§ 3. Mr. David Borrow (South Ribble)What steps he is taking to help people who become disabled while in work to keep their jobs. [129321]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Hugh Bayley)Under the new deal for disabled people, a number of innovative schemes are already testing ways in which both employees and employers can be helped when a person becomes ill or disabled in work. We have also announced plans for job retention and rehabilitation pilots, beginning from next year, which will test the effectiveness of early work-focused employment and health strategies.
§ Mr. BorrowI thank my hon. Friend the Minister for that answer, but may I emphasise the need for close monitoring of the way in which Government Departments and employers work together? A disabled constituent of mine was offered a job last summer, but it has taken the relevant Government Departments and the employer until this month to get their act together and ensure that the proper adaptations for a disabled worker were in place. That case may be an exception, but will my hon. Friend ensure that the pilot schemes are monitored closely to ensure better co-ordination in the future?
§ Mr. BayleyMay I start by paying tribute to the close way in which my hon. Friend works with disability bodies in his constituency? I was there just last week at a meeting that he organised with voluntary bodies representing the disabled.
I can assure my hon. Friend that the access to work provisions made by the Department for Education and Employment work smoothly and efficiently in the vast majority of cases. I am concerned to hear his comments about this particular case, and I am sure that my colleagues in the Department for Education and Employment will look at it. We will, of course, be monitoring our pilot studies very closely.
§ Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough)Every penny lost through fraud means that less money goes to the genuinely disabled. What is the total amount lost in fraud on the disability living allowance? I ask this question because, according to the recent article in The Economist, the amount is now so large that the Government have stopped calculating it. Indeed, the article calculates that fraud amounts to between £3 billion and £7 billion. There are entire sleeper rings working in the Minister's Department who are garnering information, before they go out to work, to commit fraud. Is this a new form of welfare to work?
§ Mr. BayleyThe Government are doing things to target disability benefits on those who merit them. We are, as a result, tightening the gateways. However, in relation to rehabilitation pilots, the hon. Gentleman needs to focus on the fact that every week, 3,000 people leave long-term sickness benefits and go on to incapacity benefits. Some 90 per cent. of them remain on incapacity benefits for life, although most would like to get back into work. That is what we are focusing on. We are avoiding the need for people to go on to incapacity benefits.
§ Ms Helen Southworth (Warrington, South)Along with many of my constituents, I welcome the rehabilitation pilots which will be started next year. I think that they will be very beneficial. As people in employment who become disabled are likely to need considerable health intervention and treatment, will my hon. Friend make sure that 6 the Department of Health is working closely with the Department of Social Security to facilitate people retaining employment and retaining dignity?
§ Mr. BayleyThe rehabilitation and retention pilots are a three-way collaboration between the Department of Social Security, the Department for Education and Employment and the Department of Health. They can work only if there is joined-up government between those three Departments. That is how they were conceived, that is how they will work and that is why we believe that we will achieve real results for disabled people.
§ Mr. Tim Boswell (Daventry)As disability issues should not necessarily be a matter for political controversy, I am sure that the Minister will be as concerned as I am that 3,000 people a week leave the work force for permanent benefit and that the Post Office estimates that a single medical retirement can average some £80,000 of cost to the employer. In addition, there is the evidence of the report last week that ill-health retirement is concentrated in, although not exclusive to, the public sector. Will the Minister therefore bear in mind the experience of the disability pilots, particularly the St. Loyes transformation project in Exeter, which I know that he has visited, and make sure that these roll forward to adoption as soon as is practically possible? In addition, will he ensure that all those involved in providing disability advice to employees and employers have a proper, practical knowledge of the needs of the private sector and of what employers are looking for, showing them that it may well be cost-effective to retain the employee in employment and not simply to rely on benefit, which gives rise to the concerns that have been expressed from these Benches today?
§ Mr. BayleyI think that the hon. Gentleman is mistaken to draw a distinction between the private and public sectors. There is good practice and bad practice in both sectors. There is also very different practice between large firms which can carry people on long-term sickness benefits paid by the company, and smaller firms which cannot. The rehabilitation pilots seek to enable all businesses, whether in the public or private sector, to retain the employees they have, in whom they have invested by spending money on their training and building up their skills. At a time when unemployment is so low—the lowest level for 20 years—more and more employers want to retain people because they know that it is so hard to find others if they let employees go.