Welfare Reform Bill

I shall speak also to Amendments 89 and 92. I am joined in their support by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, and in two of them by my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham. I am not quite certain why he did not put his name down for Amendment 92, but I cannot ask him at the moment because he is firing warning shots at this moment in the Chamber, regarding the Iraq invasion. I can only hope that the shots are not blanks. Taken together, these amendments will ensure that work advisers who will have the power to dock benefits and prescribe work-related activity are trained in learning disability issues. They need to be able to understand what a learning disability is; the impact a learning disability has on an individual’s capacity to understand and undertake tasks; and the support required by people with a learning disability in order to carry out a work-related activity. The amendments echo the concerns raised on Second Reading by my noble friend Lady Murphy and by the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, that work advisers will not receive adequate training and that, as a consequence, people with a learning disability, who are unable to comply with their action plans, may face unjust situations and unjust sanctions. Different kinds of work-related activity will be appropriate for different claimants, depending on a range of factors, including their skills, qualifications and experience, their employment goals and the manner and extent to which their capability for work is limited by their physical or their mental condition. As I have said, claimants will need some level of support in order to undertake work-related activity. That support is quite likely to be specialised, including knowledge of the claimant’s disability or health condition and of the way this limits their capability for work. If such support is not available, then work related-activity will be difficult to undertake, and, very importantly, less likely to lead to sustained employment. Given that, I believe that the new support as well as the new obligations should be in the Bill wherever relevant. That is why I have put forward these amendments. In the debate in Committee in another place, the Minister with responsibility for disabled people commented: ""A direction can only be issued as a last resort and must be suitable and achievable for the individual concerned. That is especially important if someone has a learning disability and requires specific support in order to undertake it. As further reassurance for Members on this point, I have set the safeguards around making sure that the requirements of a person with a learning disability are appropriate".—[Official Report, Commons, Welfare Reform Bill Committee, 24/2/09; col. 143.]" Of course I welcome these assurances, and I greatly welcome and appreciate the publication of the draft regulations referring to work-related activity for ESA customers, which the Minister kindly distributed in draft form at the beginning of this month. They contain some welcome safeguards, which will go a long way to ensuring we get some justice, but I am afraid that they do not go far enough. They do not protect a claimant from failure to understand what is expected of him due to the nature of his learning disability; they do not protect a claimant from failure to comply with conditions imposed upon him because there is insufficient support available to help him to comply. In essence, they do not address the very real fears of people with a learning disability that their benefits will be cut despite good intentions on their behalf to meet the demands of the new system. Nor do the draft regulations address the issue of specialist training for work advisers. As I have stated previously, the Government’s contracting out of employment provision using the prime provider model, which squeezes out smaller specialist providers with expert knowledge, is likely to make it more rather than less likely that work advisers will be lacking in specialist disability knowledge. This point was forcefully brought home to me at Mencap’s annual SNAP! awards ceremony last night, which took place at the Proud Galleries in Camden town. SNAP! showcases the lives and talents of people with a learning disability through photographs and short films. Many of the prize winners with a learning disability might have appeared to those without knowledge of disability—such as those work advisers being discussed today—as incapable of working. But, as the Minister with responsibility for care services from another place, Phil Hope, found out last night when he presented some of the awards, people with a learning disability can excel if they receive quality support to help them. It was particularly interesting to hear, last night, the Minister’s view that the forthcoming Green Paper on social care would tackle many of these support issues. Perhaps the Minister here today will elaborate further. The need for quality support is further illustrated in the story about Katie Hart. Katie has an NVQ in business and administration, excellent IT skills and more than a year’s worth of unpaid work experience in the administrative sector. Katie also has a minor learning disability. For three long years, she applied for jobs in the administration sector, only to be turned down for every single one until a local company finally offered her a rather inadequate administrative post. We cannot escape the fact that employers are reluctant to employ people with a learning disability, who still face a vast amount of stigma and discrimination. This means that people like Katie are likely to get to the end of the new process and be directed by their work adviser to carry out unpaid work experience at different companies for year after year. We need these amendments to protect people with a learning disability from facing sanctions due to companies’ reluctance to employ them rather than because they have done anything wrong. I repeat: if the Government are to introduce a sanctions regime such as that in the Bill, they must match these increased obligations on the claimants with support from trained staff. I have read the Committee debate in another place, and these newly published draft regulations and, sadly, I am not convinced that this would be the case. I look forward to hearing whether the Minister will consider beefing up these draft regulations and the definition of "good cause" to address the points discussed today, and put safeguards for training and specialist support into the Bill. I beg to move.