Welfare Reform and Work Bill — House of Lords, 2015-12-09
Topic: Social Welfare
David Freud (Conservative, Centre-right): That is the point that I just made: they could not determine the extent but they could determine the direction. Lastly, the Sheffield Hallam report, which the noble Lord, Lord Patel, mentioned, says that it is unlikely that they will move into employment because of the obstacles that they face. However, we are providing additional support. Indeed, that report did not look specifically at the WRAG A number of noble Lords have questioned why we are suggesting that claimants who have been found to be "not fit for work" should be expected to be able to work. I stress that ESA claimants in the work-related activity group have been found to have limited capability for work. The same is true for universal credit claimants. This is very different from being unfit for any work and, although they are not required to look for work, ESA explicitly recognises that claimants may be able to undertake some work via the permitted work rules On the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, about adding employability to the WCA, the Secretary of State announced his intention to look at how assessments can be better geared towards those preparing for work. As a number of noble Lords have pointed out, we have announced a White Paper to set out our reforms to improve support for people with health conditions and disabilities There may be limitations on the type and amount of work that people in the WRAG can do, and they may also need workplace adjustments, but employment is not ruled out. This is an important distinction; we know that many people with disabilities and health conditions are already working, and many others want to do so. The move to universal credit, an in-and-out-of-work benefit that supports small or fluctuating amounts of work, means that many of the barriers in the current system that claimants face when moving into work are removed. Those are the kind of issues that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, was talking about with regard to linking rules. This is particularly helpful for people whose health condition means that they can work only some of the time To pick up the points from the noble Lord, Lord Low, and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, about the way in which some of these costs are used when either finding work or being in work, travel-to-work costs can be met by the Access to Work scheme, and travel-to-interview costs can be met by the flexible support fund, which is run in JCP. The Government are committed to ensuring that disabled people are able to participate fully in society, and we have set out our ambition to halve the disability employment gap. It is a duty of the Government to support those who want to work to do so and, as I have already mentioned, most people with disabilities and health conditions want to work, including the majority of ESA claimants. Some 61% of those in the WRAG tell us that they want to work, and we mean to put those people’s ambitions at the centre of what we do On the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and touched on by my noble friend Lord Blencathra, about whether employers would employ disabled people, we recognise that that is an issue and have pushed the Disability Confident campaign. We have Access to Work behind that, not to speak of the incentive structure of universal credit to get people into work In 2012, the UK had a disability employment rate gap of 34 percentage points, which was higher than that in France and Germany, with 19 and 22 percentage points respectively. Therefore, we know it is possible for us to do better and ensure that people with health conditions do not get trapped in the benefits system. That leads to why we are committed to halving the gap.