Danny
Alexander: I shall speak briefly in support of amendment
No. 195 and new clause 12. The amendments concern the public interest
and the way in which the operation of the Bill and various aspects of
it are monitored. They are not so much about the convenience of Members
of Parliament, although that is significant, as about making
information much more widely accessible to the general public. The
publication of reports by the Department will provide an opportunity
for members of the public to scrutinise the operation of the Bill much
more
carefully. 6.30
pm Amendment
No. 195 requests a report to Parliament by the Secretary of State on
the operation of the powers to make regulations under the Bill. It has
been noted that there are a huge number of regulation-making powers in
the Bill, covering a wide range of matters. We shall turn in a later
clause to which of them will be subject to the affirmative resolution
and which to the negative resolution procedure. Considering their vast
range, an annual report to Parliament on their use would be a useful
addition to the body of information available to Parliament and to the
general public on the Bill’s important provisions. Draft
regulations have not been available to the Committee in relation to
many of the powers, so it has been hard to consider all of them in
detail, although the Under-Secretary will agree that we have considered
a number of them in considerable
detail. The hon.
Member for Bury St. Edmunds made an important point on new clause 12
about reports on the scheme’s impact on older workers. Age
Concern’s work is valuable in that respect and suggests that
older workers have not benefited as much as other categories from
pathways to work. The point has been made that a substantial part of
the Government’s target of getting 1 million people off
incapacity benefit in a 10-year period could be met simply by waiting
for recipients of incapacity benefit and who are over 55 for men or 50
for women to reach retirement age. There are 1 million people in that
category and when they reach retirement age, they will come off the
benefit. The Department is therefore a long way towards meeting its
target. It is not an onerous target, but thanks to the body of people
on benefit, the Department is a lot closer to it than might be
suggested. As the hon. Gentleman said, that should not lead to people
over 50 being given less good access or less preferential treatment in
pathways to work. Reporting to Parliament on that would be a useful way
to ensure that the Government are regularly held to
account. New clause
12(2)(b) relates to reports on progress in relation to people with
mental health conditions. It is important to remind the Committee that
the evaluation of pathways to work carried out by the Institute for
Fiscal Studies has found that, among people whose
first reason for claiming benefit relates to mental health, there is no
statistically significant difference in outcomes compared with what
might otherwise have happened. That is an important point, because
pathways to work is widely praised as being successful. Indeed, the
evaluation shows that, for many categories of benefit recipients, it
has been successful in achieving job outcomes. However, for people in
the mental health category, it has not proved so successful. There
might be a wide range of reasons for that, and the Under-Secretary has
addressed them in previous remarks, but they should be addressed. It is
not good enough to say that pathways generally works well, even though
it does not for certain people, particularly considering that we are
referring to the group that is the largest cause of new
claims. A specific
annual report to Parliament on how welfare to work help is operating
for people with mental health conditions would be a useful way to hold
the Government to account for how the scheme is working for those for
whom it has not been seen to be so successful. The point about
longer-term claimants is relevant in that regard. I hope that the
Under-Secretary will address the matter in her response, to which I
look
forward.
Mr.
Hunt: I see in front of me a sea of weary faces, so I
shall make my comments brief. I wish to make one comment on new clause
5. There is a huge
opportunity— [Interruption.]
Mr.
Hunt: There is a huge opportunity for the Government if we
are trying in the Bill to change employers’ attitudes to
employing disabled people. The Government are the biggest employer with
1.3 million employees in the NHS alone. Not only that, but they issue
contracts worth £120 billion every year to private and voluntary
sector providers. They have a real opportunity for an easy win by
ensuring that they transform their recruitment policies. Their record
has got better, but it is still not as good as it should be overall:
4.5 per cent. of civil servants are disabled, compared with 19 per
cent. of the working-age population. That is an average figure and, in
some Departments, the percentage is lower than that. In the Department
of Health, for example, which one would think would understand such
issues, the figure is only 3.3 per cent. In the Scotland Office, it is
zero, but I do not know whether that is because it has a small number
of employees and that the sample size is very small. The point is that
there are some low percentages. Presenting a report annually to
Parliament, as new clause 5 would require, would put pressure on
Governments of all colours to ensure that they make progress in this
important area. I
conclude by reminding the Under-Secretary of a response that I received
from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in reply to a
parliamentary question on25 July. He
said: “Public
procurement law includes a provision enabling contracting authorities
to reserve contracts for supported businesses and factories employing
more than 50 per cent. disabled people.”—[Official
Report, 25 July 2006; Vol. 449,c. 1352W.]
There is an opportunity even under
existing legislation for the Government to do a lot more and the
proposal in new clause 5 that an annual report should be presented to
Parliament would be the catalyst to make that happen. I commend the new
clause to the
Government.
Mrs.
McGuire: Many questions have been raised and I will go
through them, but first I want to pick up some general issues that have
been alluded to. I
want to make it clear that when we are talking about the number of
disabled workers in any organisation, we must recognise that disability
is a voluntary declaration. Hon. Members will recognise that when we
publish figures in response to parliamentary questions on the number of
disabled members of staff, we always make it clear that that
declaration is voluntary. For all sorts of reasons, we must recognise
that people may not wish to declare themselves disabled. That is a
particular issue, as the hon. Member for Daventry will recognise, for
those with mental health conditions. I make that caveat at the
beginning of my
comments. On access to
work, I am glad that the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds gave me the
opportunity to address some of the issues concerning access to work.
The letter that he read out clarifies the position, but perhaps not
quite in the way that he might have
expected. When the
Prime Minister’s strategy unit reported in January 2005, it made
a series of recommendations, one of which was that if disabled people
are to be truly considered part of mainstream employment, we should
look at opportunities and options for their employment cost to be part
of mainstream employment costs. The DWP, as the hon. Gentleman
graciously highlighted, has blazed a trail with that because we have
absorbed the cost that would previously have been met bythe
access-to-work scheme. We seriously think that Departments should
assume the responsibility for access-to-work provision in their
employment budgets. Saying that disabled people may have specific
support requirements and that they should be considered as part of
employment costs is a beacon to other parts of the employment market.
It is to be applauded, not to be criticised.
Having said that, I recognise
that concerns were raised about the recruitment and retention of
disabled workers in the Government estate. The Office for Disability
Issues has given a commitment to the major charities and players in the
lobby to monitor and evaluate the impact that the withdrawal of access
to work will have on employment and retention. We do that in the
context of another element of Government legislation, which I know the
Opposition support: disability equality schemes. We are not talking
about something that has come from nowhere, but about something that
was part of a well regarded and well respected Prime Minister’s
strategy unit report that clearly highlighted the way to
equality. It is
justifiable to expect an enormous Government employer across the board
to take in some of those employment costs, because if we are truly to
get disabled people recognised for what they can do and not for what
they cannot do, we must start to think about how we support them in
employment. Government can lead the way on that.
The other part of the equation
is also important. Opposition Members and, indeed, some of my hon.
Friends have made it clear that some of the challenging work in the
employment of disabled people must be undertaken with small and
medium-sized enterprises, where the majority of new jobs are. That is
why we are clear that the access-to-work budget will be recycled into
the system to support disabled people in SMEs— we are talking
about £2.5 million or thereabouts—because that is where
we need to make the breakthrough.
Mrs.
McGuire: Before the hon. Member for Daventry comes in, may
I clearly indicate to the Committee that since 1997 the access-to-work
budget has quadrupled? It was £15 million in 1997 and is now
£60 million.
Mr.
Boswell: Can the Under-Secretary simply confirm that the
evaluation of the performance of public sector schemes by the Office
for Disability Issues will be published?
Mrs.
McGuire: I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. The
Office for Disability Issues publishes an annual report, and a first
annual report has been published. The information will be in the public
domain. I cannot say whether we will do an all-singing, all-dancing
report, but it will be in the public domain, not least because part of
my role as Minister with responsibility for disabled people is to meet
regularly with representatives of the lobby. These are the very issues
that came up as part of those
discussions.
Danny
Alexander: I want to obtain a brief point of
clarification. The Under-Secretary made sensible remarks about pushing
access to work out, particularly to SMEs. What steps do the Government
plan to take to promote access to work to businesses in that category,
given the relatively low level of awareness among many small businesses
about access to
work? 6.45
pm
Mrs.
McGuire: There is a bit of an urban myth that we somehow
hide access to work under a DWP bushel somewhere. We do not, and it is
well used. I think that about 35,000 people use access to work on a
regular basis. That includes what might appear to be quite minimal
support in the form of equipment through to support staff and all sorts
of fairly sophisticated adaptations. If I had a pound for every time
that access to work was mentioned at enormous gatherings, I would be
quite a rich woman. It is not hidden away and we are pleased to be able
to announce that access to work is in
place. The hon. Member
for Bury St. Edmunds made great play of accountability and spoke
passionately about ensuring that the figures are in the public domain.
My hon. Friend the Minister looks forward to the third Wednesday of
every month when the Office for National Statistics publishes exactly
the sort of figures that the hon. Gentleman is looking for. There is no
need for parliamentary questions on some of those
figures because the ONS publishes them every month—both the
off-flows and on-flows to incapacity benefits. The figures are not
hidden; they are in the public domain. There might still be a need for
parliamentary questions to tease out some background information, if
that is what he wishes, but the ONS does that job and it does it with
robust independence, as he will be aware from his days as an adviser in
the Treasury. The figures are not ours. They are independently
scrutinised and put in the public
domain. The hon.
Gentleman made an important pointabout older workers. Earlier
in October we introduced a new legislative framework aimed at ending
age discrimination. It has opened up opportunities for older people and
will progressively open up more. My hon. Friend said that over the last
year, some 200,000 over-50-year-olds have moved into jobs. That is a
significant change. On
disabled people moving into employment, I think that the figures show
that we are on the right track. There is still a lot to do, hence we
are keen to promote pathways to work with the voluntary sector.
However, the inactivity rates for disabled people have reduced
dramatically since 1998—they have come down by about 10 per
cent. We are seeing the same trend again. Of course, there are areas in
which we have a significant amount to do, not least among people with
learning disabilities who fall way behind in employment
opportunities. I want
to give a detailed rebuttal—I hope—of some of the points
raised. By removing subsection (7) of clause 18, as proposed in
amendment No. 245, we would prevent the extending of a pilot beyond the
original 24-month period and replace it with a duty to report to
Parliament. Although I understand the desire for scrutiny, as I have
said, Standing Committees do not sit in isolation and there are various
ways in which information and the activity of any Department can be
scrutinised.
I am not
convinced by the arguments of the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds
about needing the Secretary of State to submit a separate annual report
to Parliament. We have a Select Committee process and the Social
Security Advisory Committee—also independent—which
reports annually. Those arrangements work very well and I think that
there would be a danger of over-reporting to no apparent end when we
already have pretty good procedures in place. We often talk about
over-regulation and overburdening the private sector, but dare I
suggest that there is a danger that new clause 5 would increase the
burdens on the public sector by asking for additional reports? I should
highlight the fact that Departments will have to report annually on
their progress under the disability equality
schemes. New clause 12
relates to the over-50s, those with a mental health condition and those
who have been receiving benefit for more than three years. I repeat yet
again that the Government are determined to ensure that the support on
offer alongside ESA is relevant and useful to every individual,
whatever their personal circumstances. We are clear that that is the
philosophy underpinning the pathways-to-work approach; it is about
looking at individuals as individuals, not as part
of a group or a selection of statistics, as we did in the past. The
results from pathways have vindicated that
approach. I ask Opposition Members to
reconsider their provisions. All our regulations, all our work and all
our statistics will be in the public domain. We have nothing to hide in
terms of our approach and we welcome constructive criticisms about how
we can improve. Indeed, we welcome the discussion in this Committee,
which has been constructive not just for the most part, but almost
exclusively. We have
reporting means in place, which have served us well. They are
independent, and involve everyone from the ONS to the Social Security
Advisory Committee. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman not to press his
provisions to a vote.
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