North Swindon MP Justin Tomlinson has highlighted the proactive steps the Government is taking to support adults with learning disabilities during a debate in Parliament.
During his speech, Justin highlighted the shocking statistic that just 6% of people with a learning disability were in work. He talked about the work he had undertaken during his time as the Minister for Disabled People to improve access to apprenticeships & employment opportunities.
As part of this, Justin also raised a number of examples of individuals with a learning disability who were benefiting from the changes that had been made.
Text of Justin's speech:
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con): Thank you, Mr Wilson. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, and it is always a pleasure to follow the spokesman for the SNP who, during my time as the Minister for Disabled People, was one of the most constructive Opposition Members and engaged regularly with good proactive ideas.
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), who set out the horrific case of Lee Irving. There is no other way of describing it. Nobody could fail to be touched by the pure emotion that was shown, which is no surprise, because the system failed somebody so vulnerable. It should never have happened.
We have two Ministers here today, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) and the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt), who I know care deeply about the most vulnerable people in society. They have listened and, I have no doubt, will take this matter forward. I hope that one of the commitments today will be for them to meet with the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North and with Beverley to learn the lessons. We cannot put the clock back, but we need to make sure that such a case never ever happens again.
What horrified me most was all of the warnings and the fact that the family had flagged up that they felt they were not part of the decisions. The hon. Lady summed it up when she said that Lee was treated as an adult, but really he was a child. Yes, he was. We have to do everything we can collectively to make sure that the lessons are learned. The two Ministers are best equipped to do that. I know that they care deeply. It is good that the matter has been flagged up today because that is the best way that we can make a difference.
I was proud to serve as a disabilities Minister. I did a lot of national news and interviews, which were normally quite tricky. That was when I heard for the first time the statistic that only 6% of those with a learning disability could expect to find employment, in contrast with around 80% of people across the population. That is by far the worst statistic of any disability. Yet at the same time, when we meet anybody with a learning disability, particularly young people, they have an incredible amount of enthusiasm, energy and determination. It is not necessarily the case that all of them will be able to have a full-time job. For some, an hour a week is the equivalent of landing a dream job. We talk to their families and friends, and people with learning disabilities are all united in wanting an opportunity to contribute and to feel part of society.
I was greatly impressed when I visited Foxes hotel in Bridgwater. It was one of my favourite visits. The hotel had taken part in a TV programme, which I had seen, so I recognised some of the young adults when I went there. I was star-struck and demanded lots of photographs.
The hotel offered a three-year course for the young adults. There were two roles. In the first role, they developed independent living skills. They would start by being heavily supervised and over the three years would become more and more independent until the end of their three-year experience, when they would go into a separate house. That equipped them with the skills they needed to have the best chance to live independently, because once people get to 25, they really need them. A lot of these people rely on their family and friends, and the biggest fear for family and friends relates to when their health starts to fail, because who will be there to look after them? The course was brilliant and the young adults were really well equipped.
The second part involved developing skills that would give the young adults an opportunity to work. The hotel worked with the other hotels, restaurants and care homes across Bridgwater and the surrounding areas to train them in the skills where there were job vacancies. It was key that there were job vacancies for them. Towards the end, they would spend their final year working in the hotels, restaurants and care homes and taking on different roles. They were supervised with patient training, because it takes them longer to pick up a role, but by the end the vast majority remained in employment. Some 80% remained in employment, of which half were paid.
The course was brilliant. One lad I saw celebrated his birthday shortly afterwards. His employers baked him a cake and they sent me a wonderful picture. I was really touched by that. We made sure that each and every one of those young adults was given the best opportunity to have an independent life and to participate and engage constructively in society, and the employers benefited. They were not doing this for charity, but were filling skills gaps. Yes, they had to be more patient with the training, but they ended up with somebody who was enthusiastic, who always turned up on time, who always had a big smile on their face and who made their workforce better, so they came back year after year.
I called the headteacher involved and she was very cynical about politics, which she made clear in her speech. We all hear those. We go on visits and they do not always roll out the red carpet when we turn up. However, she saw my enthusiasm and acknowledged that in her speech. I said to her, “I need to talk to you in more detail. I need to understand why there isn’t a Foxes hotel in every single constituency,” so she came to Parliament.
Ultimately, it came down to two things. The first was the postcode lottery of funding. In some towns we have brilliant examples where things go really well, but there are too many towns where the system is not joined up, where there are not the opportunities and where there is too much demand and not enough supply.
Secondly, that final year, which is a supervised work placement, was very expensive. That capped the number of young adults who were given that amazing opportunity. That was when I said, “Why is this not an apprenticeship?”. It is work-based learning, something that all politicians support. We all want more apprenticeships. They said they could not access the apprenticeship system, because most of the young adults would not get a grade C in GCSE maths and English.
I therefore organised a meeting with the then Minister at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles). I said to him, “We have got to get this sorted,” and he agreed 100%. His officials fell about on the floor and had to be scraped back up and gently reminded him, “We don’t want to dilute the perceived quality of apprenticeships.” I said, “I don’t care; rename it. Call it a disability apprenticeship. We just need access to the funding. I am not proud how we do it.” We came up with a cunning plan to ask my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), now the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, to head a taskforce. We gave him about four weeks, because we suspected we might not be the decision makers beyond that time, and we were right. We needed to get things in motion and I am delighted that the proposal is now coming on line. I hope that it will allow the left and right hands to join together, to give those young people an opportunity.
The Solicitor General has been fantastic about disability hate crime. When I lobbied to make the justice system better, he was really engaged. It is great that there has been an increase in reporting. The system is getting better, but there is still a long way to go, and the case that we have heard about today highlights that hate crime was not recognised. My legal knowledge is based on watching “Columbo” on a Sunday, so I do not profess to be an expert, but it is clear that advantage was taken of Lee’s disability. In my mind there is no discussion: the offence should have been categorised as disability hate crime. The Government, including the Solicitor General, are engaged on that issue, and we should all keep passing on examples of how the law is or is not working. The Government are determined to get that right.
I have four quick requests. We must embrace innovation and technology. I loved going to events where we, as a nation, were spearheading brilliant new products to help people with learning and other disabilities with their everyday lives. We can be a world leader in that.
Secondly, let us not forget the power of sport. Nothing matches the time when I took part in a learning disability netball game. I thought the other participants were going to explode with excitement. They were people who had never had the opportunity to exercise and many of them were overweight. One young adult had lost three stone over the summer. I have never seen people more enthusiastic about an opportunity to engage. I urge the Minister to continue to remind Ministers at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport about the power that sport has. Thirdly, tackling the postcode lottery is an absolute must.
Finally, we should not forget the families. They face a huge challenge. Many of those I met were families that had a good network of support, which was how they got through the postcode lottery, but many carers are not best equipped to navigate an incredibly complicated system, and ultimately it is the vulnerable people for whom they are responsible who miss out. We must all collectively do much better to improve the system. There is a lot of good practice; we just have to make sure that it is a given.
