Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I am delighted to welcome the Bill to this House. I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, for cutting my speech by quoting Mencap’s worries about the number of regulations. I hope that that will enable me to stay well within my allotted 10 minutes. Since my earliest days as secretary-general of the Royal Mencap Society in the 1980s, and in my current position as president, the topic of the employment of people with a disability has been fraught with good intentions. Yet making any real progress in terms of opportunities available has seemed frustratingly slow. That is why I am so pleased that the Government and Her Majesty's Opposition have stated that they are determined to challenge the out-of-date assumption that people with a disability are incapable of working. Ensuring that all those who can work do work is a vital part of the Government's role, and the Bill's vision of personalised support to assist those on benefits into paid employment is very welcome, particularly as a great many people with a learning disability have simply never been given the opportunity to work in paid employment. However, I am deeply concerned that the worthy intentions of the Ministers will be squandered and that their efforts will prove fruitless unless the Bill makes provision to monitor the impact of these reforms by category of disability and ensures that specialist support to enable access to the jobs market is available to all those who need it. There are 800,000 people with a learning disability of working age in the United Kingdom; yet they are the disabled group most excluded from the workforce. When they do work it is often for very low pay or part-time. People with a learning disability have an estimated employment rate of 17 per cent, compared with 49 per cent of all disabled people and 74 per cent for the working-age population as a whole. Alarmingly, these figures have remained the same for the past decade. That is despite the fact that 65 per cent of people with a learning disability would like to work. There is much evidence to show that people with a learning disability make highly valued employees when given the right support. Getting people with a learning disability into employment is by no means impossible. Mencap has been doing it for years, beginning as long ago as 1975 in south Wales with our pathway employment service. This scheme quickly expanded with local authorities all over the country adopting the idea. The pathway service is still going strong, having expanded and adapted to present-day conditions. The scheme enables people with a learning disability to get a job which they wish and are able to do, while offering advice and practical help to employers on how best to support their new-found employees in the workplace. The result is success all round—a satisfied employer and a happy and loyal employee. We all understand that in the current economic climate jobs can be hard to come by even for those without a disability. However, we must not forget that those with a disability are already some of the poorest in our society. Leonard Cheshire estimates that three out of every 10 disabled adults of working age live in poverty and that this is double the rate of people without a disability. Unless this Bill gets it right, we run the real risk that, as the economy picks up, those furthest from the labour market, such as people with a learning disability, will be untouched by these reforms and therefore even worse off than they are at present. The changes to be brought in under this Bill are many and complex. Yet, the chances to make a difference to people’s lives is immense. The Government must make sure that they carefully monitor the impact of these reforms on individuals, each of whom may have a vastly different disability and require vastly different degrees of support. In other words the Government, or at least the providers under instruction from the Government, must examine carefully and closely which categories of disabilities are benefiting from these reforms and which are being left out in the cold. I know that many other charities alongside Mencap support these calls for what the disability sector refers to as increased monitoring by type of impairment. Perhaps the Minister will be able to state whether he plans to put forward any government amendments that will impose monitoring by impairment group in order to evaluate the success of Flexible New Deal providers in placing people into work. Without analysis of who the new reforms are reaching, the Government will surely fail in their aim of breaking down the barriers to paid work for all people with a disability. As we know, once passed, this Bill will give work advisers the power to prescribe unpaid work-related activity, and if those for whom it is prescribed do not partake in it they will face financial penalties. I am deeply concerned that those administering this new system of work-focused interviews, work-related activities and action plans will have little understanding of, or training in, learning disability issues. Such ignorance could see work advisers prescribing an activity which is entirely unsuitable for someone with a learning disability—which should be proscribed rather than prescribed—and which could lead to totally inappropriate and unjust penalties being applied. I will be very interested to hear what the Minister will do to ensure that providers give their staff full and appropriate training to help them understand the complex issues which may arise when dealing with people with learning disabilities, and that the suggestions and support they offer are entirely appropriate. My fear that specialist support will not be made available is exacerbated by the Government’s decision to contract out those employment services using the provider model and payment by results. The Government’s decision to favour the prime provider model, whereby bigger and fewer contracts are awarded to large non-specialist providers, is squeezing expert and niche providers out of the tendering process. The obvious consequence of this is that vital expertise will be lost and tailored support for individuals, such as those with a learning disability, will no longer be available—and this is just as the Government expect large numbers of people with a learning disability to start seeking work. I am also deeply worried by the Government's rigid payment-by-results approach. Payment by results sounds alarmingly like bonuses paid to errant bankers in the recent credit crunch or like the box-ticking targets which caused such a disaster in the West Midlands at Stafford Hospital. This method would cause the prime providers to concentrate on jobs for those more easily slotted into the labour market, while people who are harder to place—again, such as those with a learning disability—will be left to languish on benefits or, worse, be subject to financial penalties. Indeed, a report published last year from the Social Market Foundation found that: ""Under the proposed uniform payment structure, those furthest from the labour market will inevitably not be offered services appropriate to their needs—they will be ‘parked'. This will occur because the design of the payment system sets the profit motive of contractors in tension with the aim to help all clients. This need not be the case and its effects are in the interests of neither the jobseeker nor the taxpayer"." I know that the Government have indicated that they will consider using an accelerator funding model to guard against this and to ensure that the people furthest from the labour market are not left behind. However, I have to say that the tight timescales that they have set for the procurement of the new specialist disability programme seem to suggest, unfortunately, that they are merely paying lip service to the idea, rather than thinking seriously of implementing such a model. Again, I look forward to the Minister's reply. I would also be interested to hear whether the Government are planning any type of activity to counter the prejudice and discrimination that people with a disability face when applying for a job. People with a learning disability can make highly loyal and successful employees, and it is the Government’s job to get that message across to the public and private sector. However, we cannot expect the disability community to rejoice in punitive measures unless at least they are reassured that Government will comprehensively monitor the impact of these changes and ensure specialist support is available wherever necessary throughout the job application process. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively to the comments made today and that we will be able to work together constructively in tabling any amendments which are both improving and vital. My thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, for getting me out on time.