PART-TIME WORKING (Hansard, 13 May 1981)

§ Mr. Alfred Morris
New clause 8 is an important proposal that is of deep interest to all the organisations concerned with disabled people. Again, we are only asking for a report. If this new clause is resisted, as were the earlier new clauses, Ministers will be open to the charge of obscurantism.
At present, there is a strong disincentive to part-time work for people whose disabilities make full-time work impossible but who might be able to work for more limited hours if the opportunities were available. The social security system does not encourage them to work. The people who are involved fall into two broad categories. First, there are the people whose disabilities are permanent and who could never cope with full-time work. Nicole Davoud's important research has drawn attention to the extent of the unsatisfied demand for part-time work among multiple sclerosis sufferers. A characteristic of that condition is that sufferers tire easily and exceeding the fatigue threshold can exacerbate the condition. As a result, many sufferers are forced to give up work. Often they would be able to continue working part time, if part-time employment were available and financially feasible.
Multiple sclerosis is far from unique in causing a fatigue problem which rules out full-time work. Many chronically sick and disabled people who cannot manage an ordinary day's work or the standard working week could work for more restricted periods. The OPCS survey, "Handicapped and Impaired in Great Britain," found that 856 one in three disabled people under retirement age who had given up work for good had done so because they were unable to work the hours required.
The second major category is of people for whom part-time work may be appropriate, or even essential, as a stepping-stone to normal employment. There are three important sub-groups in this category: people who are recovering from major surgery or a serious illness with a prolonged convalescence period; people who have been permanently disabled by accidents or illness, and who might ultimately be able to work full time again, but for whom a gradual process of rehabilitation is necessary if they are to do so; and, finally, people who are psychiatric patients.
The problem arises because part-time work is poorly paid and because it is not possible to combine it with the receipt of invalidity benefit. According to the new earnings survey of April 1980, with figures updated to December in line with the average earnings index, average male part-time earnings are about £46 per week and average female part-time earnings about £38 per week. However, many part-time jobs pay less.
By comparison, invalidity pension for a married couple is £43.60 per week, with an additional £7.50 for each child, with a possibility of an invalidity allowance also. Those receiving invalidity benefit can earn up to £15 per week therapeutic earnings before losing their benefit. That is not sufficient to permit a person to take a realistic part-time job, nor is it an unconditional entitlement to work. Any work must be medically approved as beneficial to health. The underlying problem is the assumption written into our social security system that people are either wholly fit to work or wholly unfit to work.
In a recent parliamentary reply about the proposal to raise the therapeutic earnings limit, the Minister said: Invalidity benefit is an incapacity benefit and to extend the present therapeutic earnings limit to the level suggested would be incompatible with this concept."—[Official Report, 10 March 1981; Vol. 1000, c. 290..] That shows precisely the flaw in the invalidity benefit scheme as it currently operates. The concept of incapacity on which it rests does not correspond with medical reality. In truth, as I have shown, a large number of people are incapable of full-time work, but could work for two or three hours a day without endangering their health.
The purpose of the new clause is to draw attention to the needs of such people within the invalidity benefits scheme. To cater fully within the scheme for those who work part-time, not full-time, four changes are necessary. First, entitlement to invalidity benefit must be extended to anyone whose physical or mental condition prevents him or her from working a normal working week. Secondly, the requirement that any work done should be "therapeutic" must be abandoned. Thirdly, the earnings limit must be raised substantially. Fourthly, a taper should be introduced so that there is no longer a sharp cut-off point above a certain level. Reduced benefit would then be combined with earnings, the benefit gradually disappearing as earnings increased. I have heard from employers who very much want to employ disabled people on the basis that the DHSS would pay a proportion of the invalidity pension if they were unable to work the standard working week.
857 The new clause uses the word "rehabilitation" in an important context. As the Minister will appreciate, rehabilitation is about emphasising what disabled people can do, rather than what they are no longer capable of doing. That is an important point. We must this year, above all other years, emphasise that disabled people have abilities as well as disabilities. It is one important aim of the International Year of Disabled People to set in relief the considerable abilities of disabled people. Often rehabilitation of newly disabled people can be hastened by their having a part-time job that they can successfully hold down.
The clause is about helping the disabled to do as much as they can. Most of the disabled want passionately to use their abilities. I hope that the Minister will be able to make a positive response. I know from my time at DHSS that there has been a good deal of work carried out on the implications of a partial invalidity benefit. The Minister would, therefore, have much helpful information to convey to the Social Security Advisory Committee in preparing a report. He said earlier that he did not want to burden the Committee with requests. I hope that he will be able to indicate in his reply that it would not be unacceptable to him if the committee were to spend some time on this important issue for the disabled.

§ Mr. Rossi
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) for the way in which he proposed the new clause. The Govenment sympathise with the intention underlying the clause. A problem has been highlighted that requires close investigation. I am not very happy about the way in which the present therapeutic earnings rule applies. It is something that we need to improve upon. However, there is the ever-present problem of resources and definition.
There is the need to give assistance to the disabled, to help them become integrated and to enable them to be more useful in society, to make it easier for them to do work and not to allow benefits to act as a disincentive to work. On the other hand, we must avoid the danger of producing a benefit the result of which would be merely to subsidise part-time work and make the issue of disability possibly secondary. It is a narrow path that we have to tread—it is almost a tightrope—if we are to achieve the objectives that the right hon. Gentleman has proposed and with which I am in full sympathy. We must ensure that we do not create a system that can be readily abused.
The right hon. Gentleman asked for an investigation so that we may consider the issue and come to a decision on the best way to solve the problem. I accept that. However, I do not wish to create the precedent of the Government or the House telling the advisory committee how to do its work. That is the danger of the clause. I think that I attracted a certain amount of sympathy for that proposition not only from the Opposition Front Bench but from the Opposition Back Benches when we were discussing new clause 3. I then trespassed into the merits of the clause and that meant that a Division was called. I am therefore hesitant to enter into merits and demerits now in case my comments lead to another Division.
The advisory committee has given itself the task of considering social security benefits for the disabled. I invite the House to be content with that. Let the committee 858 perform the task that it has set itself and let it produce its report voluntarily and not by compulsion of the House. When that has been done we shall be in a position to debate among ourselves such indications as it gives us of the way ahead.

§ Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
The Minister's reply was a little disappointing. I accept his argument that he should not have to tell the Social Security Advisory Committee what it should be doing. He also tells us that it is looking into a wider topic. I believe that it is in a specific area where finding a solution is difficult.
In the new clauses today we have been asking for inquiries to be made. This proposal runs into a major resources problem. I suggest to the Government that the amount of money required would be small compared to that required for the other inquiries. The problem is to find a scheme which is fair and just. This, therefore, is one of the areas in which the Social Security Advisory Committee will not be asked to look at the matter specifically. However, there should be a request for an inquiry which specifically goes into the problems and comes up with a solution in a short period, so that we can look at the problem of resources.

§ Mr. Rossi
I said that that was being done. Therefore, a request, directive or diktat from the House is not required. I was hoping that I had satisfied all hon. Members that that was so and that, therefore, it was not necessary to press the matter.

§ Mr. Bennett
I thought that the Minister said that the Government were looking at the whole question of supplementary benefits and the disabled. I am suggesting that this is an important section which needs to be considered in great detail so that a workable scheme is produced. If the Minister its saying that within its general inquiry, the Social Security Advisory Committee is looking at this specific area and will come up with a specific workable scheme., I shall take back some of my words.

§ Mr. Rossi
My information is that the committee is considering this specific matter as well as the generality of the need for social security benefits for the disabled.

§ Mr. Bennett
I welcome that. I hope that it will be in the committee's first report and that the implication of the resource will be considered. I hope that the Government will be able to implement that proposal shortly.

§ Mr. Alfred Morris
I am grateful to the Minister for the information which he has conveyed to us tonight. I hope that the Social Security Advisory Committee will move as quickly as possible in reporting on the financial problems of disabled people. I do not feel that we should press the new clause in the light of what the Minister has said. Therefore, I shall not advise my right hon. and hon. Friends to divide.

§ Mr. Buchan
It is my formal duty to withdraw the clause. I thank the Minister for being a little more 859 forthcoming and gracious in his reply than he was earlier. We are pleased that he is at least working on the Social Security Advisory Committee. We shall look forward to the report. I thank the Minister for the assurance that he has not pre-empted his decision on possible resources. I am glad that that is left open.
860 I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.