Improving Lives: The Future of Work, Health and Disability — House of Lords, 2017-11-30
Topic: Labor
Peta Buscombe (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the noble Baroness opposite for her support thus far in terms of the overall response to the Command Paper, and I will do my best to reply to the many questions that she and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, have raised I want to make it clear that I welcome the noble Baroness’s constructive contribution. It is important to say that this is a programme aimed at helping people into work and to stay in work. I say immediately to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that we will not ignore any group of people or any individuals. That is the purpose of bringing together, to the best of our ability, work, welfare and social interaction. This is a holistic approach which, I think all noble Lords will agree, we have been looking for and waiting for for years. We are very proud that we will be able to focus on work, health and disability as one. We say that work enables every person to be economically independent. It boosts their confidence and gives them more choices and opportunities to fulfil other ambitions in life. The noble Baroness was very clear in her question about the finances. This is about more than just the over £50 billion that we are spending on those with disabilities or health conditions. As announced in SR15, we are increasing investment in employment support for people with disabilities or health conditions in real terms over this spending review period. This includes building the evidence base for what does and does not work, investing in Access to Work and rolling out a personal support package of tailored employment support initiatives. We have committed to invest £330 million of funding over four years in support for people with limited capability for work as part of the personal support package. Last year, we spent £104 million on the demand-led Access to Work scheme, up from £97 million in 2015-16. The number of people who had Access to Work support last year rose 8% to over 25,000. In addition, further customers received payments for support agreed in previous years We are investing up to £115 million of funding to develop new models of support to help people into work when they are managing a long-term health condition or disability. We will be providing an extra £15 million a year in 2017-18 and 2018-19 for our flexible support fund so that local managers can buy services, including mentoring, and better engage the third sector—which is a very important part of this holistic approach—in their community to help disabled people and those with health conditions With regard to the work capability assessment, it is important to say that in our manifesto we committed to legislate to give unemployed disabled people and people with health conditions personalised and tailored employment support. We heard broad support for WCA reform proposed in the Green Paper but there was no consensus on what the right model of WCA reform would look like. We know that we need to get reform right and will therefore focus on working with external stakeholders in testing new approaches to build on our evidence base for longer-term legislative change. This will require primary legislation, but noble Lords are all too aware of the constraints that there will be in that regard in the near future. In the meantime, we are delivering on our commitment to personalised and tailored employment support with the introduction of our new personal support package. We are also committed to continuing to improve the WCA. Recent reform included stopping reassessments for people on ESA and UC with the most severe lifelong conditions We want to reform statutory sick pay so that it supports more flexible working, which can help people remain in or return to work if they are unwell. With regard to disability employment, we have added 300 additional disability employment advisers and have begun introducing 200 new community partners. We absolutely accept what the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said about the importance of having work coaches with the right expertise and skills, and that is something on which we are very much focusing In terms of UC, we are also focusing our efforts and thoughts on in-work progression, which is very important. This is not about helping people into work and then leaving them there; it is about prevention, getting people into work and helping them to remain in work. That is one reason why it is very important that we have this very strong, joined-up approach with our colleagues in the NHS, asking how we can manage mental health, for example, in the short to medium term as well as in the long term. Of course, the Farmer/Stevenson review is an enormous encouragement to us. As noble Lords will know, we have already accepted all its recommendations The noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked about assistive technology, and he was absolutely right to do so. One individual who has particular difficulties said, "Without assistive technology such as voice recognition and the help of Access to Work in providing me with a support worker, I would not be able to compete in the job market and therefore would not be in employment". His name is Tom and he sustained a serious neck injury in 2007. He is now using this brilliant technology and is thriving in work. We want all employers to reach the standards of the best and that is why we will work with them I hope that I have begun to answer some of the many questions noble Lords have asked. I reiterate that there are now around 600,000 more disabled people in work since 2014. We are making progress and this Command Paper will contribute to that.