Hansard

The debate is about a number of competing challenges. It is about dignity for disabled people—particularly those in poverty. It is about balancing the books and being able to pay for that. It is about the value of work and the contribution that work makes to the individual’s wellbeing, but also to society’s wellbeing. It is also about the country’s long-term financial sustainability. Those are all very difficult competing challenges.

My starting point for this debate on the green paper is that the paper’s title, “Pathways to Work”, is a good one, because work is a good thing. However, I am afraid that the paper quickly loses direction, because work is not its primary focus; its primary focus is financial. I wish that we had a much longer-term approach to welfare, social security and work instead of making short-term decisions that do not lead to the long-term benefits that we seek. The “Pathways to Work” green paper simply transfers the financial stress that the country is feeling on to individuals and the households in which they live.

The increases in poverty, which I think the UK Government has acknowledged will happen, will become real, but the approach also displaces the costs on to the national health service, social care, food banks and charities in a number of areas. Therefore, we are not saving money; we are just transferring the problem somewhere else.

It is a green paper, and Paul O’Kane is right that there is a consultation and that people should engage with it. However, it is pretty clear what the UK Government wants to do, which is causing significant anxiety for a number of people who literally feel helpless in the debate. The many organisations that have contributed briefings for today’s debate have set out clearly what the consequences will be. We are told that 70 per cent of households with a disabled person in them are on some of the lowest incomes. Citizens Advice Scotland has said that people already struggle to make ends meet when they are on support. The Resolution Foundation has talked about the PIP entitlement and the direct cost to individuals as a result of the changes.

All of that is pretty stark, but there are positives in the green paper. The right to try work is a good thing. The fear that many people feel when they think about going for an employment opportunity is about what will happen if they try to get back on to benefits. I understand that people who are entitled to disability benefits get those on the basis of their disability rather than their work situation, but there will be many other benefits that they are entitled to that they fear losing. The right to try work is a good initiative, and I hope that that message gets through. The extra employment package of £1 billion is a good thing, and the disabled facilities grant is also good.

At the centre of the debate is the country’s financial sustainability. We face a number of challenges. The demographic challenge has been known about for decades. Frankly, we have not done an awful lot about it, but it has been there and it continues to face us, and its financial consequences will be severe. However, we now also have the economic inactivity challenge that is coming. We have 16 to 64-year-olds, plus older people who are retired, who are not in the workplace and contributing to the country’s financial wellbeing. Meanwhile, our demands are ever greater, which poses a significant financial challenge to the country.

In the 1980s and 1990s, it was middle-aged white men, primarily from working-class communities, who found themselves on various forms of incapacity benefit. Those people were lost to the workforce but also to the financial wellbeing of the country. As a result of being on benefits, they were not paying their taxes. Now the challenge has changed. It is younger people who have mental health issues, autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and a variety of other conditions. If those young people are not in the workplace for the rest of their lives, the financial challenge will be enormous, and we are not set up to tackle those issues.

I will give a particular example about the national health service. Health inequalities are not all about health, but the NHS has a big role to play in getting people back into the workplace. However, autism services are just nowhere, and no proper support is in place across the country. In fact, when it comes to people—particularly young people—getting autism support, we are going in the wrong direction. In mental health services, waits have come down, but that has been replaced by long waits for autism services.

Recently, I heard about a young man who was receiving support for his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder when he was at school. When he became an adult, support was withdrawn. He went off the rails and was out of the workplace, though he was a talented young man who could contribute significantly. He is trying to get back on the list to get medicine and support, but he has a three-year wait before he can even see somebody. He could be contributing to the workplace, but he is not able to, because the NHS is not set up for that.

I challenge the decision makers in the NHS to make the right decisions about the real challenges that we have around economic inactivity. We need to shape the support to get all those people who are capable of working, if we can give them the right support, back to work.

I wish that there was as much energy about debating that as there is about debating other social security aspects. It is right to debate those aspects but, unless we deal with the economic inactivity in the country, we will double our problems alongside our demographic challenges. I am pleased that the health secretary is here to listen to the debate, because it is really important that we fully understand the financial challenge that the country faces. Unless we deal with it now, we will have many problems in years to come.