Work Experience

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jones]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. MPs can certainly show the way practically and, as I will come on to, by supporting people who are willing to give work experience opportunities to our young people.

Youth unemployment is not a new phenomenon in this country, and it has been on an upward trend since 2004, when we were in a better economic position, although getting young people into work should be a priority for any Government regardless of the economic situation. Tomorrow we will see the latest unemployment figures, and we wait to see the figures on youth unemployment with bated breath. The current figures indicate that we have more than 1 million young people unemployed and out of work, which equates to 22% of young people in the country.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

It is excellent that my hon. Friend has initiated this debate but, given what he has just said, is it not extraordinary that we are having to have what is a needless debate? It is extraordinary that anyone out there should be opposed to young people getting work experience.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brandon Lewis]

I thank the hon. Lady for outlining that she supports the Socialist Workers party position on this. The reality is that the publicity came about a few weeks ago, when the Socialist Workers party started a campaign, having placed an advert that was wrong.

[Tony Baldry]

Would my hon. Friend not pass on to the hon. Lady the advice that when one is in a hole, one should stop digging?

[Brandon Lewis]

I thank my hon. Friend for that helpful intervention. He has probably said everything that needs to be said.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have debated this issue a few times with people from Right to Work and various other groups that are backed or supported by the Socialist Workers party. What has been particularly noticeable, however, is that there has, until very recently, been a lack of Labour Members debating it. It was therefore somewhat surprising, if not frustrating, that when Labour Members started agreeing to come out during the last couple of days of the real media coverage, they quite openly said that they supported the scheme’s principle—I hope the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), will do so again today—but then complained that the problem was miscommunication.

The miscommunication has come about, however, purely because the Socialist Workers party and its representative protest groups have purposely confused things in every single debate. Before one debate I took part in, a member of the Socialist Workers party was chatting quite happily outside the studio. He understood exactly what the different programmes were and how they worked. When we went in to debate them, however, he straight away confused the mandatory Work programme with work experience—he knew exactly what he was doing. It is a real shame that Labour Members did not come out with us, even if they do disagree with the programme, to clarify that work experience is a straightforward and simple voluntary programme that gives people experience in an industry or field they have expressed an interest in going into.

We should remember to congratulate the companies involved in the scheme, and it is great that hundreds more are joining, thanks to the publicity it has had—we should possibly thank the Socialist Workers party for giving it that extra coverage. Those companies should be congratulated for doing young people a service by providing opportunities and experience of a range of issues. They are providing not just the skill sets that people want, whether that is in engineering, technology, retail or any other industry, but the interpersonal skills that Members mentioned and the skills that come with simply understanding what it means to get up and go to work. Last week, The Sunday Telegraph carried a story about people on the work experience programme of a company in Kent. Those people said how much higher their self-esteem was as a result of getting up in the morning and having a project, and most of them were going on to full-time jobs with the company.

We must, however, be careful. The real shame is that if we do not make it clear what a good scheme this is, organisations such as charities that run work experience schemes could lose the benefit of them. Through the Prince’s Trust, I have had people work in my office for a couple of weeks. They have been excellent people, and they have used that experience on their CVs and gone on to really productive ways of life, which was perhaps not the case before. A range of charities could be threatened if we are not careful.

The most important people in all this, however, are the young people who take part in the scheme. They have voluntarily said they want to do something with their lives; they want to think out of the box and take a different path. As we have heard, many of us, and many people who work in the media, have had work experience. I was fortunate enough to do so when I was young because my father happened to know somebody who offered me work experience, and that led to other opportunities. Other young people do not necessarily have those connections and opportunities. It is right and courageous of the Government to put the scheme forward, to give a chance to people who may not have those contacts. That is hugely important.

We have all perhaps worked in jobs that we have seen as only the first step. My first paid job was in a warehouse. I did not particularly want to spend my life working in a warehouse. I wanted to be a buyer, and move on from there, but to get into a particular company I needed to take a job in the warehouse. It was step one on the ladder. We must encourage the 34,000-plus young people who have done the work experience programme to feel that they have done a good thing. They have shown motivation, and are inspired to go and do something different—to take a step on to the first rung of the ladder, and not to expect to jump on to rungs four, five or six, which too often is the case these days. We should really congratulate the young people who have had the motivation to get involved with the scheme, as much as the companies that give them the opportunity. It is a good scheme and we should support it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Let us deal head-on with the issue of an increase in long-term youth unemployment. The only reason that the figures for long-term youth unemployment show an increase is that we no longer hide young unemployed people on Government schemes and training allowances, which created a totally misleading figure. The reality is that long-term youth unemployment on a like-for-like basis is now almost identical to what it was two years ago under the previous Administration. Every single young unemployed person in Blaenau Gwent will have access to a work experience placement through our work experience scheme or to the Work programme, through which they will receive a wage subsidy for any employer who takes them on and gives them a long-term job.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the £25 million that is being made available for 10,000 advanced and higher apprenticeships is welcome not only because it will help to rebalance the economy towards manufacturing, but because it will provide a number of skilled jobs for young people? Is not the challenge now to encourage employers to take up and offer those apprenticeships?

[Chris Grayling]

Absolutely; I completely agree with my hon. Friend. We have regular meetings with employer groups, where I encourage them to take up apprenticeships. I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning has met his target for delivering apprenticeships, unlike the previous Government. The Opposition seldom refer to this point, but the increase in the number of apprenticeships far exceeds the number of places that were available through the future jobs fund.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The challenge facing us is that the recommendations will involve a complete change of the work capability assessment, not simply for mental health issues, but for physical issues, and is therefore a multi-year project. We are considering whether we can incorporate elements of the recommendations into the current approach much more quickly. I am concerned to ensure that we do the right thing by people with mental health conditions, and I want to ensure that we take any sensible steps as quickly as possible.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that our approach should focus on what can be done to help people back into the world of work and on helping them with what they can do, rather than on any scintilla of a suggestion of people being punished for what they cannot do?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is a crucial point. We are not trying to do people down, but looking to help those with the potential to make more of their lives to do so. The assessment is all about working out who has the potential to get back into the workplace, and through the Work programme, we can deliver the specialist support that they need to do so.

Youth Unemployment

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

I want to make three points. First, we must put the debate into context—the good news and the bad news. The good news is that the June official unemployment figures showed the number of young people out of work falling in the quarter to April—youth unemployment has continued to fall sharply—and the number of unemployed people between the ages of 16 and 24 dropped by 79,000, which is the largest fall since official records began in 1992. That point needs to be made in this debate. Against that, we must recognise that 900,000 young people aged between 16 and 24 are still out of work. I accept the earlier caveat of the Minister, that a number of them are youngsters who are studying but looking for part-time work; even so, there is still a problem, in particular for those not in education, employment or training, who have that hideous acronym of NEETs.

Secondly, in the Budget the Government announced an extra £180 million to help fund 40,000 apprenticeships, so over the next four years a potential 400,000 on-the-job training schemes will become accessible to young unemployed people. However, employers have a responsibility, too. We might get more apprenticeships, but a two-way process is involved: employers need to offer the apprenticeships. In a constituency such as mine, where the overall unemployment rate is about 2%, employers often bemoan the skills shortages when things are going well but fail to realise that the wise employers with foresight ensure that they train their own staff for the future.

Pro Drive, Norbar Torque Tools, Crompton Technology and Bicester Village in my constituency are flagship businesses with nationally and internationally recognisable names, and all have excellent apprenticeship schemes. Pro Drive has a scheme to send apprentices to university. Bicester Village has introduced a scheme for retail apprenticeships, and Crompton Technology, Norbar Torque Tools and many others are enhancing their work force and their future by investing in young people today. We cannot just stand on the sidelines and shout at the Government. The Chancellor made opportunities available in the Budget, and it is now for small, medium and large business to take up the opportunities.

My third point relates to NEETs. The NEET rate in many places is far too high, but young people do not start to become disengaged with education and employment at 16. That often happens much earlier. In Oxfordshire, we are launching an early intervention service that will start at a much earlier age to provide specialist services to families facing exceptional difficulties. The whole point about the early intervention service is that it will try to help to improve outcomes in relation to reducing persistent absence and exclusion from school in the hope that when youngsters get to 16 they will still be engaged in education and training. It is sometimes unbelievably depressing to meet young people who have fallen out of education and training, and we must ensure that many more of them are engaged. If they are unqualified and unskilled at 16, the chances are that they will be unqualified, unskilled and unemployed not just at 24, but for the rest of their life. Banbury and Bicester job clubs are organising specialist job clubs during the summer for young people to ensure that every youngster in the area knows about all the available opportunities, and that they get the fullest possible support in finding a place in the world of work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

We recognise that it is nonsense for one part of the benefits system to lend people money to deal with the fact that they have not received benefits from another part of it on time. The whole business of alignment payments has become completely out of control. Under my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s universal credit scheme, the matter will be dealt with through advance payments of the credit. Clearly the idea that people can have multiple crises—up to 10 a year—does not produce a rational system, which is the reason for our reform.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

T5. Will my right hon. Friend please update the House on the progress of the work clubs initiative?

[Chris Grayling]

Let me start by paying tribute to my hon. Friend for his work in establishing a national network of work clubs. Several hundred are now up and running around the country, some with a degree of help from Jobcentre Plus and others with none at all. I hope that this strong network of organisations will make a real difference to people looking for jobs, and that their number will continue to grow.

Disability Living Allowance

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

As co-chair, with Baroness Pitkeathley, of the all-party group on carers, I am grateful to be given the opportunity to speak in this debate. The reforms will affect carers as much as they will affect those who are being cared for. The hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams), who introduced the debate, said that his main concern is about the mobility component of DLA for those in care homes. That is the matter that I wish to discuss.

In a letter to all parliamentary colleagues, the Minister states:

“We want support for care home residents which takes account of their individual needs and safeguards some of the most vulnerable members of our society, whilst also ensuring that the taxpayer is not paying twice for this provision. It is vital that we get this reform right, and that is why we are taking the time to do so.”

It is helpful that Ministers have decided to postpone any decision until 2013. I know that the Minister has taken enormous personal care to ensure that the Government get this right. I was grateful that, following our last debate on the issue, the Minister kindly came to Banbury and visited Agnes Court, which is a home run by Leonard Cheshire in my constituency.

I am trying to sort out in my mind how we approach the matter, and I have a number of questions that I wish to ask. As I understand it, Ministers are saying that local authorities, in the contract that they have with care homes, should provide sufficient funding for residents to have the opportunity for independent living. It would be helpful for hon. Members if the Department for Work and Pensions explained that route. Where in primary legislation is the responsibility on local authorities to provide for that element when residents go into residential care? That is an important point because if one does not have an understanding of the statutory basis upon which local authorities have that responsibility, apart from anything else, it is difficult to know when one could bring judicial review on the basis that they were not providing that which Ministers say that they should provide. Part of the reason for these reforms is that Ministers say there is an overlap and duplication of funding. We need to understand exactly where it is said that such duplication is occurring.

I also have a slight concern that if one puts a greater responsibility on local authorities to provide an increase in the contract fee that they pay to residential care homes, a number of local authorities will say that rather than sending those who may need care in a residential setting into residential care, they will try to provide them with care at home. The Minister met one or possibly two residents of Agnes Court in relation to whom the local authority funding their place is considering withdrawing funding because it is finding it too expensive and it wants the person to be supported at home or elsewhere.

We need to have an understanding of what Ministers believe should be the model contract between local authorities and care homes, and what the obligations on the residential care homes are in relation to this. Let me make it absolutely clear that everyone is doing their best in what are often very difficult circumstances. What was clear from talking to people at Agnes Court is that they have very little contact with the local authority. The local authority obviously rightly believes that Leonard Cheshire Disability runs a fantastic home and provides a fantastic service and that there is no need for a local authority to find out what is going on there. What is the model contract? What is it that Ministers believe, first, that local authorities should be funding and, secondly, that they should be requiring of care homes?

The Minister will have met people in Agnes Court who have used the mobility component of DLA to purchase a wheelchair of superior quality to that which they could have obtained through the NHS—one person in particular has certainly done so. I am talking about a very bright man who has been a long-term resident of Agnes Court. He is almost blind, but his intellect is razor sharp, as I know from the letters and e-mails he has sent to me over many years. Indeed, at one general election, he organised a hustings for parliamentary candidates, so that we could discuss disability issues. He has used his mobility competent to buy a wheelchair, which seems a sensible thing to do given his circumstances. Would that be possible if the funding were coming through a local authority contract to the residential care home?

[Nicky Morgan (Loughborough) (Con)]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend about how helpful the Minister has been in responding to constituents’ concerns on the matter—her letters have been very much appreciated. Does he agree that some of the points that are unclear relate not only to the overlap between what the local authority should fund and what is covered by DLA, but to the activities that local authorities will pay for? Constituents have told me that local authorities fund travel only to a doctor’s appointment or to day care, and not to enable disabled people to participate in everyday activities. Such activities are important to them, but might not be important to the care home or the local authority.

[Tony Baldry]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly good point. I—and I suspect many hon. Members—would like and welcome a route map from the DWP. I sometimes feel that policy relating to that Department is a bit of a secret garden. I am always a bit reticent about entering into the garden, because I usually use the wrong words—the mobility component of disability living allowance for those in residential care, is in itself quite a mouthful.

What is it—I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan)—that we, or those in residential care settings, can expect to be provided? After all, let us remember that what we have here are a very wide range of human beings who are individuals and constituents. Stephen Argyll, the person to whom I just referred, is intellectually very bright, but almost blind and has difficulty getting around. Some are in Agnes Court because they have learning difficulties, and some are there because they are suffering distressingly from degenerative illnesses, such as Parkinson’s disease. There is not just one group of people, but a large number of individual human beings who have different histories. For example, many are married and still wish to maintain their relationship with their husbands or wives, go shopping, and so on. I also understand, however, that Ministers are concerned that this can be an expensive provision, if what is being provided are individual, tailored mobility vehicles that are not being used much each week by individual people. If there is an overlap with other funding that is supposed to go to care homes from the local authority, that is also a concern.

[David Simpson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tony Baldry]

I am conscious that lots of other hon. Members, including, I am sure, many from Northern Ireland, wish to take part in the debate.

I suspect that all of us want to engage constructively with constituents who have concerns about this matter, but we want to do so positively and be conscious of the legitimate concerns of Ministers that the system is not working. The Minister has stated:

“We will not remove the mobility of disabled people but we will remove the overlaps and gaps inherent in the current system.”

I want to understand where the Minister sees the overlaps. Where does she see the gaps? Please can we have a lay person’s guide that we, as colleagues, can take when we talk to constituents in this situation, so that they understand the issues and that we understand the examination question that we have been set. I know that there is an exam, but I am not confident yet that I fully understand the examination question.

I appreciate that the decision has been delayed until 2013, but Ministers will at some point have to be clear, and send a clear signal about post-2013, for the following reason. The Minister will have met, when she was at Agnes Court, large numbers of people who have entered into leases and other contractual arrangements for mobility vehicles. There need to be transitional arrangements so that if there is a change in the regime and the rules in 2013, people do not suddenly find themselves with a period of time to pay a contract without the wherewithal to do so. If Ministers are coming to the view that at some point they will change the rules, it would probably be helpful to give a clear signal of their intentions so that people have a clear understanding of that and make dispositions accordingly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We will strengthen the role of the independent decision maker to ensure that decisions are made for the right reasons. The hon. Lady can rest assured that we will ensure that is the case. If she has any concerns, she should raise them with us, and if she has any thoughts, we are open to dispute.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that one implication of this question is that jobs are not available in the marketplace? Just before Christmas, we conducted a survey in my constituency, where there were more than 700 job vacancies. People from Swansea are as welcome to take up those job vacancies as people from anywhere else in the country.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend is right. Over the past nine months, we have seen a huge increase in part-time work with more than 400,000 new jobs. [Interruption.] The answer to Labour Members is that jobs are being created even though we are coming out of a recession, which was brought on by their policies.

Disability Allowance

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

I start my short contribution by making a confession. This is the first time in nearly 28 years as a Member of the House that I have made a speech in a debate on disability. That was not because of a lack of interest—far from it. However, this entire area of policy has always struck me as something of a secret garden—moreover, one with its own jargon and terminology. My experience is that if we use the wrong phrases or the wrong words, others, including people from NGOs and concerned charities, are likely to shout at us. As a result, I am never quite sure whether I am meant to refer to disabled people or people with a disability.

Listening to oral questions to the Department for Work and Pensions in the House last week, I again felt somewhat lost in this secret garden. I am genuinely interested in the matter, not only as a constituency Member but as the co-chair of the all-party group on carers. I was reassured to hear that even the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Miss Begg), whom I believe chairs the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, was not sure exactly who would be affected by the Government’s proposals. She observed that there was quite a lot on the blogosphere about who might or might not be affected by the changes.

My first request is that Ministers should set out clearly what is being proposed and who is likely to be affected. I am not confident that I am right, but after listening to the answers given by my hon. Friend the Minister at oral questions last week, I understand that it is primarily about people being supported and funded in residential care homes by local authorities. It is a consequence of the move towards personalisation of care—enabling people to have a much greater say over their own care packages, which by common consent is wanted by almost every disabled person. My hon. Friend highlighted the fact that the Department of Health has put £2 billion into social care. Am I right in assuming that a proportion of that money is intended to be used by local authorities, to ensure that residents in care homes continue to have a measure of mobility?

As the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) observed, the Treasury spending review of 20 October mentions on page 28 the intention to save £135 million, but I am unclear from whom that money has been taken or from where. Is it intended that the money should be replaced by the funding that the Department of Health has put into social care?

My hon. Friend the Minister said in the House that

“Local authorities, working with care homes, have a clear duty to promote, where practical, independence, participation and community involvement for every single disabled person living in such care homes.”—[Official Report, 22 November 2010; Vol. 519, c. 6.]

Is that a statutory right? How do disabled people ensure that it is delivered? If it is not being delivered by the local authority, is the matter subject to judicial review? I am unclear as to whether something is actually being taken away, or whether the activities are expected to be funded through a different and separate funding route.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Peter Bottomley), I have an excellent Leonard Cheshire care home in my constituency. Agnes Court in Banbury is home for a number of seriously disabled residents. Many of them, like those mentioned by the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales), have been there for many years. Indeed, I have known some of them as constituents for practically the whole of my time as a Member of Parliament, as they have lived almost all of their adult lives at Agnes Court. The mobility component of the DLA has enabled the residents of Agnes Court and other constituents to access such things as electric wheelchairs; it has funded visits to local GPs or doctors; and, most important, it has funded visits and activities away from Agnes Court.

These constituents, like us, clearly want to live their lives to the full. Is this money now being taken away from them? If so, how will such activities be funded in the future? My hon. Friend the Minister asserts that local authority contracts with care homes should cover services to meet all residents’ assessed needs, including any assessed mobility needs, and that an individual’s care, support and mobility needs should be met by residential care providers from social care funding. If that is what she is saying, I hope she will write to the chief executive of every local authority setting out exactly what the Government expect them to do.

[Mr Andrew Smith]

I thank my fellow Oxfordshire MP for giving way; I know that he cares about these issues. I urge him and his colleagues to reflect on the perversity of these proposals. Even if local authorities, under instruction from the Minister, are able to put together some package of support for transport for people in residential care homes, which seems rather doubtful given all the financial pressures that they face, does it not go completely in the opposite direction from the whole philosophy of personalised care, which is that a person has a package appropriate to their needs and they can choose how to exercise it? They may choose to spend the mobility component of DLA on special transport—electric wheelchairs or access to Motability and so on. Will they not have less independence and choice, even if this money is replaced through the local authority route?

[Tony Baldry]

The right hon. Gentleman and I are both Members for Oxford constituencies. Having been a Chief Secretary to the Treasury and a Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, he is a more frequent visitor to this policy secret garden than I am. I am trying to understand whether something is being taken away here. If it is, is it being replaced by something else? If it is, and if the expectation is that local government should be funding it, then that needs to be set out very clearly. The test for all of this is that when each one of us, as a constituency Member of Parliament, meets a constituent who is affected by these changes, we need to be confident that we can explain what is being proposed. I make no criticism of anyone at the moment—the Chairman of the Select Committee cannot even work it out. I am not confident at the moment that I know the answers. If the Government are proposing changes, it does not seem unreasonable to expect those to be set out clearly and unambiguously in terms that everyone can fully understand.

[Gavin Barwell]

rose—

[Tony Baldry]

I will not give way again, because many colleagues wish to take part in what is a comparatively short debate.

As this issue clearly involves at least three Government Departments—the Departments for Work and Pensions, for Communities and Local Government, and of Health—it would be immensely helpful, particularly for those of us who are professedly not experts in disability and welfare policy and legislation, if my hon. Friend the Minister clearly set out what role each of those three Departments plays in ensuring that the correct level of support to disabled people is being delivered locally and appropriately to meet individual needs. Everyone will agree that disabled people have different needs, and as far as humanly possible we need to have care personalised for each one of them. That also means there must be clarity regarding who is responsible for doing what.

Welfare Reform

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Thursday 11th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I made no such assertion. What I was demonstrating was that if you put a check in place and ask people to demonstrate their situation, those who are bent on a different purpose will naturally fall out. I used the last Government’s work capability assessment programme to illustrate how that affects new entrants. I was by no means casting aspersions on anybody who is going through the programme, because they deserve what they get.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Many of those who are out of work will need to update existing skills or acquire new skills to help them get back into the world of work. What is my right hon. Friend’s Department doing to try to ensure that people who are out of work can access skills through the further education sector and other means?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

This comes back to the Work programme, because it will be about drawing in mentors from the private sector to advise people on setting up businesses and to give other support and advice. The mentoring programme will allow us not only to get people into work, but to mentor them until they get the work habit. That is the critical point. Once they get the work habit, they will be capable of looking after themselves.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The greatest form of measurement that we can use is that which will apply to the Work programme, whereby bodies will essentially be paid by results. In other words, if they do not get people back to work, they will not receive the money that will allow them to make any kind of profit at all. The best way of measuring them is to pay them when they are successful, and not, as happened with one scheme under the last Government, before they are successful.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

4. What support his Department plans to make available to people on incapacity benefit to enable them to take up employment.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

We will make the Work programme available to incapacity benefit claimants who are moved back into the jobseeker stream. They will be eligible for support through the Work programme. We will pay an enhanced price to those providers who work with people coming off incapacity benefit to make sure that they get the tailored support they need.

[Tony Baldry]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that reply. Will he make sure that Jobcentre Plus, work clubs, and disability organisations can ensure that no matter where people are—whether they are on incapacity benefit or in Remploy factories that are making losses—they know where they can access support and get the skills training that they need to get back into the world of work?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the central goals of our work over the next 12 to 18 months is to start a process of ensuring that far more people with long-term health problems and disabilities have the opportunity to get into the workplace. We will take whatever steps are necessary, primarily through Jobcentre Plus, to ensure that those people are handled effectively, and are steered to the right support through the Work programme. The aim is to achieve a goal that we all want, which is to allow as many of them as possible to find jobs.