Under David Cameron, disabled people are being let down and left behind

This post is written by Kate Green MP and Stephen Timms MP

Wherever we meet disabled people in Britain, on the doorstep, in surgeries and in meetings we hear the same complaint about the government. They tell us how they feel let down and left behind. They complain that government schemes that claim to help disabled people provide little or no support. They say the Work Programme is ‘inflexible’ and ‘baffling’ and that government schemes for disabled people are little more than ’going through the motions’.

Today we are setting out how a Labour government would start to reform employment support to get more disabled people into work to enable them to fulfil their ambitions and their dreams.

The task is urgent. Many disabled people can work and are desperate to find a job, yet the employment rate for disabled people remains 30% below the rate for non-disabled working age adults. Under Cameron and Osborne, the progress which the last Labour government was making in narrowing the gap has stalled.

The government’s flagship Work Programme has been a complete failure for disabled people. It has got just 7% of disabled people into work – worse than if there was no programme at all. And this failure is contributing to a huge rise in social security spending. New analysis by the House of Commons Library has shown the Tory-led government’s failure means it is set to overspend by over £8 billion on Employment Support Allowance alone in this parliament. This shows once again the complete failure of Iain Duncan Smith and his Tory-led government to tackle the root causes of rising social security spending. And the Tories’ failure to deal with an economy which doesn’t work for working people and which is leaving thousands of disabled people behind.

Our economy can’t afford this waste of disabled people’s potential. Thousands are being denied the chance to work, exacerbating the heightened risk of poverty they face. For Labour, the right to work goes to the heart of what we as a party stand for. Ensuring disabled people who can work are able to do so is for us a matter fundamentally about equality for disabled people, ensuring they have the chance to participate and contribute. It also makes economic good sense, and helps to keep Britain’s social security bill under control.

We are determined to ensure that a Labour government offers disabled people who can work the support they’d need to do so. We’ve already announced major reforms to the flawed Work Capability Assessment (WCA). It’s time to return the Work Capability Assessment to its original purpose, identifying the support a disabled person would need to be able to work. And this week, we’ve been explaining the changes we would make to replace the failing Work Programme so that employment support works more effectively for disabled people too.

It’s clear that a top-down centrally driven programme hasn’t worked. Labour will take a different approach. We will replace the Work Programme with new schemes that are contracted and managed at a much more local level, such as a city region, combined authority area or Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP). That will enable councils and local providers, who know the labour market and services best, to ensure that the right support is put in place to give people the best chance to secure local jobs.

For disabled people, we also know that a generic ‘one size fits all’ approach won’t do. So we agree with the line of thinking set out in the independent Massie report on disability and poverty, and by the think tank IPPR, that we need a new specialist Work Support programme to help support more disabled people back to work. This isn’t about new spending, but about using existing resources better – from the Work Programme and Work Choice, and from local authorities where they see the benefit of investing their own resources. That support might go well beyond simply focussing on employability. The strength of these local partnerships would be to bring together health, housing, education, and other support to enable more disabled people to find work and develop a career.

Labour will also reform the payment by results model, so Work Support providers are rewarded for working with disabled people working with those further from the labour market – rather than casting them aside as too many do now. And we’d set minimum standards for what a Work Support provider needs to offer – and ensure disabled people are involved in monitoring what gets delivered and ensuring it meets their needs.

Ensuring that disabled people can access this sort of programme will be crucial. We think Disability Employment Advisers in Jobcentre Plus have a vital role to play here. Under the present government there has been a collapse in the number of these specialist Disability Employment Advisers in jobcentres, down 20 per cent since 2010. We recognise and value the role of these expert staff, and we want to ensure staff in Jobcentre Plus are properly trained to take on this role, and to provide disabled people with the support they want and need.

Of course, we will need to progress carefully, taking account of disabled people’s own experiences, views and concerns. But a Labour government will make the economy work for working people, giving disabled people the support they need to find a job. And we will also help those who need it by scrapping David Cameron and Nick Clegg’s cruel Bedroom Tax.

After five long years under Cameron, Osborne and Duncan-Smith, Labour will give disabled people who have been let down and left behind the chance to fulfil their ambitions.

Kate Green MP is the Shadow Spokesperson for disabled people and Stephen Timms MP is the Shadow Employment Minister