Clause 1
Welfare Reform Bill
12:00 pm
Jim Murphy (Minister of State (Work), Department for Work and Pensions; East Renfrewshire, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, which I had already made, which is that the public sector, including government, public agencies, non-departmental and other public bodies—all sorts of public sector organisations—also have to see what more they can do to support the Government’s agenda and the wider agenda in respect of supporting people to come off employment and support allowance and into active employment by 2008. The Government should not encourage others to do what we are not willing to do ourselves by 2008.
The details of our relationship and conversation with employers, and what more we can do, are set out in our health, work and well-being strategy, which has been published. We should be supporting people while they get into work. As we know and as hon. Members have already said, people journey from being active in the labour market, through a period of depression, illness, intermittent or long-term absence, to statutory sick pay and everything else that goes with that. We have to be a lot more proactive with employers. Many employers are comfortable with and proactive on this agenda, but the last point of intervention in the welfare system and working with employers should be when someone reports for benefit. Currently, that is the first point of intervention.
There is a huge amount of work to do with employers. We are discussing with employers in great detail the most effective way to improve support at work, including occupational therapies and removing stigma in the workplace among employers and employees.
We have options for encouraging a change in attitude, although there have been changes already—we all acknowledge that there have been improvements over recent years. There has been a 10 per cent. improvement in the employment rate of those with declared disabilities, but that is not enough; it is an improvement, but we must go further.
The best people to encourage employers are not the Government, but other employers with positive experiences of employing someone with a disability and of those people’s sheer determination. That is a more effective way in which to achieve success on that agenda, and we are discussing with major employers the most effective way in which to do that. We want an employer-led publicity campaign on best practice based on their own experiences. Some employers said that to be frank they felt they had taken a slight risk—their words, not mine—but that they were glad that they had. Allowing them to share that experience with others is a more effective approach than leaving the Government to do it by themselves.