We are determined that disabled people should have the confidence to try work. Our “right to try” legislation will come into force on Thursday. People claiming universal credit, new style employment support allowance and personal independence payment can take steps towards employment and be confident that doing so will not automatically trigger benefit reassessment.
I thank the Minister for that positive answer. Could he reassure my disabled constituents under the age of 22, many of whom are in education and low-paid work, that they will not lose their universal credit health payments? This financial support is vital to helping young disabled people, because they face the greatest barriers to work. Does he share my concern that removing it could push them further away from employment and deeper into poverty? Has an assessment been made of the impact on poverty of removing that support?
There is an urgent need to address the big rise in the number of young people not in work, education or training that took place before the last general election. We think that better support might help young people more than extra cash. Alan Milburn’s review on the NEET problem more broadly will report in September; we will wait until then to decide whether to delay access to the universal credit health element until the age of 22. If we did do that, there would need to be exceptions.
Thanks to grant funding from DWP, my local Labour councils in Adur and Worthing are joining the Connect to Work programme, helping local people get into good local jobs. But for young people, including those with disabilities, being not in employment, education or training remains an issue. What more is being done to work with businesses and get more young people into the opportunities that they can thrive in?
I very much welcome the fact that my hon. Friend’s local authority is joining up with Connect to Work, which will be available across the whole of England and Wales by this summer. These regulations are a very important step forward. More needs to be done to give people confidence that moving into work or embarking on volunteering will not trigger a benefit reassessment. I also point him to our Pathways to Work guarantee, giving tailored personalised support to young people in the position that he described, and to the “Keep Britain Working” review by Charlie Mayfield, making employer vacancies accessible to my hon. Friend’s constituents and others in the position that he described.
My disabled constituent Joanne was holding down a good job, but delays in Access to Work resulted in her not receiving the necessary support to stay in it. The Government’s new “right to try” initiative is a positive move, but will the Minister commit to resourcing vital support services like Access to Work, and to eliminating its backlog of over 62,000 cases as a matter of urgency? If not, we will find ourselves in the same position a year from now.
The support provided by Access to Work is absolutely vital. There has been a big surge in demand for the scheme over the last few years, which has led to some significant delay. I am very sorry to hear that the hon. Gentleman’s constituent has been affected in the way that he described. We said last year that we wanted to reform Access to Work, and that reform is much needed given the greatly increased demand. We are working on proposals and as soon as we are able to put them before the House, we will do so.
It was a great joy to spend time last month in Kendal for the Disability Confident employer scheme. It is gaining more and more members in our community and is helping people with disabilities into work. Around 20% of working-age people live with a disability; many work, and many more wish to. What is the Minister doing to support Disability Confident employers, to make it easier for them to employ people with disabilities and to support those with disabilities into the workforce?
I point the hon. Gentleman to the Keep Britain Working review, which Sir Charlie Mayfield is leading; it addresses exactly the issue that he rightly raises. We are also looking at reforming Disability Confident, which has huge potential—19,000 employers have signed up, I think. There is a lot of enthusiasm on the part of employers. We want to make sure that those who sign up to the scheme then progress up the levels so that Disability Confident makes a really significant difference. I am very hopeful that it will.