Disability Confident Scheme — [Andrew Rosindell in the Chair]

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 2:30 pm on 10 January 2018.

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Photo of Luke Graham Luke Graham Conservative, Ochil and South Perthshire 2:30, 10 January 2018

I realise that the scheme is a start, and later in my speech I will come to a number of areas that I hope the Minister and the Government will seek to develop further.

I was talking about the Glenalmond Timber Company. For people who do not know, Methven is a village in my constituency—it is not a bustling metropolis. There is not a huge amount of infrastructure, nor is there a particularly strong disability lobby that has worked hard on local or national Government. However, a company there is committed to seeing the person and not the disability, and it has reaped the positive results of that. I commend the Glenalmond Timber Company for the work it has done through Disability Confident. I hope the Minister will join me in visiting its site in the near future.

Of course, it is not just local businesses that are involved; national and international businesses have also signed up to the scheme. I thank Sainsbury’s, which has provided information on cases across the United Kingdom. It is a large corporation that has been highly involved in the Disability Confident campaign. One of its employees in the north of England experienced some mental health issues and has only just felt confident enough to talk about his condition at work. Although he requested to remain anonymous, he commented:

“There is still a stigma about mental health, so I was nervous about talking about it. But receiving a firm diagnosis recently made it easier for me to speak up. Everyone I’ve had contact with here has been really supportive and keen to help. I worked with my line manager and HR to come up with adjustments, which have made a massive difference. Flexible rotas, extra preparation time at the start of shifts and the addition of a click and collect shift to my working week have made things less stressful.

I’m now really enjoying my job. There’s great camaraderie and team spirit, and with regular reviews as we go along, there’s no reason I won’t be able to stay in the role long-term…I’d advise colleagues dealing with mental health conditions to take that first step and talk to their managers. Once you’ve said the words, it gets much easier.”

Those words are great to hear and show that the scheme is making a great start, but there is still a lot of work to do.

The 2017 Conservative manifesto committed, as my hon. Friend John Lamont mentioned, to getting 1 million more disabled people into employment in the next 10 years. The Government therefore released a White Paper entitled “Improving Lives: the future of work, health and disability” in November last year. The strategy is based partly on supporting disabled people to find work but also to provide investment to support them to stay in work, as mentioned by Jim Shannon. The White Paper states that the Government will

“increase the reach and effectiveness of Disability Confident”,

while the Disability Confident business group has been established to provide leadership, peer-to-peer support and the sharing of best practice. Furthermore, the White Paper included the following policies and proposals. First, the roll-out of the personal support package, which includes the recruitment of 200 community partners, 300 disability employment advisers and about 100 small employer advisers. It will also provide support for individuals to help find and keep a job. Secondly, the Government have committed—I am sure that the Minister will elaborate on this—to explore the best options to provide support to those with more complex needs, and those who are furthest from the labour market across the United Kingdom.