when people come into the food bank, the DWP helps them in any way it can by placing an officer there. Would my right hon. Friend like to come to Morecambe to see at first hand how this initiative is working out?

[Stephen Crabb]

Yes, I would like to go to Morecambe to see that project. I am very clear that something we need to be doing far better, and more of, through our job centres at a local level is integrating with local services, whether they are provided through the Salvation Army or any other charity.

Disability Employment Gap

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Stephen Crabb)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith).

This House is at its best when it seeks to speak with one voice. There have been times in the past when the House has sought to speak with one voice, and no more so than in the area of disability. That is when we get the best response from organisations that represent disabled people and disabled people themselves, because they respect that. The tone that the hon. Gentleman has struck this afternoon is entirely the opposite approach. I regret the way in which he has gone about his business this afternoon and his partisan tone. I know he thinks that this style of opposition works for him, especially on Twitter, but organisations that represent disabled people and disabled people themselves will be very disappointed with the tone that he has struck.

Under this Government, our country has seen the highest levels of employment ever, with more than 2.5 million more people in work than six years ago. However, for many disabled people who want to work and who could work, the unquestionable improvement in our labour market and historic levels of employment over recent years do not ring true when it comes to their own circumstances and outlook for the future.

That is partly a legacy of the system that we inherited as a Government. It dates back to the days of one of my predecessors, John Hutton, who said that under his reforms, he wanted to see 1 million sick or disabled people get back to work. The truth is that that never happened. Instead, far too many sick and disabled people were parked on benefits without the correct support from the health service or the jobcentres. That is what happened under Labour and what has been happening over the last six years.

I made it clear in my first statement to the House following my appointment in March that I am ambitious for disabled people and for the support that they receive. I am ambitious for Britain to become the best country in the world for disabled people to live: a country that provides the right kind of support to help them lead as full and active a life as possible; a country that is a world leader in assistive technologies that transform their independence at home and their working environments; a country where employers embrace and embed disability awareness as a core component of their business; a country where disabled people have the same opportunities as anybody else to get a job and share in the prosperity of our growing economy.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State chided my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) for the tone of his opening remarks, but does he not recognise that the organisations that represent disabled people are unanimously opposed to the scale of the cuts to support that his Government have introduced?

[Stephen Crabb]

I have huge respect for the right hon. Gentleman. The truth is that in real terms, we are increasing the support that we give to disabled people. By the end of the Parliament, we will still be spending about £50 billion to support people with long-term health conditions and disabilities.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

I struggle to understand how the Secretary of State could suggest that support for disabled people has gone up in real terms, when if someone who is currently on employment and support allowance and who is in receipt of ESA WRAG goes into work but then falls out, they lose access to that £30 a week. How can he possibly say that when he is looking at a person-centred approach to this debate?

[Stephen Crabb]

We can get on to that later in the debate. The truth is that ESA has not worked in the way that was intended when it was set up by the previous Labour Government. When John Hutton created ESA, it was with a view to seeing 1 million people with disabilities and long-term health conditions get back into work. It has not done anything like that. The truth is that for those people who are in the work-related activity group, there are better ways to get them the support they need and to help them back into work. The incentives are not in place.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

What percentage of the workforce in this country has disabilities, or, to put it another way, what percentage of people with disabilities are part of the workforce?

[Stephen Crabb]

There are different ways of measuring that, but around one in six people have a disability. I will come on to explain why those figures will go up and what challenges that will present to us as a society. It is a mark of the extent of our ambition as a Government that we have a commitment to halve the disability employment gap. That is exactly the right vision to have, but we are in no doubt that the challenges are both profound and complex.

The employment rate for those who are not disabled is currently 80%; for disabled people it is 47%. That is not just a gap of 33 percentage points, but a gap in the life chances of disabled people up and down the country. It is a gap that has persisted for too long. The barriers that disabled people have built up over many years will take time to break down. I am clear that, for far too long, too many have not had the right support or been given the opportunity of work. Very often they are parked on benefits, cast aside and forgotten about. That is not good enough.

[Neil Coyle]

rose—

[Stephen Crabb]

I will make a bit more progress, but I will give way later.

Emerging from this past of unfulfilled potential, there are encouraging signs that those barriers are being dismantled and that attitudes are changing. Travelling home on the Tube the other day, I saw an advert promoting a career with Shell—I can already see grimaces on Labour Members’ faces. That ad made it clear that Shell recognises that the more diverse and inclusive a team, the more varied the ideas and the better the business. Diversity drives innovation. The ad shows how a disabled person is as much a part of a business’s core vision of success as any other recruit. Recruiting disabled people should not be a bolt-on extra or a nice thing to do. As the ad says, the company is in search of “pioneers” and “remarkable people”. For me, this was more than a recruitment ad; it was a much wider advert for how society is changing and how disabled people are viewed. They are no longer patronised or diminished, but a core component of a well-performing business and of a diverse and successful society.

I see and hear that change for myself when I meet employers, charities and disabled people. I hear it from members of the Disability Charities Consortium and of the mental health expert advisory group. Just yesterday, when I was visiting the constituency of the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), I had the pleasure of going to a micro-brewery in Bermondsey where all the employees have learning disabilities.

[Neil Coyle]

rose—

[Stephen Crabb]

Now is probably a good moment to give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Neil Coyle]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way and for visiting the fantastic organisation, UBREW, in my constituency. He has spoken a lot about ambition, but does he not think that this House and disabled people were misled about the timing of the new disability support programme from next year—at the same time as the ESA cut is going to be delivered? Does he not think that it would be fairer and more reasonable if the ESA cut was delayed until his delay to deliver the new employment programme has come to an end?

[Stephen Crabb]

I do not think that the House was misled. The money has been made available from the Treasury and I have discussed it with the Chancellor. That money is there. What I have decided to do—I will explain this in more detail later—is to take a step back and work much more closely with disability organisations and disabled people. Rather than rush to push out a White Paper, I have decided to talk to those organisations that know the situation the best, and work in a new spirit to work up some proposals that we know will make a long-term difference. That decision I have taken not to rush ahead with a White Paper and to work more collaboratively on a Green Paper has been welcomed by the organisations that I have been speaking to.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

The Secretary of State talked about the importance of having the right support for people with a learning disability. Young people with a learning disability often tell me that the transition at 16 to mainstream college can be especially challenging for them, particularly if they want to go on into employment. Will he join me in supporting organisations, such as Dove House in my constituency, that want to do more to help special schools support students right through to 19, to ensure that young people have the support they need to get into employment?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Crabb]

My right hon. Friend, a former Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, makes a really important point and that is an organisation that I would love to hear more from. That period of transition is crucial. Those charities—we all have them in our constituencies, do we not, Madam Deputy Speaker?—often have more expertise than anybody else and work day by day in local communities, supporting people with disabilities. We need to hear far more from organisations like that.

The pride and passion that I saw displayed yesterday among the staff at that social enterprise, employing people with learning disabilities in that wonderful community of Bermondsey in south London, was a model of motivation for supporting people with disabilities. These positive experiences are reflected in the figures. Over the past two years alone, 365,000 more disabled people have gone into work, and that is a huge achievement. However, that progress has not translated into a narrowing of the disability employment gap, largely because of the enormous growth across the labour market in general. The gap will close only when we see a faster increase in the rate of employment growth among people with disabilities than across the economy generally. That is how we close the gap.

The shadow Secretary of State lauded the fact that, on paper at least, the disability gap was narrower under Labour, but that was because unemployment was soaring across the economy. That is not the way to close the disability employment gap. We need to harness the positive progress across the economy and ensure that people with disabilities and long-term health conditions are at the front of the queue to benefit from those changes in economy.

[Chloe Smith]

I am very pleased that my right hon. Friend has come on to this point. Does this not echo the broader point about what we need to do about life chances, which is not to focus on transfers over an imaginary line but instead focus on the real underlying factors?

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend makes an important broader point about how we think about poverty and disadvantage. I think that we have come a long way as a Government and across society in understanding poverty. It is not just about chasing after a target on paper; it is about understanding what is going on behind the scenes and drilling down into root causes.

The disability employment gap is national but the support and solutions are, I believe, often local. Many Members on both sides of the House are doing excellent work to encourage and support disabled people in moving into work in their constituencies. One example of that is the holding of reverse job fairs, which are important events to link local employers with specialist disability organisations and help to create long-term job opportunities for disabled jobseekers. Jobcentres up and down the country are also on the frontline, supporting disabled people’s move into work, and we are more than doubling the number of disability employment advisers in jobcentres to provide specialist and local expertise to help disabled people enter employment.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

I commend the Secretary of State for his tone. One category that he has not mentioned is those who suffer from long-term mental health conditions and who are getting back into work. I commend to him recommendation 7 of the independent mental health taskforce, chaired by the chief executive of Mind, which talks about the DWP working to direct funds currently used to support people on employment and support allowance to commission evidence-based health-led interventions to help get people with long-term mental health conditions back into work.

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I am clear, as is my whole ministerial team at the Department, that the challenge of mental health is enormous and profound. We must do far more to understand it and its interaction with employment. We will be spending tens of millions of pounds in the coming years on pilots to try to understand what interventions can make a positive difference for people with mental health conditions, and I can assure my hon. Friend that we are determined to see positive change in that regard.

We are expanding Access to Work, so that 25,000 more disabled people by 2021 will be helped with the additional costs they face from working. We are ensuring that disabled people are part of our plans to increase apprenticeships, with an accessible apprenticeship task force which is providing advice on how potential apprentices with learning disabilities and other hidden impairments can take these up.

[Nicola Blackwood]

The Secretary of State is generous in giving way. On Access to Work and the fact that we are increasing spending on it, that increased spending will be of little value if it remains, as Liz Sayce said, the “best kept secret” in the DWP. How can we ensure that the most vulnerable and the smallest businesses, which would benefit most from it, hear about it and can gain the full value of that scheme?

[Stephen Crabb]

The slightly glib answer that I could give is that there is a role for all of us in this House to promote Access to Work in our communities and constituencies, but there is a broader challenge for the Department and for the Ministers as to how we get that information out. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, who has responsibility for disabled people, is taking the lead on that and will refer to it in his closing remarks.

[Neil Coyle]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. Can he explain why the number of disabled people supported by Access to Work is lower now than it was in the last full year of Labour in government? When will he publish the figures for the number of young disabled people who are supported from the £10 million fund that was meant to have been dedicated to voluntary placements from 2013?

[Stephen Crabb]

I do not have the specific figures to hand, but I heard a voice in my ear from my colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People, my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), that those figures are not correct, so perhaps in his closing remarks he can respond directly to the question from the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle).

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend made the point about apprenticeships. I was interested to hear some comments from the Minister for Skills recently about the possibilities of adapted apprenticeship frameworks for people with particular disabilities and learning difficulties. We recently had a fantastic cross-party debate in this House about autism. Does my right hon. Friend agree that for people with autism, apprenticeships can offer a very good way forward if they are properly designed?

[Stephen Crabb]

Indeed. We have the accessible apprenticeship taskforce, which will report to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary. That is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), who has deep experience and expertise on these issues. I am sure autism will be one of the aspects that we consider.

We are embedding employment advisers with mental health therapies to support people with mental health conditions to receive timely and tailored employment advice. We are supporting disabled entrepreneurs through the new enterprise allowance, with over 16,000 businesses being set up by people with disabilities and long-term health conditions since 2011. Only today, I was reading about a deaf person in Gloucester who has been helped by the new enterprise allowance to set up a carpentry business. That person is no longer on benefits and has joined the many thousands of small business entrepreneurs who are so important to our economy.

These are all real, practical measures that we are taking to make a difference for disabled people, but the scale of the challenge that we face demands a broader response. The scale of the challenge is demonstrated by the forecasts and by the way our demographics are changing. More and more of us of working age will be living with some kind of health condition in the future that will need to be managed for us to stay healthy in work. Around 12 million people of working age are already living with at least one long-term condition, and that figure is forecast to rise. Mental health problems are also rising, particularly for young people. Around one in six working people have a mental health condition, and that figure rises to around one in four for jobseeker’s allowance claimants and almost half for those receiving ESA. Lifestyle factors such as smoking and obesity mean that the proportion of the working population with significant health conditions such as diabetes and heart disease is likely to increase.

[Sue Hayman (Workington) (Lab)]

Is any monitoring being done as to how many people who get into work are still in that job one year later? Sustainability is just as important as getting the job in the first place.

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Lady mentions an extremely important point. We are doing that, particularly for people with disabilities. More broadly, with our universal credit reforms, that is one of the things that we will be doing generally for people moving off benefits. The support does not end the day that they find a job. The support continues, to ensure that the employment is sustainable.

On top of the long-standing barriers disabled people have faced, there are serious long-term demographic changes. They require serious and long-term cross-sector solutions. No single policy or initiative from my Department or any other will serve as a silver bullet to immediately close and seal the disability employment gap. We will only make the strides we all want to see by working differently and by working in a truly collaborative way; yes, with the health service and the welfare system, but also with local authorities, employers, charities and voluntary organisations. It means we also need to listen to, and speak with, those who know what support will work best—disabled people themselves.

That is why I announced that we will publish a Green Paper later this year to do just that. I make no apology for taking the time to ensure we get such important reforms right. The reforms have the potential to transform so many lives. It is important to build consensus and to seek the views and support of the individuals and groups involved. It is also about understanding what works with groups who perhaps have not been heard from enough so far, such as smaller, local organisations who have a lot of expertise and understanding of what works on the ground, and importantly, groups such as employers to look seriously at the role they have to support and help the disabled people they employ.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

The Secretary of State will know of the work done by the charity Pluss. Indeed, his colleague the Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People, my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), attended the showing of a recent video it produced about people who had returned to work. Does he agree with Pluss and me that there may be opportunities to attract more smaller employers into taking on people with disabilities if there is a tax break on national insurance, in the same way as there is a tax break on apprenticeships for smaller employers at the moment?

[Stephen Crabb]

It is exactly that kind of incentive that I hope the Green Paper process will explore. Those are exactly the kinds of ideas that we need to examine. My colleagues in the Treasury will obviously take an interest, but we have to think differently right across Government if we are to have any hope of closing the disability employment gap. I am particularly keen to know what small businesses think about what they can do to employ more people with disabilities.

[Stephen Timms]

I applaud the aspiration for consensus, which the Secretary of State has now set out a couple of times in his speech. Does he not recognise, however, that he will not achieve a consensus against a backdrop of such huge cuts in support for disabled people? The Chancellor tried that again in the most recent Budget. While the Government are cutting support so much, the Secretary of State will not find the consensus that he rightly wants to achieve.

[Stephen Crabb]

I hear the right hon. Gentleman’s point. When it was made earlier, I said that by the end of this Parliament we will still be spending more in real terms on supporting people with disabilities. My aspiration for the end of the Parliament is that we will be spending in a much more effective way to help to transform lives.

This new approach is not just about changing the way disabled people are supported to move into work, but how they are helped to stay in work. A disabled person may make the breakthrough into work only to permanently fall out of work and on to sickness benefits soon after. Tens of thousands of disabled people do so every few months. I completely agree with the Resolution Foundation’s report this week, which highlighted the need for more focus on supporting disabled people in work, as well as those moving into work. Prevention and early support will be key to that, which is why we are supporting people to stay in work and trying to prevent them from becoming ill in the first place. That is why we are investing an extra £1 billion a year for mental health care in the NHS to support 1 million more people to access high-quality timely care.

Our Green Paper has the potential to be an historic opportunity to harness and build on the positive changes we have seen for disabled people. It is only through this approach—working with employers, disabled people themselves, the NHS and the welfare system, and local authorities—that we can build a strategy that will work to make a difference to people’s lives, keeping them in work as well as helping to support many, many more into employment.

British Steel Pension Scheme

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2016 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Stephen Crabb)]

Today I am publishing a consultation on options for the British Steel Pension Scheme. Britain’s steel industry is an important part of our economy and this Government are working to help the industry secure a long-term viable future. As part of this work we are considering the future position of the pension scheme. The consultation includes a full range of options that consider whether and how the scheme could be separated from the existing sponsoring employer and whether it will be necessary to reduce the benefits within the scheme. The consultation will run until 23 June 2016. I will place a copy of the consultation document in the House Library.

[HCWS16]