John
Howell: I wanted to follow on from my hon. Friend’s
comments, as a member of the Work and Pensions Committee, to emphasise
the seriousness with which we looked at the issue. He has already
mentioned that we went back quite a long way, to 1999 and the
Disability Rights Taskforce. Indeed, if we look at the restrictions
that that taskforce sought to place on any overall ambition, we see
that they mirror closely what is in the new clause today. From 1999 to
the present is a long time to wait for what is quite a straightforward
element. My
hon. Friend has already touched on the support of business, but he has
not necessarily gone far enough. The evidence taken during the Select
Committee was much wider than the examples he gave. For example, the
Federation of Small Businesses came to us. We asked about the
questionnaires and the response
was: “I
think they should be got rid
of”— getting
a clearer statement than that is
difficult— “My
day job is helping disabled people get back to work, and we have put in
applications from the same person with a tick saying they have not got
a disability and they have got the interview, and then the same person
has ticked it and they have
not.” That
illustrates the
point. One
of the other organisations that came to us as a witness was the
CBI. 1.15
pm The
Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put
(Standing Order No.
88). Adjourned
till this day at Four
o’clock.
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