Danny Alexander (Shadow Minister and Disability Spokesperson, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)

I beg to move amendmentNo. 157, in clause 13, page 12, line 1, after ‘plans’, insert—

‘( ) requirements on employers’.

David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 38, in clause 13, page 12, line 2, at end insert—

‘(d) the role of a person to whom an action plan document is provided in determining its content;

(e) the requirements that must be met by any such person, or employees of such person receiving authorisation under section 15(1) in assisting a person to whom an action plan is provided;

(f) the right of person to whom an action plan is provided to appeal against its contents.’.

No. 143, in clause 13, page 12, line 6, at end insert—

‘(3A) Regulations under this section may make provision for action plans to include requirements to be placed on the Secretary of State, or any person authorised to carry out functions on behalf of the Secretary of State under section 15.’.

Danny Alexander (Shadow Minister and Disability Spokesperson, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)

I will try to be relatively brief. All three amendments relate to the action plans and raise concerns which I hope the Minister will address about how the action planning process will operate.

Amendment No. 157 goes back to a debate that we had earlier, so I shall not dwell on it too much. However, it is important to talk a bit more about the requirements on employers. In a debate last week, the Minister said that engagement with employers is essential because, in the main, the Government do not create jobs. But he also implied that the Government themselves should be doing more as an employer to engage with the sorts of people we have been discussing.

Can the Minister expand a wee bit on what role he thinks the Department for Work and Pensions and other central Government Departments could have as employers, and whether they will have a role in recruiting people from incapacity benefit, or from employment and support allowance, as it will be?

Another key question is how any employer engagement undertaken by the Department or, indeed, by contractors on behalf of the Department—delivering pathways to work, for example—will relate to the action plans that will be drawn up for individuals. Is it the Minister’s thinking that within the action plans reference could be made to the role that employers will play? That is the substance of the first amendment. The burden of one of the other amendments is that the action plan is not just about the individual. It is about what the personal adviser can do to help an individual and what potential employers might do in the context of the individual action plan.

Amendment No. 38 is about safeguards in relation to the reconsideration of an action plan. Subsection (4) provides that an action plan can be reconsidered under certain circumstances to be specified in regulations. Will the Minister assure us that an individual who is the subject of an action plan will have the right to request a change to it, or to withdraw it completely and to ask for a fresh one to be drawn up if circumstances change?

Amendment No. 143 is intended to probe the Government’s definition of the “prescribed circumstances” in which a person will be provided with an action plan document. With those brief words, I invite the Minister to spell out his thinking.

Jeremy Hunt (Shadow Minister (the Disabled), Work & Pensions; South West Surrey, Conservative)

I wish to speak to Amendment No. 157, which is on requirements on employers. A concern that many people have about the Bill is that there is not enough in it about how we will improve communications with employers, who are an important part of the equation. Both Ministers will be aware of statistics that show that there is still a huge amount of discrimination by employers. Some 38 per cent. are not prepared to take on anybody with any disability, and63 per cent. are not prepared to take on someone with a background of mental illness. It is important to involve employers in the process, and the amendment suggests that requirements on employers should be part of the action plan.

We have had Sheffield Dave and Derbyshire Dave; may I mention Tunbridge Wells Tim? I have changed his name, because I do not want to put his real name on the record. He suffered an acquired brain injury when he was a teenager when he stepped out of a bus and was mown down by a car that was moving very fast alongside it. He was in a coma for many months. The result is that he has a learning disability that will be with him for the rest of his life. He was supported brilliantly by Kent Supported Employment, which did a fantastic job of placing him in a job. He tried several times to get a job, but he was open about his learning disability and was not interviewed. Then he applied for a job at the Odeon cinema in Tunbridge Wells andwas supported considerably by Kent Supported Employment. He did not mention his learning disability, but as soon as he was invited for an interview Kent Supported Employment contacted the Odeon and explained the situation. The Odeon staff were very willing to see him and he is now doing a brilliant job in that cinema.

When I went to the cinema and spoke to people about it, I asked the staff about the challenges involved. They mentioned the role of the personal advisers who help disabled people to get into employment. They said that it is crucial, and they gave an example. Tim was serving ice cream and some of it dropped on the counter. He started to eat the ice cream that had been dropped. Had they not known about his disability, that would have been a sackable offence. He would probably not still be working there. The excellent relationship that the cinema had developed with the advisers meant that they were able to deal with the situation. As a result, his prospects there are going from strength to strength. That is a good example of why involvement with employers, including, as the Minister rightly said, the Government’s involvement, is incredibly important.

I turn to the comments made by the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire. There are some brilliant employers—parts of BT, Asda and Royal Mail—that do an excellent job. However, they say that they have been driven to do so by labour market shortages. It made them consider tapping into another labour market: people who have a limited capability for work.

BT has found that disabled employees save it a lot of money. It costs the company £3,000 to £5,000 to employ someone, and if it keeps someone for longer, it saves money. BT found that the retention rate after one year for disabled employees was almost 10 per cent. higher than for non-disabled employees.

There are good stories, but the unemployment trajectory is firmly upward. The hon. Lady also raised the issue of accession states.

David Ruffley (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Bury St Edmunds, Conservative)

I pay tribute to the way in which my hon. Friend has shared a heart-warming and positive story from Tunbridge Wells. Does he recognise the statistic about tight labour markets? The Shaw Trust, among others, has suggested to me that the employment rate of disabled people in Berkshire could be eight or 10 times higher than the employment rate of disabled people in Bridgend. We must understand that and develop policies to deal with it.

Jeremy Hunt (Shadow Minister (the Disabled), Work & Pensions; South West Surrey, Conservative)

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and it underlines my point. One of the most important outcomes of the Bill, the general direction of which the whole Committee supports, must be the stepping up of involvement with employers. With the pathways to work pilots, we have the mechanism to make it happen. However, there are practical requirements of employers, which is where the amendment has some value. Employers are obliged to make reasonable adjustments through the Disability Discrimination Act 2005, but a reasonable adjustment will vary depending on the disability of the person seeking employment. The personal adviser will be aware of the disability and what the reasonable adjustment should be.

The amendment would clarify what employers were expected to do, as they form part of the bargain. Under the 2005 Act, the provision would become part of the action plan and a helpful part of the process. On that basis, I look forward to the Minister’s comments.

Jim Murphy (Minister of State (Work), Department for Work and Pensions; Renfrewshire East, Labour)

I am happy to respond to the points that the amendment raises. Hon. Members are right to say that there are inspirational examples throughout the country, and they have referred to a couple of them. I, like many on the Committee, have had the opportunity to listen to people in my constituency and elsewhere describe how they have been helped by employers who have provided leadership and inspiration.

John Robertson (PPS (Dr Kim Howells, Minister of State), Foreign & Commonwealth Office; Glasgow North West, Labour)

I have listened to the hon. Member for South-West Surrey, and he has taken some matters out of context. I think I know a little bit about BT, seeing as I worked for the company for 31 years.

Jim Murphy (Minister of State (Work), Department for Work and Pensions; Renfrewshire East, Labour)

You were employed by them.

John Robertson (PPS (Dr Kim Howells, Minister of State), Foreign & Commonwealth Office; Glasgow North West, Labour)

That might be nearer the mark. BT has always employed people with disabilities, and it has always sought to help those people who become disabled during their employment.

Will my hon. Friend the Minister allay my fears about the figures we have discussed? Employment is rising all the time, and that is one reason why we are considering such people for employment. The issue has nothing to do with unemployment, because more people are employed now than at any time in the history of employment figures.

Jim Murphy (Minister of State (Work), Department for Work and Pensions; Renfrewshire East, Labour)

My hon. Friend is right to say that there are now more people in work, and before the hon. Member for South-West Surrey intervenes, I do not seek to make a wider point. For the first time in our history, there are 29.02 million people in employment. For the first time since records began, the UK has more than 29 million people in work. Before the hon. Gentleman says that that is because of migrants, I shall point out that migrants make up less than 1 per cent. of our labour force. The big increase during the past year has been in the employment of people over 50 years old. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary said, there are 200,000 more people over 50 in work today than there were on this date one year ago. I believe that there are about 609,000 current vacancies in the labour market, for jobs that employers are trying to fill. In that context, we have the opportunity to put in statute the kind of support that people who have been out of the labour market for a considerable time are entitled to expect.

I do not have the honour of representing the city of Glasgow—the city of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson)—because my constituency is just outside it. The Silverburn centre is being built there—my old school was bulldozed as a result—and the agreements that have been entered into by employers are a model for what could happen in other parts of the United Kingdom. A series of employers have entered into agreements on the number of local people employed and on the number of people who have a history of long-term unemployment coming off IB and other benefits. If such agreements could be replicated throughout the country, it would take us a long way towards what we are discussing under the Bill.

I turn to the specific points that have been made. We have experience of listening to IB customers who have been supported into and retained in work because of the inspiration, far-sightedness and progressiveness of employers. The hon. Member for South-West Surrey mentioned some, and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West, who used to be a manager at British Telecom for many years, cited his own company; I know that he has declared an interest every time he has mentioned it and its trade union.

We can discuss the nature of the agreements contained in the clause in terms of action plans, because there is a degree of misunderstanding about what they would contain. The action plan is not a legal document, and the customer will not be asked to sign it. It is simply a record of the conversation between the individual, the personal adviser and the customer, and of what the customer has agreed to undertake. The customer is under no obligation, and we are not taking the power in the Bill to oblige a customer to adhere to the content of an action plan.

I understand some of the concerns, and I hope to allay them by virtue of these comments. Perhaps that might impact on hon. Members’ attitudes to some of the other amendments that have been tabled. The action plan is intended as a route map back to work. No one will have to fulfil a specific commitment contained in it. In fact, when it comes to an appeals process, if that was appropriate in terms of sanctioning at a later date, the customer would have to show that they had undertaken work-related activity in the widest  sense, as outlined in the Green Paper, rather than that they had adhered to the contents of the action plan. I hope that hon. Members have a greater understanding and less confusion about the role of action plans in the context of work-related activity, and that that impacts on their attitudes to, and concerns about, an action plan.

The hon. Member for Daventry spoke about the close and important relationship between the personal adviser and the customer. The action plan is intended to be issued at the end of the first work-focused interview, after eight weeks. It can, of course, continue to be updated but, for the avoidance of any doubt, I repeat that its contents are a record of the conversation. They do not compel the customer to undertake a specific activity or fulfil the content of that action plan. The onus on the customer is to undertake work-related activity, the nature of which was outlined in the Green Paper, as that would take them closer to the labour market in between work-focused interviews. I hope that that reassures hon. Members about the nature of the action plan.

In that context, it would be inappropriate to try to place in an action plan a legal or organisational responsibility on employers in a local environment with which each customer would be expected to interact, because we are not even putting into the action plan a specific responsibility with which the customer has to interact. To put the type of responsibility on employers that we are not even asking customers to undertake would be wholly inappropriate in the context of these action plans.

Employer engagement is absolutely crucial, which is why we take the opportunity to meet and to listen to some of our major national and local employers to see what more we can do to support them to ease the transition into work of people who have been out of work for a considerable period. As we roll out ESA, the return to work credit of £40 a week for 52 weeks will ease the customer’s pathway back to work. We can always look for ways of improving that pathway and easing the transition. Extension of the linking rules to two years is a new and important way of doing that.

Even if it were workable—there is a legitimate argument on whether it would be workable—it is not necessary to designate in an action plan, which is the note of a conversation between a customer and the adviser about what could bring the customer closer to the labour market. However, the customer has no legal responsibility to follow that advice, so designation would probably be unworkable and is certainly unnecessary.

To give the Secretary of State the additional power to place requirements on himself and external organisations that are carrying out his functions, as the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey is seeking to do in amendments Nos. 38 and 141, could mean requiring a pathways to work provider to make available a specific type of training to customers. That can be better done through the contracting system and that is how we intend to deal with the specific point raised by the hon. Gentleman.

Importantly, the draft regulations on work-focused interviews, which have been provided to the Committee,  set out the responsibilities of the customer during the interview and they will be expected to participate fully. The Government already have adequate powers in legislation to place requirements on employers. In particular, the employment provisions in the Disability Discrimination Act place duties on employers not to discriminate against disabled people in recruitment and employment, and they must make reasonable adjustments.

Amendment No. 38 would provide for regulations on the role of the customer in determining the action plan and the right of appeal against it. The action plan is best considered in the context of a route map. It is not a legal agreement or a legal document in the sense that some hon. Members have been concerned about and it is not appropriate to make it subject to appeal for that reason. Instead, subsection (4) allows for regulations to enable the customer to ask for the action plan to be reconsidered. We intend to make regulations under that power when we introduce the mandatory work-related activity to allow the customer to request an alteration to the action plan if they feel that that is appropriate. Not following the action plan is not a sanctionable offence and the action plan cannot specify a course of activity in relation to work-related activity. The amendments advocated by the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey are therefore unnecessary. Equally, it would not be appropriate in a conversation between two individuals to place a requirement on another external organisation—that is, an employer—that we do not even expect one of the parties to the conversation to fulfil as part of the action plan.

With that general reassurance about the nature of an action plan, I hope that hon. Members will be encouraged to reflect, not to press the amendments and to consider the importance of subsequent amendments on conversations under clause 13.

Danny Alexander (Shadow Minister and Disability Spokesperson, Work & Pensions; Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, Liberal Democrat)

This short debate has been useful, not least because of the opportunity to put on the record the importance that the Government attach to working with employers. I think everyone in the Committee attaches critical importance to that. There was almost nothing in the Green Paper about that, so it is good that the Minister’s comments have provided more information on the record than was in the Green Paper. With that in mind, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Jeremy Hunt (Shadow Minister (the Disabled), Work & Pensions; South West Surrey, Conservative)

I beg to move amendment No. 51, in clause 13, page 12, line 10, at end insert

‘including, in particular, circumstances where work-related activity cannot be accessed by him for a reason related to his physical or mental condition and circumstances where work-related activity is judged by a health care professional approved by the Secretary of State to be having a detrimental effect upon his physical or mental condition.’.

I do not need to detain the Committee for very long. Briefly, the purpose of the amendment is to reassure a number of external disability organisations that it will  be possible to review and change action plans in a couple of specific situations, the first being when the provision that is laid out for a disabled person in an action plan is not accessible. There are concerns that blind and partially sighted people, in particular, do not receive adequate support in a number of employment programmes. Because of the benefits sanction that sits behind the action plan, it is important that such people should not be penalised where the provision is not accessible.

Secondly, there are also concerns that it should be possible to change an action plan if it is any way detrimental to the health, impairment or disability of the person concerned. I am sure that it is possible to do that, but the issue is a concern to a number of people. Part of those concerns is legitimately created by the fact that some provision has not always been adequate in some of the employment programmes that have existed under the pilots. It would be most welcome if the Minister could reassure the Committee on that point.

Jim Murphy (Minister of State (Work), Department for Work and Pensions; Renfrewshire East, Labour)

May I start by repeating what I said in my earlier contribution? It is important to avoid confusion and others not understanding the full implications of what we say in this Committee. I confirmed earlier that the action plan will not attract a sanction, and the hon. Gentleman repeated that that was a concern.

Mr. Huntindicated assent.

Jim Murphy (Minister of State (Work), Department for Work and Pensions; Renfrewshire East, Labour)

I see him nodding so he accepts what I say. On the basis that action plans do not attract a sanction, I hope that the concerns that outside organisations have expressed about the nature and role of action plans, and about the relationship between action plans and any sanction in an appeals regime is reduced. The action plan is a route map. It sets out a type of activity that a customer could be expected to undertake. It will not compel anyone to undertake any specific activity, and as we roll out work-related activity, we will take the power in subsection (4) to set out

“the circumstances in which reconsideration may be requested”.

We shall, of course, consult on the regulations before we bring them before the House. With those comments, I encourage the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.

Jeremy Hunt (Shadow Minister (the Disabled), Work & Pensions; South West Surrey, Conservative)

I am grateful for the Minister’s reassurance on those points, particularly on where sanctions can and cannot be applied. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.