Welfare Reform Bill

Like other queries that have been thrown at my noble friend over the past few Committee days, this is an insoluble problem. On the one hand, people with fluctuating disabilities may want to enter the world of work, and for that they must remain attached to the labour market. However, there is a further dimension because of the nature of their illness. It is not just that personal advisers can inevitably respond only to what is presented to them during the half-hour interview when we know that the condition may change within the day, as the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, said, or within the week, and so on. The doctor making the assessment may be poorly trained but an employer of someone with a fluctuating condition can face a difficult situation, too. Will employers come up against the Disability Discrimination Act when they have an employee whose patterns of attendance are so unpredictable in a job which requires reliability of contact or interfacing with the public? This is a huge problem that has troubled the DWP, and the DSS before that, for 15 years. I know that it is almost impossible, and I am referring not only to MS, but a range of conditions, including depression and so on, which have cyclical patterns. It is not just a problem for the adviser or the doctor; it is going to be a problem for the future employer. Therefore, one thing that a specialist adviser for the department may be able to do—I do not know, because this is so difficult—is to think about the situation from the point of view of the employer and think about work-related plans and activity and preparation for work that reflects not just the condition of the individual but makes that individual have a chance in the job market. Otherwise, all that investment will be as naught. We are asking a huge job of the personal adviser: not only to have a very sensitive and skilled interviewing capacity, like the doctors, but also to understand the needs that an employer may have for that person, who may be wishing but worried, apprehensive and frightened about going back into the labour market. We have done a lot about linking rules and all that sort of stuff, but I wonder whether my noble friend could reassure us that personal advisers will not just be given extra skills to understand and respond to the needs of the employee but are actually thinking about how the employer would respond—and, frankly, not simply sack the employee at the first available opportunity.