Disability Employment Gap — House of Commons, 2016-06-08
Topic: Labor
Deborah Angela Elspeth Marie Abrahams (Labour, Centre-left): I am sorry, but I will not. As I said, I have a lot to say What needs to happen? Addressing these issues, including the disability employment gap, needs political will and leadership. The Labour party’s disability equality roadshow will work with disabled people, their carers, disabled people’s organisations and providers across the UK, listening to them and developing with them policies that address their needs and that will work. However, we will also engage the public at large, providing an alternative to the Government’s negative narrative and casual inaction If 90% of disability is acquired, why are we doing so little to help employers retain skilled and experienced employees who may become poorly or disabled? We need practical measures to support disabled people at work, enabling them to thrive, and protecting them from prematurely leaving the labour market. Some disability charities have recommended more flexible leave arrangements, as well as extending the Access to Work programme. Clearly, if the Government increase the 37,000 or so who used Access to Work last year by another 25,000, that will still be only a tiny, tiny proportion of the 1.3 million people who are fit for work The Disability Confident scheme needs to be rebooted. The latest revelation that only 40 mainstream private sector employers across the UK have joined it since its inception three years ago shows that it is, to put it mildly, completely inadequate. What measures are in place to measure the scheme’s efficacy? Where employers work hard to recruit and retain disabled employees, how does that apply to their procurement policies and supply chains More needs to be done to help disabled people back into work. As we have been arguing for over a year, the work capability assessment needs to be replaced with a more holistic, whole-person assessment. The current system that assesses eligibility for social security support is not fit for purpose and should be completely overhauled. I welcome some of the change in language on disabled people on this matter. That needs to be reflected in departmental and Jobcentre Plus performance indicators that do not just focus on getting people "off flow" as a successful outcome. Since so many of the same people also have PIP assessments, we should also look at how we could bring these together. It is pleasing that the Government say that they are considering this Instead of the increasingly punitive sanctions system, more appropriate support needs to be provided. It is essential to maintain and increase specialist disability employment advisers in jobcentres. There is currently one adviser to 600 disabled people, and even if that is doubled to one to 300, that is still a very low ratio for the Government to be working to. I would also like their role to be extended to working with businesses. The current commissioning and payments system for the Work programme and other welfare-to-work programmes also needs rethinking. We need to improve specialist support, looking at what works. Work Choice, while it has better outcomes than other programmes, may not be the only solution. The individual placement and support scheme for people with mental health conditions is another example. As I have said before, there needs to be greater integration between Departments —not just between the DWP and the NHS but with BIS and economic development. For example, if someone who has musculoskeletal conditions or mental health issues has to take time off work, they need appropriate early intervention to help them get back to work. That is not happening at the moment. We need to understand the bottlenecks in the local system that my impact on this. We need to reflect on the drive for "flexible" labour markets and what this means for supporting people with long-term and fluctuating conditions back into work, and most probably out of work and then back into work, and so on There are clear geographical variations in the disability employment gap, but also in the strength of local economies and the availability and types of jobs. It is well established that the prevalence and geographical pattern of sick and disabled people reflects the industrial heritage of our country. Contrary to the Government’s "shirkers and scroungers" narrative, incapacity benefit and ESA are recognised as good population health indicators. Local economic conditions, whether the economy is thriving or not, will determine how readily sick and disabled people will be able return to work. Geographical analysis shows that people with equivalent conditions in the economically buoyant London and south-east are more likely to be in work that those in Northern Ireland, Scotland, the north-east, the north-west, and Wales It is over 70 years since legislation was first introduced to prohibit employment-related discrimination against disabled people. Sadly, we are still fighting to address this discrimination and the inequality in employment that disabled people still face. Changing attitudes and behaviour needs cultural change and it needs leadership, and we will provide it.