HC Deb 21 June 1972 vol 839 cc673-82

1.26 a.m.

Mr. Jack Ashley (Stoke-on-Trent, South)

My main purpose in this debate is to expose the facts of a deeply disturbing problem, criticise the Minister's inexcusable failure, suggest methods of improving the situation—and offer radical alternative proposals.

Parliament is deluding itself in assuming that the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act is helping the disabled. It is a shadow without substance. It should be made a reality—or dropped in favour of a realistic alternative.

The facts are shocking. The rate of unemployment among registered disabled people is 15 per cent. Every firm employing over 20 workers must employ a quota of 3 per cent. Those who do not and take on new workers without a permit are committing an offence. Out of 62,537 firms, no less than 58 per cent. are failing to fulfil their 3 per cent. quota—and 14,848 of these have not been granted permits. Thus, every time they take on a new worker they are flagrantly breaking the law. The figures themselves are serious—but the trend is ominous. The number of firms failing to fulfil their 3 per cent, quota in 1961 was 25,340–38.6 per cent. By 1971 it had risen dramatically to 36,382–58.2 per cent.

Personally, I prefer persuasion to prosecution. But persuasion has been given an inordinate run—and failed. It is now time to use the alternative. During this decade there has been only a single prosecution against one firm breaking the law. Why? I would appreciate it if the Minister could avoid repeating the bromide about prosecutions jeopardising the goodwill of progressive employers. We are not discussing them. We are concerned with those who are indifferent and negligent.

My indictment of the Minister rests on the following grounds. First, he has failed to prosecute employers breaking the law and has thereby aided and abetted firms evading their duty. I do not have to be told that some have such complicated processes that they cannot take on disabled workers. I know that. But they must have a Government permit before they take on fit workers. The Minister has failed to ensure this. His failure to act is the more deplorable since he is known to favour the prosecution of trade unionists when they break the law.

Secondly, he is refusing to collect relevant information. I asked him on 17th May if he would give, for each of the last 10 years, the number of firms employing over 20 people who do not employ new people. He said that the information was not available and he made no offer to seek it. Yet without this information he is unable to enforce the law because he does not know where it is broken.

Thirdly, he is complacent about the problem. At a time when over 90,000 disabled workers are desperately looking for a job he told me in a Parliamentary answer on the 6th of this month: I am satisfied that my Department provides effective services for helping disabled people find work."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th June, 1972; Vol. 838, c. 226.] Anyone who can express satisfaction in the present situation is clearly and culpably complacent. That is precisely the kind of answer that will delight law-breaking firms and dismay disabled people who are unemployed.

Fourthly, he is neither ensuring that the present system works properly nor offering a viable alternative. If the present system is good he should enforce it. If it is bad he should reject it and find another to replace it.

I believe that the two most effective ways of ensuring the observance of the present system are to prosecute employers breaking the law and to publish the names of those firms who do not maintain their quota. If this were done there would be a significant reduction in the number of disabled people unemployed.

I fully appreciate all the difficulties involved. But the Minister must recognise and act upon the important fact that disabled people are desperate for work. They are capable of work. They are usually reliable workers. But the shoulder-shrugging indifference of some employers—and some trade unionists—mustbe broken down.

I am insisting that the present scheme should be operated properly in the interests of disabled people—or scrapped. But I am far from convinced that the present scheme is the best one. I appreciate that some disabled people do not register—and they should not under any circumstances be forced to do so.

I want incidentally to suggest two radical proposals which I hope the Minister will seriously consider. The first is that all employers should pay for their 3 per cent. quota of disabled workers. Those who employed 3 per cent. would get value for money—those who did not would not. This would ensure that while the cooperative firms were not penalised the firms which are evading their responsibility would be. At any rate they would have a strong incentive to employ their full quota. Instead of disabled people asking the employers for work, they would be asking disabled people to work for them. The shoe would be neatly placed on the other foot. I offer the suggestion in principle. In practice a 2 per cent, quota would probably be sufficient to provide reasonably for all disabled workers.

The other proposal, which can be used as complementary or alternatively to the one which I have just outlined, is based on the principle of a subsidy for all severely disabled workers in open industry. Their disablement could be assessed in percentage terms and employers would pay them accordingly. The Government would make up their wages to the level of a fit worker by means of a subsidy.

The subsidy principle is already clearly established in Remploy. In fact, each worker is subsidised to the extent of £13 a week, yet average male earnings are only £17.60p. It is scandalous that over 12,000 people in sheltered workshops should be earning these miserable, inadequate wages. It is equally disturbing that a further 12,000 very severely disabled persons are waiting for work in sheltered industry. That is an unemployment rate of 50 per cent.—and the Minister says that he is satisfied.

I hope that the Minister will immediately order a pilot scheme on one or both of these proposals. There will be problems of job evaluation and the question of the degree of severe disablement necessary for eligibility for the subsidy. But it would be a valuable and worthwhile project designed to revolutionise the provision for disabled people at work in Britain today. It could lead to the inte- gration of disabled people into open industry—no matter how disabled they were—and the proper provision for them as part of the everyday life of the community.

Hand in hand with this must go vast—not pettifogging but vast—improvements in the disablement resettlement officer service with increased numbers and an improved career structure.

I should like to end with a word of praise to the Minister for initiating a review of employment policies and services for disabled people. This is a crucial report and I regard its publication as of paramount importance—so do many others concerned with the disabled. I hope he will reconsider his refusal to publish it. I assure him this is an issue which will not be dropped. Unless the House knows all the facts it must treat ministerial announcements on this subject with great reserve. The publication of this report would go a long way towards establishing greater understanding between Ministers and back benchers.

This action, together with the other initiatives I have outlined, would reassure the disabled that the Minister, like all of us, really means business on this important issue.

1.37 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Dudley Smith)

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) is widely known for his interests in the general welfare of disabled people. But I think that he has been unfair and unduly and uncharacteristically harsh in his admonitions at this late hour. I am positive that the political heads in my Department, the current political heads and permanent officers of the Department, yield to no one in their concern for the welfare of disabled people. This is something which cuts right across any political thought and bounds. I reject much of what the hon. Gentleman says because his accusations of complacency are totally unfounded.

We are deeply conscious that to a disabled person unemployment is not simply a hardship but is an additional hardship. We recognise, too, that the rate of unemployment among registered disabled people is much too high. That is why everything is being done to try to improve the situation.

Before turning to the steps which the Government have taken and will be taking, I emphasise that it is unwise to rely overmuch on the unemployment rate for registered disabled people as an accurate pointer to the real employment situation among the disabled. The figures have necessarily to be treated with some reservations. It needs to be stressed that registration as a disabled person is voluntary. Many disabled people are not, on medical or psychological grounds, encouraged to register, and experience has shown that often disabled people prefer not to register. This is particularly so when they consider their employment to be secure; though there may be a greater incentive to register when they lose their jobs.

For these reasons, the figures only partly reflect the true situation, and my Department has evidence to suggest that there are as many unregistered but registrable disabled persons in employment as there are registered disabled people in employment.

Having made those reservations, I turn for a moment to the general economic situation. I wish to stress that any substantial improvement in the employment prospects of disabled people must depend largely upon an improvement in the general employment situation. Experience shows, as one would suppose, that unemployment amongst registered disabled persons largely follows the general pattern, although at a higher level. The rate of unemployment amongst disabled people rises more slowly than the general unemployment rate in adverse conditions and correspondingly recovers more slowly when the employment situation improves.

There are indications that the Government's various reflationary measures are beginning to work. We may perhaps take some comfort from the expectation that the benefits of this general improvement will be shared by unemployed disabled people, even if the improvement here may be more gradual.

Indeed, there is evidence that this is already the case. I am pleased to be able to tell the House that the total number of unemployed registered disabled people dropped from 93,000 on 13th March to about 89,000 on 8th May, which is the latest date for which we have figures available. It is a smallish drop but it is none the less very welcome, and I hope that it is the forerunner of things to come.

Although the employment prospects of disabled people must depend inevitably, to a large extent, upon the general employment situation, my Department has recently taken a number of steps to improve the special services which are made available to disabled people.

The hon. Gentleman alleges that the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act is of no help to disabled people. This criticism is totally unfounded. Apart from providing the statutory basis for the quota system, to which I shall return, the Act provides the necessary powers under which my Department provides a whole range of special services for disabled people—the resettlement service, industrial rehabilitation, training, and sheltered employment. The hon. Gentleman has concentrated on the operation of the quota to the exclusion, almost, of everything else. Although I am sure that the hon. Gentleman did not intend this, it distorts the situation and ignores the many steps taken by the Government to improve the wide range of services and, indeed, the steps which were taken by the previous Administration, because the same situation appertained during the lifetime of the last Government.

We have reorganised the special placing service so that almost all the Department's disablement resettlement officers are now full-time specialist officers. Notwithstanding the very real difficulties, they succeed in finding about 80,000 jobs a year for disabled people, including 60,000 who are registered disabled under the Act.

Increased provision has been made for the industrial rehabilitation of people who, after absence from work on account of sickness or injury, need preparation for a return to work and assessment for the type of work most likely to provide them with permanent resettlement.

My Department has taken steps to improve its special placement service for blind people. A special staff of 30 blind persons resettlement officers are responsible for helping those who are blind to secure and retain suitable employment. These officials are assisted by a small team of officers who provide induction and on-the-job training and technical advice.

Despite the fact that the numbers of blind people in sheltered work are constantly falling, which is a measure of the steadily increasing extent to which they are placed in open industry, the total number of severely disabled people, whether blind or sighted, in sheltered employment, stands today at a record total of over 13,000. This figure should not be ignored.

Furthermore, our policy continues to to be one of planned expansion, whether through the agency of Remploy Limited nationally or in partnership with local authorities or voluntary bodies under our scheme of grants. Remploy Limited has been asked to build up from its present total of 7,700, itself a record figure, to 8,500 if possible by 1975.

We are also currently in discussion with 30 local authorities about the provision of new purpose-built factories over the next five years or so. Each such factory will provide at least 30 new places. I know that this is of particular interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Money) who is diligent enough to be here tonight to listen to the debate.

About 12,500 severely disabled people are currently unemployed. But the first aim is always to place them in ordinary industry if possible. Of those who cannot be so placed, only about one-third will, in the Department's long experience in these matters, prove suitable and available for sheltered employment. Present planning should thus go far to meet estimated need.

It has been suggested during the course of the debate that the quota scheme should be more strictly enforced and that employers who fail to fulfil their statutory obligations should be prosecuted. As I pointed out during Question Time on 6thJune this is a difficult matter and I do not believe that these proposals would improve the employment prospects of disabled people generally. We wish to improve the opportunities for employment for the disabled, not merely to take action for action's sake.

In the first place, there are insufficient unemployed registered disabled people for all employers to satisfy their quota obligation. If all such people were absorbed by firms with a quota obliga- tion, the average level of compliance would still be only about 2.75 per cent.

Secondly registration as a disabled person is voluntary and the evidence suggests that there are just as many unregistered but registrable disabled persons in employment. Thus many firms who may not be meeting their quota obligations are clearly fulfilling the spirit of the quota scheme. Moreover, strict enforcement might well improve compliance without making more jobs available for disabled people.

Thirdly, it is difficult to administer the quota scheme too rigidly when satisfactory resettlement is conditional upon the most careful assessment of the disabled person's potential and upon identification of the right job, and when many unemployed registered disabled people in specific employment areas do not, unfortunately, match the jobs on offer in those areas and are unwilling or unable to move. This difficulty has been accentuated because the characteristics of unemployed registered disabled people have changed significantly over the years and this has meant that many of those whom my Department is trying to help present formidable resettlement problems.

They suffer from a number of disadvantages in addition to that imposed by their disability. Recent surveys have shown, for example, that 53 per cent. are over 50 years of age; that 40 per cent. have more than one disability; and that 75 per cent. are unskilled and may be unable to benefit from training at recognised levels. It is also the case—and this is obviously important from the employment point of view—that age-related impairments and mental and nervous conditions are of growing significance.

My Department takes every possible opportunity of reminding employers of their statutory obligations and of making them look rather more positively for new openings for the disabled. To this end it has recently tightened up its procedures for inspecting employers' records. This clearly illustrates the absurdity of the suggestion which has been made that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I are aiding and abetting firms which do not satisfy their quota obligations. Nevertheless, for the reasons I have given I remain absolutely convinced that widespread prosecutions would serve no useful purpose in trying to bring about the situation that we would all welcome.

The hon. Gentleman has again repeated his request, as he is fully entitled to do, that the recent internal review of my Department's policies and services for the disabled should be published. But, as I have already made clear, it was purely a preparatory study carried out in depth by officials, aimed at analysing the various problems and providing my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State with advice on future policy developments. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to publish the review. It is the common practice in Government, irrespective of which party is in power, that such reviews are not usually published. But as soon as we have had the opportunity to consider the review in detail—and we are considering it urgently—we shall be consulting the National Advisory Council on the Employment of the Disabled and the other bodies most concerned as to whether changes are necessary.

The review has naturally included a thorough examination of the quota system and possible alternatives, including the suggestion that disabled workers in open industry should be subsidised, a point the hon. Gentleman brought out. But the idea was rejected by both the Tomlinson and the Piercy Committees as being undesirable in principle and unworkable in practice. In general, I believe there is no reason to challenge that view, but I can assure the House that the whole question of the quota will be discussed with the National Council, and more generally, at the earliest possible moment.

I end by assuring the Hon. Gentleman once again that there is no lack of will on our part in wishing to bring about a far better understanding of the problem and in getting the maximum amount of coverage on the question of jobs for the disabled. It is really a question of the most effective means.

Successive Governments have tried to work the Act. It has certain deficiencies, which it may well be possible to repair. But again I emphasise that it is not merely a question of checking up on those who are or are not fulfilling their quota. Active steps are being taken the whole time to get people who are disabled into employment. There are many thousands, I am glad to say, who find and keep good work and overcome their disabilities as a result.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at eight minutes to Two o'clock.