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As the NDA pointed out, one such social group at risk of becoming further marginalised by the economic downturn is the jobseekers who suffer with dyslexia and other specific learning difficulties. Not only are they struggling to find employment but many lack the basic numeracy and literacy skills to access opportunities. Research has also revealed the negative impact of dyslexia on self-esteem and confidence, which in turn perpetuates their vulnerability. I do not have time to list the authors of that research, but suffice to say that it dates back to 2004 and 2005, with two further reports from 2008.
One of the ways in which people with disabilities of all sorts can get a better and probably healthier life is the Access to Work programme. As recently as 17 March the Government announced an additional £8 million to help disabled people remain in work. Should that be “billion”? I have a feeling that it should.
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord McKenzie of Luton): Yes.
Lord Skelmersdale: The Department for Work and Pensions has a commitment—for once, God bless us all, not a target—to doubling the new Access to Work budget from £69 billion to £138 billion by 2013-14. My noble friend Lord Elton referred to today’s news; I assume that he meant the failure of the Government to sell gilts. If that is the case, how sacrosanct is that doubling likely to be? It would be a scandal if that commitment were quietly forgotten. Of the people who received assistance to work, only 1 per cent or fewer had a mental health condition. Clearly, some other way must be found to help them, and that costs money.
For example, as the BDA says in its brief, while for students there may—I underline the word “may” after listening to my noble friend Lady Verma—potentially be learning assistance available, when a student enters the world of employment, little, if any, of that support is made available to them. It seems that there are only 10 centres across the United Kingdom which offer adults this support. Identification therefore continues to serve as a barrier that many people with dyslexia fail to clear as they struggle through life without recognition or, most importantly, support.
The grant process of support in employment is stigmatised by Jobcentre Plus due to the nature of dyslexia being a hidden disability, and thus hinders the reasonable adjustment process. As I have said, ordinary counter staff need to understand these learning difficulties so that they can help jobseekers fill in their forms and also signpost them to the disability employment advisers. The BDA claims that the DEAs are often ignorant about dyslexia and fail to give the appropriate advice. Dyslexic job seekers who have not been formally diagnosed should be referred to the occupational psychology service and then put on an appropriate work preparation programme that addresses their dyslexic difficulties. I wonder how often this happens.
I do not believe in what the Department for Work and Pensions calls generic structured claim forms, which are not designed to deal with difficult health cases. An example of this is the so-called structured disabled living allowance adult claim form—what a horrible title—to which the Minister’s ministerial colleague Mr Shaw referred in a Written Answer. He stated:
“From October 2008, a further version is available for use which has been revised to allow customers with learning difficulties, autism, other developmental disorders and mental health impairments to better explain their care and mobility needs”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/11/08; col. 1379W.]
The Minister was not in the House this morning when the subject of the use of English came up. May I gently expostulate that being available for use is miles away from being in use? Can the Minister tell me which is correct, and what research has been done into the efficacy of the new form?
To summarise, we will never improve the lot of people with hidden disabilities unless the benefits system can get through to them. If this short debate helps in that process, your Lordships will once again have performed a valuable service.
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4.47 pm
Lord McKenzie of Luton: I thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for generating today’s debate and for the forceful and knowledgeable way in which he started our proceedings. Indeed, I thank all noble Lords who have participated and the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, for sharing the difficult family situation she is experiencing.
The debate is about not only dyslexia but hidden disabilities generally. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, that we recognise ME and that advisers and doctors are trained in this and other fluctuating conditions. I pay tribute to the work of the British Dyslexia Association, again referred to by the noble Baroness, in ensuring that the needs of people with dyslexia are clearly on the Government’s radar. In my 12 minutes I shall do my best to answer as many of the questions posed to me as I can, but I fear there will have to be some follow-up letters.
A number of noble Lords referred to Access to Work, one of those rare programmes which receives almost universal support, and rightly so, as it is one of the key pillars of our employment support package for people with health conditions or impairments. Over the past few years, the funding for the programme has increased considerably but the demand for the programme has continued to rise. The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, got some of the figures right. We were delighted to announce in our welfare reform White Paper that the budget for Access to Work will double by 2013 to £138 million a year. I have not caught up with all the technicalities around the sale of gilts. I believe it was just a small component of the offer that did not get away—I think that is the terminology—but it does not impair our commitment to Access to Work.
Although the programme has been very successful, we accept that improvements can be made and, as such, like all of our programmes, we keep it under constant review. Through consultation with the British Dyslexia Association, we identified that our Access to Work advisers needed additional support on dyslexia. There are currently 1,200 people with dyslexia who are supported by the programme. It is very important that our advisers fully understand the needs of this customer group and how best to support them. Margaret Malpas from the BDA very kindly agreed to carry out awareness sessions, free of cost, for staff in our customer service unit in early February. The sessions have been very well received and we are currently working with the BDA to plan similar sessions for all our Access to Work advisers in the very near future. As a result of this work with the BDA, Jobcentre Plus has set up a dedicated helpline, on a trial basis, for individuals with dyslexia who are seeking support from Access to Work. I look forward to seeing how this project proceeds.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, raised a number of important questions about the identification of hidden disabilities and the support for people with them in the benefits system—indeed, the noble Baroness said that this was the key issue. I shall try to do justice to these questions, but perhaps I might take the opportunity to offer the noble Lord and all noble Lords who have spoken a chance to meet officials and the BDA outside this debate so that we can explore the matters in some depth, if that would be helpful.
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Jobcentre Plus is committed to supporting people with disabilities to find suitable work. We follow the social model of disability, not labelling people by their impairments but treating them as individuals and helping them to identify and overcome their personal barriers to work, regardless of their actual disability. As such, there has to be a degree of flexibility in the system, and one customer’s journey may not be the same as that of someone with a very similar condition. Perhaps it would help, however, to talk through what a “standard” journey might be.
Most of our customers will initiate claims for benefit over the telephone with one of our contact centres. They will speak to a trained adviser, who will ask them a range of questions to try to identify the most appropriate benefits available to them. They will be asked about their health and employment status and, in the majority of cases, should identify the most appropriate route to take through Jobcentre Plus. Those routes will not be fixed, however, and where it later becomes apparent that another benefit would be more appropriate, a customer will be able to change paths. The contact-centre approach has helped to reduce considerably our dependency on form-filling, which I know is of concern to the noble Lord and has been referred to in this debate. Although there will still be some forms to be completed—this is, after all, government—customers who have problems with them can be offered a face-to-face interview instead.
Having been through the contact centres, customers will begin their journey through the benefits system. Many people with dyslexia, unless they have another health condition or disability, will claim jobseeker’s allowance. In common with all JSA customers, they will be seen regularly by an adviser, who will discuss work, explain what support is available to help them look for work, and try to identify any difficulties that the individuals may have. I shall touch on the training of the advisers in a moment.
When a specific disability or health condition is apparent, customers will be referred to a disability employment adviser for more specialist help. Where someone is identified as dyslexic, either by a contact centre or at interview for example, they will usually be referred to a DEA for support. The support available through the network of 500 disability employment advisers is significant but, as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, rightly pointed out, accessing it depends on either the customer volunteering that they have dyslexia or the Jobcentre Plus adviser identifying that there may be an issue and making an appropriate referral to a DEA.
Skills screening, which may be what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, was referring to, is a feature of all new claims interviews, initial work-focused interviews and various other key points throughout the claims lifecycle. Personal advisers routinely gather information about skills and needs relating to the customer’s job goals, including basic skills training. While our personal advisers are not trained specifically to diagnose dyslexia, they are sufficiently skilled to identify potential issues and refer to the appropriate skilled source of help, such as DEAs and our work psychologists. Advisers have access to a range of information on dyslexia,
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We invest in training for our disability employment advisers above and beyond the normal training for a Jobcentre Plus adviser, designed to enable them to support those people who need more extensive support because of a disability, including learning disabilities such as dyslexia. Training will cover issues such as specialist disability interviewing and advocacy skills; disability awareness; the range of provision available to support people with disabilities; referral routes; and information about a wide range of conditions and impairments and how these affect our customers.
DEAs are also expected to develop a thorough knowledge of local employers and local support services across the full spectrum of disabilities. In addition to providing support and advice themselves, DEAs can refer people to other specialist disability programmes, such as Workstep and Workprep. The DEA also has Access to Work psychologists who can assess the work-related needs of people with dyslexia and provide advice about appropriate work solutions. They are given time to prepare for each interview and to ensure that sufficient background information has been gathered.
A number of noble Lords referred to the prison system. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, talked about screening people on entering prison and the support that is given to them during their time in prison. As the noble Lord will understand, that is somewhat outside my brief, but I shall undertake to take the matter back and share the points that he raised with colleagues. I have some information on the subject, but it might be easier if I follow it up in a different way, given the constraints on time. Jobcentre Plus has employment and benefit advisers working in all prisons that require them and will discuss the particular needs of a prisoner and give them advice and support about which benefit might be most appropriate and how to claim it. If a prisoner were planning to claim JSA, they would arrange a new jobseeker’s interview for the prisoner via the Freshstart process. This means that a prisoner would normally be seen within three days of being released. As with other customers, if advisers were aware that a prisoner had dyslexia, they would signpost them to see a disability employment adviser on release.
We have a significant support network in our Jobcentre Plus services, helping thousands of people every day, including many with disabilities such as dyslexia. This is not just about making sure that specialist advisers are aware; it is about ensuring that individual personal advisers in jobcentres are aware of the issues around dyslexia. A whole raft of support needs to be given and, I believe, it is available, but we should never be complacent and we need to keep focused on this.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, charged me with saying with absolute certainty that all people with dyslexia are fully supported. I wish that I could, but
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The noble Lord, Lord Elton, referred to new skills testing. The new integrated employment and skills service will be introduced from next year but I am pleased to say that the basic skills screening element of it is already a standard part of the DWP-DEA services that I mentioned.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, referred to the education system. Again, that widens the debate a little. However, given what has been said by some in the past—that we see dyslexia as a specific learning difficulty and the provisions around SEN are there to support those situations—I can say that Sir Jim Rose is currently developing recommendations on the identification and teaching of children and young people with dyslexia. He is expecting to publish a report on the recommendation after Easter.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, asked about competency standards for advisers. Training is very important, but we must remember that the decisions are based on the advice of expert doctors trained in disability assessment identification.
My time is up. I shall read Hansard and write further to noble Lords when I have not dealt fully with the points they have raised, but I hope that I have dealt with at least some of their points. I repeat the offer of a meeting to go through some of these issues in more detail. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Addington, again on all the work he does on this and thank him for giving us the chance for a brief canter through it this afternoon.
Railways: Funding
Question for Short Debate
5 pm
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to gilt-edged railway bonds to secure funding for planned rail-related infrastructure.
Lord Tanlaw: I thank the Government for allowing time for me to raise the question of the adequate financing of the medium and long-term rail refurbishment programme. I declare my interest for the first time on this subject as the founder chairman of a British railway engineering group, which I set up to serve the industry 29 years ago in order to manufacture patented composite third rail and current collection equipment for mainline and light railways around the world.
As the Government must be aware, the idea of the issue of a gilt-edged railway bond is simple and rather old-fashioned, for I seem to recall in my early youth
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The concept of a railway bond is not original for was it not taken up again by John Prescott when he was the Deputy Prime Minister to finance far-sighted plans for a much needed integrated transport system for this country? The idea re-emerged as part of the Golden Arrow project, raised by Richard Bowker in 2002, for the £30 billion programme to renew the railway network. Ken Livingstone, when Mayor of London, also proposed rail bonds to finance the first refurbishment programme of London Underground since the 1930s.
However, the Treasury, under the direction at the time of Chancellor Gordon Brown, vetoed these proposals for a bond as being,
I am now asking for this position to be reconsidered in view of the present funding crisis, which was further aggravated yesterday by the Governor of the Bank of England’s public lack of enthusiasm for economic stimulus through bank lending. The consequent effect of his words on the gilt-edged bond market has been catastrophic—the equivalent of a chairman of a public company talking down his own company’s shares at a shareholders’ AGM—and it is my view, and my fervent hope, that the Prime Minister will show the world that he intends to stick to his programme of economic stimulus by calling for the resignation of the Governor of the Bank of England forthwith.
The main objective and timing of renewing this suggestion today is to obtain reassurances that can sustain both the fiscal and engineering continuity of the Government’s railway construction and refurbishment plan so that it spans the general election date and any change of Government that may occur while the work is in progress. Therefore I have to ask the Government and those noble Lords representing Her Majesty's Opposition if they can, for the record, confirm that the current refurbishment programmes of both main line and London Underground will be fulfilled in full, regardless of the outcome of the next election.
There is also Crossrail which, noble Lords will recall—certainly the Conservatives will—John Major cancelled just before it was to be undertaken. That created a lot of problems in the industry at that time. Alistair Darling, when Minister for Transport, cancelled tram projects in Liverpool and Manchester the day before the contracts were about to be implemented. These projects had gone through all the democratic processes and were accepted by everyone with enthusiasm but were suddenly cancelled.
We are light years behind the continent in fulfilling the electrification programme. There seems to be no funding for it and I hope that the rail bond would
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The railway industry is under the impression that financing for medium-term projects is already ring-fenced through primary legislation. Can the Minister confirm that? If so, it will take us up to 2014 and will span a period of historically high investment in rolling stock and infrastructure improvements, including longer platforms. It is an exciting programme which is long overdue and will create, according to the Minister for Transport, at least 12,500 jobs over this period.
Running alongside this project is the inter-city express programme awarded to Agility Trains, for which I understand the go-ahead has been given. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that the £7.5 billion in funding will not be retracted or delayed once firm contracts are signed within the next six months and before the likely date of the next election. On the point of medium-term financing, we seem to be better placed than Germany or France with regard to the firmness of official commitment. However, there will be no high-speed lines in operation in this country on which to run the new trains at their design-speed average of 300 kilometres per hour.
Although I understand that the high-speed rail programme has all-party support, it may still be in need of long-tem finance. Can the Minister and noble Lords opposite throw some light on this subject while specifying a realistic timeframe? Will it be our children or our grandchildren who will ride the rails at the same high speed as in the rest of Europe?
Financing manufacturers’ work in progress, or intended work in progress, at regional bank manager level will always be a problem unless there is a clear confirmation that the tender will become a firm order to justify a loan for things such as tooling up. Any indication by official sources that the programme for which the new machinery is required will be cancelled or delayed—through, say, a change of government or a change in government policy—will be disastrous for small manufacturers up and down the country who have been visiting their bank managers with the intention of fulfilling part of this new programme. Sir Anthony Bamford, the chairman of JCB, one of our great British companies, made this point for his company employees when he called for an immediate start to infrastructure development similar to programmes being undertaken in China and the US. His company is particularly vulnerable to a delay in civil works. Indeed, all manufacturers are vulnerable if there is any hesitation in pushing forward the infrastructure programme. Therefore, does the Minister agree that people such as the Governor of the Bank of England and the shadow Chancellor, who question the Prime Minister’s policy of expanding the infrastructure, must be held responsible for future unemployment figures in the manufacturing and public works industries which have not been experienced since the 1930s?
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Our future generations will be in debt in one way or another whatever happens, as will those of all the countries that are meeting at the G20 conference. They are all running on empty. They all have to borrow in order to see through this very difficult period and to have a future.
In the 1930s, when faced with similar debts and similar problems, they built forward; they built a future from which we have benefited. All travellers on London Underground, Southern Region or any other region have benefited from their foresight. I say to the Government and the opposition parties that, while we may be in debt, we can at least leave our future generations not just a debt but a railway system of which they will be proud and thank us for leaving to them.
5.10 pm
Lord Bradshaw: I did not appreciate the issues that the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw, would raise, so I have not prepared a speech. I have instead written down a few things which bear on the issues before us. I have no doubt, because I was trustee of a large pension fund, that quite a lot of money is available for investment. Despite all the criticism of public sector pensions in newspapers such as the Evening Standard, every month quite large sums of money are deducted from people’s salaries which the pension fund trustees have to find places to invest. In many of the places in which they were tempted to invest, or in some cases did invest, I am sure that they will no longer wish to put their money. However, a pension fund has the particular characteristic that it generally invests in the very long term, hoping for dividends in 30 years’ time and not next week—or whatever people who gamble on the Stock Exchange expect.
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