§ 'Regulations shall provide that in any case where a person was in receipt of a Severe Disablement Allowance immediately before the commencement of a course of youth training and on ceasing that course fails to secure gainful employment the entitlement of that person to a Severe Disablement Allowance shall be automatically reinstated.'.—[Mr. Alfred Morris.]
§ Brought up, and read the First time.
5.38 pm§ Mr. Alfred Morris (Manchester, Wythenshawe)I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Time is now both very strictly and scandalously rationed, due to a guillotine made sharper by the timing of this afternoon's statement on the poll tax, even for a debate about severely disabled young people whose brave attempts to win the independence of gainful employment can result in reducing their incomes.
The new clause is a particularly important one for young people who, while they have severe disabilities, also have abilities. It is strongly backed by the organisations that work to help them, including Barnardo's, Mencap and the Spastics Society. Those are all organisations for which there is high regard on both sides of the House and they insist that the new clause must be added to the Bill. Their concern is not with imagined difficulties which may occur if the Bill becomes law, but with the acute difficulties now of severely disabled young people who strive with exceptional effort, but often unsuccessfully through no fault of their own, to exchange the dependence of social security payments for the independence which goes with having a job and paying taxes.
Barnardo's, in a letter to me yesterday about the new clause, underlines the importance of its purpose and describes it as removing a disincentive which actively discourages
young people with disabilities from entering YTS".Hon. Members of all parties who went to the recent "parents' forum" arranged here by Barnardo's will recall the very moving statements made by the mothers of young people with severe disabilities. They told us that, although they passionately want the opportunity to work, their sons and daughters have to face the loss of their severe disablement allowance if they enter youth training and then fail to find work. I am sure that they left all the hon. Members who heard them with the feeling that to withdraw SDA from young people who try so hard to triumph over severe handicap is a form of refined cruelty which Ministers must now urgently stop.The savings made by the Government from withdrawing SDA in cases where young people cannot find work when their training ends are very small compared with the £1.9 billion given in a single Budget to the richest 1 per cent. of taxpayers. The new clause is about removing a tax 1077 on hope, that of young people most of whom, due to lack of employment opportunities, today go from school to scrap heap. All that severely disabled youngsters who receive training, and succeed as trainees, can possibly have today is hope.
As the Minister knows, unemployment among disabled job seekers is more than twice as high as the current rate among able-bodied people. They are pushed to the back of the dole queue, which is still the longest queue in Britain and, as I have demonstrated to him in correspondence, are often made to sit up and beg from the social fund. The Government's own recent survey showed that only 31 per cent. of all disabled adults of working age are actually working compared with 69 per cent. of the population as a whole. The ratio for males was even worse: 33 per cent. compared with 78 per cent. Those findings shout of discrimination against disabled workers. Moreover, the earnings of disabled people who found work were substantially lower than those of non-disabled employees, and the same is true of parents of disabled children.
Those are the bleak facts, known only too well by most disabled people, which face those for whom even trying to train and find work can invite the penalty of losing their severe disablement allowance. At a time when they often need more help, as we heard from parents at the meeting here at Westminster, they lose their SDA. Their reaction, as I know from speaking to many of the young people of whom I speak in this debate, is that their efforts to achieve financial independence are mocked by a system which piles handicap on handicap.
They and their parents know full well that they can lose financially if any attempt at training or employment does not meet with immediate success. They will not automatically requalify for SDA, as provided for in the new clause, and the family is likely to be left substantially worse off. Under the present system, they have to undergo the complex procedure of reassessment and, even then, may lose a benefit of crucial importance to them. Faced with this, many parents and young people feel that attempting a youth training programme is too much to risk.
§ Mr. Dafydd Wigley (Caernarfon)Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that in treating disabled young people in this way the Government appear to be going in a different direction from that which was implicit in the White Paper "The Way Ahead", which appeared to encourage people to go on training and then to come back, and not to lose benefits as a result? Surely this is the opposite. That is why we need the new clause—to make sure that there is no discrimination against disabled people.
§ Mr. MorrisI entirely agree with the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley). His point is one to which I shall return after referring to some particular cases.
Pat Nelson is a foster parent of twins, Nicky and Jackie, aged 18. Both have Down's syndrome and will soon leave school. In describing her fears, their foster parent writes:
The way the regulations stand at the moment, if Nicky and Jackie go on to a YTS or take a job, they cease to be eligible for their disability benefit. If that job or scheme fails, the benefit would not automatically be restored because they would have proved that they could work or take part in YTS.1078 Elspeth McLean, leader of the Barnardo's project aimed at providing youth training opportunities for young people with severe mental handicaps, has also come across this deterrent effect in her work. She tells me:
When I recruit young people for my scheme, parents often say to me 'of course we'd like our son or daughter to have the chance of a job or go on a scheme, but what if it goes wrong? Will they lose their disability benefit?' For many, especially those from low income families, this proves just too much.Noting that the cost of the new clause would be very small, the Spastics Society, in a message to right hon. and hon. Members timed for today's debate, says that my proposal is one of "rational change" and totally consistent with the Government's own proposals in their document "The Way Ahead", which was the point made by the hon. Member for Caernarfon. That being so, the rational change that we are seeking can be made by the House today by approving the new clause.
The Spastics Society's statement to hon. Members goes on:
Current regulations impose a risk and act as a disincentive to young people who might otherwise take up training. This new clause ensures a safety net which would give them added confidence and encouragement to do so. Some of these young people may, as a result of their training, find paid employment which would enable them to come off social security benefits altogether.The Minister knows as well as I do that the Spastics Society is right. He knows, too, that the case work of Barnardo's, Mencap and the Spastics Society fully demonstrates the urgent need for the change. Their endorsement of the new clause is not inspired by any political motive. Their only concern is to help severely disabled young people who feel that today the odds are very heavily stacked against them, notwithstanding the enormous efforts they make to normalise their lives and to make the contribution of which they are capable to industry and to society. They are worthy not of unfair treatment, but of our admiration.
I must warn the Government that disabled young people's insistence on better treatment will not go away. It will be pursued for as long as it takes to satisfy them and their parents that they are being fairly dealt with and that their efforts to gain more independence are no longer mocked by the social security system. The new clause will correct a cruel anomaly and I commend it to right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House.
§ The Minister for Social Security (Mr. Nicholas Scott)It is a universal desire throughout the House that young people with disabilities be encouraged, if they are able, to take part in youth training schemes and to get themselves into employment. Perhaps I can make some general remarks at the outset before I come to deal with the new clause. There are a number of things which I believe are moving in the direction of encouraging precisely that development.
When we are able to introduce the disability employment credit in 1992, it will be a very big encouragement for people suffering from a disability to take up work, knowing that if they eventually have to give up the work they will retain their underlying entitlement to the longer-term benefits, such as invalidity benefit, when they leave work, and the benefit itself will encourage and make it easier for them to get into employment.
Secondly, I have no doubt that the impact of technology in the workplace, as well as in the domestic 1079 environment, will make it possible for many people with disabilities, including youngsters, to get into employment and to hold down important jobs. The third factor is the simple movement of demography. Employers, in both the public and the private sectors, will need the skills of disabled people in the coming decades. They will have to learn to look behind the disabilities to find the abilities. That is important.
The fourth factor that has impressed me during the time that I have held responsibility for the disabled is the sheer determination of increasing numbers of them, especially youngsters, to get into employment and to acquire the independence that that brings.
In speaking to the new clause, I must first remind the House that severe disablement allowance is a benefit for people who are incapable of work. That is the basic definition. As I am sure all hon. Members appreciate, it is the non-contributory equivalent of invalidity benefit for people who have not paid the necessary national insurance contributions. Therefore, the primary medical qualifying condition—this is fundamental—is that the person must be incapable of work.
As I understand the proposals in the new clause, SDA would become payable to people who were capable of work, on the ground that they had failed to find suitable employment. That would be an entirely new principle in the conditions for the benefit and would cut across the basic principles of the SDA scheme.
§ Mr. WigleyDoes the Minister accept that, on all occasions, we should try to avoid typecasting people as incapable of work for ever more? People may have been incapable of work, and therefore rightly secured SDA, but nevertheless feel that there may be an opportunity to break out. If the opportunity arises for new training, and if that would benefit the person, surely the system should not militate against that by imposing a financial penalty on those trying to break out of typecasting.
§ Mr. ScottI understand the hon. Gentleman's point. My next few points will, I hope, show that the scheme is not quite so cut and dried as might be imagined from reading the new clause. There are existing arrangements to help former recipients of SDA. who are incapable of work at the time when they finish a YTS course or shortly thereafter, to acquire the right to benefit again. That comes under the so-called linking rules for this benefit and, indeed, for other benefits.
If a person who was receiving SDA before starting a course of youth training is incapable of work at the end of that course, SDA can be reinstated immediately, because the claim links with earlier entitlement. I suppose that it is right to say that, if someone had successfully completed a YTS course, that would be prima facie evidence that they should be capable of work at the end of that course. However, it would still be open to an adjudication officer to decide that, despite the successful completion of that course, the person was incapable of work and immediately to reinstate the SDA to which the person was earlier entitled.
Periods when a person is registered as unemployed count in the same way in linking claims. For example, if a former SDA recipient was registered as unemployed between the end of training and the time when incapacity for work began—someone might leave YTS, be unemployed and eventually be determined as incapable of 1080 work—SDA could be reinstated immediately. There is also the provision which allows gaps when those conditions do not apply, perhaps when a person has been working. If such a gap is no longer than eight weeks, entitlement to SDA is not affected. There could be any number of such gaps, provided that none exceeded the eight-week period. For example, someone could try a series of jobs in an attempt to find something suitable, but provided that they decided that they were not suitable within the eight-week period, they would be entitled to SDA immediately. The effect of those arrangements is that a person who becomes incapable of work either at the end of youth training or, in some circumstances, some time afterwards, can have SDA reinstated without waiting for the usual 28 weeks.
It would be a fundamental change to remove the principle of entitlement to SDA—namely, that somebody should be incapable of work. The scheme is more flexible than was suggested by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris). I hope that, in the light of what I have said, he will withdraw the new clause. If he does not, I shall have to advise the House to resist it.
§ Mr. MorrisI am sorry that the Minister has not accepted what is widely believed to be a compelling case. There is no time now even to press such an important new clause to a Division, but I hope that it will be raised again in another place and carried.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
§ Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.