My Lords, it is a pleasure to be able to support Amendment 67, which is crucial. At present, the disability employment gap means that disabled people are over 20% less likely than their counterparts to be in full-time employment. Employment has many benefits other than the obvious one of economic advantage. The recognition of your employment acts as an important societal signal, improving your reputation among your peers. Furthermore, in what the Prime Minister has termed the “global race”, the cost to the country of having unutilised human capital is immense. Quite simply, high levels of unemployment for the disabled are not something we can afford.
The new clause which Amendment 67 would introduce would nudge the Secretary of State into dealing properly with this issue, and laying out a clear strategy to close the disability employment gap. The current Secretary of State has made significant strides towards helping the disabled into work. It would also allow Members of Parliament and Peers to scrutinise the work done in this field separate from any other scrutiny of employment statistics which goes on. Some might argue that this is not required or that it is impracticable to have a separate report for disabled people but, as the amendment says, these people are,
“marginalised from the labour force and require a specific focus”.