My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 65. I recognise that my proposed new clause may be imperfectly drafted, as the word “disabled” should perhaps have been defined. As this is a probing amendment, I hope the Committee will make allowances.
My amendment is pretty self-explanatory, in that it requires the Secretary of State to,
“lay a report before Parliament annually on the progress which has been made towards halving the disability employment gap”.
It also requires that,
“the report must set out how the Secretary of State has interpreted ‘disability employment gap’ for these purposes”.
I would like the report to include,
“an assessment of the sectors in which disabled people have primarily secured jobs … an assessment of the type and level of jobs primarily secured by disabled people, and … an assessment of the progression of disabled people within the job market”.
My amendment will help to improve the transparency of employment outcomes for disabled people and allow monitoring of the Government’s target.
I am, however, rather concerned because we have asked the Minister for reviews of sanctions, conditionality criteria and so on. From my perspective, we have not had an answer that might have given us some hope. However, I hope the Minister will give this measure careful consideration because, across the Committee, I see there is some support for it.