Buckland Review of Autism Employment

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the recommendations of the Buckland Review into Autism and Employment; and urges the Government, businesses and the wider economy to implement them.

There, in the words of the motion, lies the force of the review that I had the honour of chairing and the report that was published at the end of February. This was never going to be a bout of navel gazing—an inward-looking report that purely viewed the challenge that faces autistic people in getting a full or part-time job as a problem, a risk or a challenge—but instead a massive opportunity not just for all of us who are involved and who have spent years campaigning for or caring about autistic people and the wider neurodiverse family, but the wider economy, businesses small, medium and large, and self-employment. The question of productivity in our economy has been at the heart of the economic debate for more years than I care to remember. There is the issue of economic inactivity. We need to move away from the rather tired and clichéd argument that views this through the prism of benefits, rather than the range of talents that autistic people have, the myriad conditions that are involved, and the potential that autistic people want to realise in a happy and healthy workplace.

I put on record my thanks to Stephen Lismore and the team of civil servants in the Department for Work and Pensions, some of whom are here today, for their tireless work and support in marshalling the wealth of evidence that we received—both written evidence, and evidence from a number of roundtables that we held during our call for evidence, in person and online, which allowed people from right across the four nations of the UK to take part. The list of organisations, businesses and people who helped to make the review such a rich and stimulating process runs to seven pages at the back of the document. That tells the House how deep we wanted to go, and how meaningful we wanted to make the process.

The review was robustly independent, and we pulled no punches on the limitations of Government programmes, but the DWP deserves my thanks for its dedication and support. I am also thankful for the support of the UK’s leading research charity on autism, Autistica, and of James Cusack and the team there, remembering that the leadership of that organisation are themselves autistic people. That was important for me on many levels. The review had to be led by autistic people, and about autistic people—in other words, “Nothing about us without us.” I speak not only as a parliamentarian and a former Minister, but as a parent of a young woman who will, in due course, face choices, and hopefully be able to have a job of her own.

Some people will say, “Well, he’s only in it because he cares about his daughter.” I am in it because I care about the hundreds of thousands of people like her who deserve their chance. They might not be at the top of the tree in terms of their abilities. They might not be able to get jobs in MI6 and the security services, which by the way are really coming to rely on the gifts that autistic people have. It is about jobs right across the spectrum, down to part-time jobs that will mean so much to the people who can do them, and will give their life purpose, fulfilment and happiness. We must not lose the concept of happiness in all this. There is a moral case to be made for the recommendations in the review, but there is also—I make no apology for this—a hard-edged economic case. What is good for autistic people will be good for the rest of our society.

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his excellent speech and his brilliant report. Does he agree that hospitality is an excellent sector for people with learning difficulties, autism and so on to consider, and will he join me on a visit to the Fair Shot café? I extend the invitation to everyone in the Chamber. It is a social enterprise run by a brilliant young woman, Bianca Tavella, who set up the organisation to train young people with learning difficulties to become baristas and café workers, and has secured jobs for dozens of people. Will he join me one day in Covent Garden to visit the Fair Shot café?

If there is tea and cake involved, I am there. I will happily do that. The point that my hon. Friend makes deals straight away with the stereotype that autistic people cannot socialise. That is nonsense. There are myriad types of presentation. The condition will sometimes present itself in that way, but not always. Plenty of autistic people can and do work in the hospitality sector, in an outward-facing, communications-based job that works really well for them.

Exploding some of those myths is important not just in this House but from an employer’s point of view. That is really at the heart of the report: turning risk into opportunity for employers, to get them to think differently. The terms of reference referred to autism, but I reassure people who initially wanted a wider reference to neuro- diversity that that was not forgotten at all. In fact, a lot of the recommendations have direct read-across to a wide range of neurodiverse conditions, from attention deficit disorder to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia and dyspraxia—the whole family of neurodiverse conditions. There is clearly commonality in the challenges that people face with recruitment and retention.

In the time that I have, which I have to use economically, let us start with some of the facts that we uncovered. Only just under three in 10 autistic adults are in full-time or part-time work. It is the lowest rate across all disability classes, at about 30%, as opposed to 50% for those with a disability generally. In late 2012, I led a Backbench Business Committee debate on autism in this Chamber. I think it was the first debate on autism that we had ever had in the main Chamber. Then, fewer than one in seven, maybe about 14% of autistic adults, had full-time employment. There would seem to have been an improvement, but we are not comparing like with like. In the years since, we have seen people in the workforce start to reveal their autism in a way that they would not have before, which is encouraging, but let us not forget that we are still talking about the 700,000 or so who have a diagnosis. A large number of people—probably hundreds of thousands or even more—perhaps do not have a diagnosis, and do not even think of themselves as autistic or neurodiverse in any way. The figures therefore start to get a little unclear.

My right hon. and learned Friend is making an excellent case. I recently attended a Worcestershire local enterprise partnership presentation, at which an employer talked about finding that his expectations of employing autistic people were completely wrong. When he discovered that one of his employees was autistic, his whole organisation learned and benefited as a result. It strengthened the organisation and increased its productivity. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that many more employers need to engage on this subject?

Stories like that can open up a whole new way of thinking to employers. That is really the beginning of the recommendations that we make in the report. The power of narrative, and linking that to creating a wave of change, lies at the heart of the recommendations. Let me make a final point about the current situation: about two thirds—61%—of disabled people said that their Access to Work claim took over three months, and 20% said that it took over six months. While Access to Work is a great principle, that is clearly too slow to help change the life of people who face an immediate job offer, or have an interview within days, rather than weeks or months.

What is to be done? I have talked about turning risk into opportunity, but a “universal by design” approach will make the most difference. We have heard a lot over the years about autism-friendly environments, and going out of our way to reach out, understand, and allow people to explain, but that will have only a limited impact, and only on those people who are comfortable talking, and prepared to talk, about their autism. Surely it would be better to have a universal change to the way in which we recruit and retain employees, so that it embraces not just those with a diagnosis, but those who do not want to disclose their diagnosis or do not have one. Suddenly, the number would then be not 700,000, but probably well over a million—and that might be a conservative estimate.

What about the recommendations? There are several groups within our 19 recommendations, but they can be summarised in the following way. The first group of three recommendations relates to initiatives to raise awareness, reduce stigma and capitalise on productivity. We are already working with people, autism organisations and employer-facing organisations to start that national campaign with good news stories like the one that we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker).

As Chairman of the Education Committee, I completely agree with my right hon. and learned Friend on the value of supported internships. Does he agree that more broadly we need to look at the issue of people without an EHCP? We know that many autistic people do not require or have not had one. We should be looking to make supported internships, or extra support for apprenticeships, as accessible as possible, so that people can progress into work and training.

My hon. Friend is right about that. He might have noted the very interesting findings of the Nuffield Trust a few weeks ago, which makes the point that although we have to have a system of diagnosis, the EHCP system, which I was proud to support as a Back Bencher when we brought in the Children and Families Act 2014, is a very narrow funnel. It takes a long time to get children and people in. Instead of concentrating on the funnel, we need a more universal approach that can embrace many people who will not need an EHCP, but who have particular needs. That is why promoting cross-industry autism support groups and opportunities for work shadowing and volunteering has to be part of the solution. As recommendation 7 says, apprenticeships are key.

Finally, recommendation 8 is that the Government work with autism charities and other groups to ensure that more people know about Access to Work and improvements to the speed of that programme. If the adjustment passport and the Access to Work Plus pilots being run by Department for Work and Pensions produce positive results, then I say to the Minister: let us roll them out nationally as soon as possible.

The next group of recommendations, 9 to 13, are all about changing recruitment practices to support autistic applicants appropriately. We need to start with careers advisers in schools and colleges and the National Careers Service in England and its equivalents in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, so that there is a better understanding of autism, autistic customers can be better supported, and more properly tailored advice can be given. We also need to increase the rigour of the Disability Confident work and develop higher levels; we need more assessments under Disability Confident and we need to build in a link to the new neurodiversity employers index, so that Disability Confident organisations themselves will be, in the eyes of autistic jobseekers, much better placed to help them. Online support with the employee health and disability service can also link employees to appropriate advice on best practice when it comes to recruitment.

I am very pleased to follow the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland); I congratulate him on securing this debate and on the report, which makes a very valuable contribution on this extremely important topic. The report does a good job of laying bare the obstacles facing autistic people in the workplace—obstacles that, as he rightly says, we need to overcome. I applaud the obvious passion that he has shown in presenting the report to us. I did not know about his own family link, and I am grateful to him for explaining that to us.

The Work and Pensions Committee has recently launched our own inquiry into disability employment, to follow up the report that we published in 2021 on the disability employment gap. We have just closed our call for evidence for that inquiry—I am glad that we have received evidence from Autistica, among others—and we will soon start to take oral evidence from disability charities and others. The review will help us to frame particular questions on autism employment in the context of that inquiry. As the review points out, the employment gap is much worse for autistic people than for disabled people more broadly.

A disappointing feature of the report for me, though, is the rather unambitious nature of the recommendations, which are along the lines of, “The Government ought to try a bit harder on this, and do a bit more of that.” There are no targets set out in the report, and nothing to help us to monitor progress. I fear that when, in two or five years’ time, we ask whether the recommendations have been delivered, the answer will be a bit unclear. I do not blame the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon for that—no doubt Ministers would not have gone along with a higher level of ambition—but I fear that the Government will be able to accept all the recommendations without really changing anything. It does seem to be a bit of a missed opportunity.

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for engaging so closely. I absolutely agree that without a means of accountability, the work that we have done may well be lost. I think that the task group will play an important role; it will have the freedom to start developing some more hard-and-fast approaches where necessary, and to hold the Government’s feet to the fire—whatever that Government’s complexion. I hope that gives the right hon. Gentleman some reassurance.

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for that intervention. Perhaps he could use his influence with the task group—I do not know whether he is a member of it; I am not sure how that will work out, but I am sure he will have influence with it—to urge it to adopt the target that he set out a few minutes ago, which I think could make a substantial difference.

I welcome the call in the report for

“processes and support mechanisms that enable autistic staff to be recruited and to succeed.”

In that context, I want to draw attention to a concept that is not mentioned in the report—I am a bit disappointed that it was not—but which has been referred to elsewhere, not least in our Select Committee report.

The concept of job carving means assessing a person’s skills and then tailoring an employee role to those skills. Catherine Hale, director of the Chronic Illness Inclusion project, told our 2021 inquiry that job carving was particularly effective in supporting people with learning disabilities; given the big overlap between autism and learning disability, I think that job carving could certainly help. The charity Mind says that job carving roles for people with learning disabilities can benefit employers by removing tasks from other employees and freeing up time. In its “Working Better” report, the Equality and Human Rights Commission described job carving as a

“a flexible way of managing a workforce, which allows employers to utilise their staff skills in the most productive way whilst enabling disabled people to make a valuable contribution to the world of work.”

Our 2021 report called on the Government as part of their then forthcoming national disability strategy to provide detailed guidance to employers and providers of employment support on how they could job carve roles for disabled people, and called on Jobcentre Plus to encourage local employers in their area to job carve. The Government’s response to our report did not pick up the concept of job carving, but Ministers could still pick it up in responding to the report we are debating this afternoon. I wonder whether the Minister, who I know takes a very close interest in this area, recognises that job carving could make a significant difference to the employment prospects of many autistic people.

I am glad that the report also highlights in that respect the good work of GCHQ, which is a big employer in my neck of the woods. Another example along those lines is an IT security company in Worcester called Titania. Its chief executive is an autistic woman, and it has tailored its recruitment process specifically to address some of the challenges that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) has identified in his report, so that it can recruit more autistic people, who it finds are such valuable and productive employees.

That sounds like a wonderful model. The more of that kind of initiative around the country, the better.

The report makes the point that a line manager in a mainstream business may well not know that somebody they are managing is autistic. Whether the employer can agree reasonable adjustments for the employee, as is their right under the Equality Act, will depend on them self-disclosing their diagnosis to their line manager. As the review notes, whatever the level of understanding among company directors or senior staff, if the line manager is unable or unwilling to provide support, the employee will struggle to stay in their job.

The review is right to point out that at the moment there is no easily accessible guidance for employers and line managers on how to support autistic staff. Evidence to our inquiry so far suggests that, as the hon. Member for Worcester rightly said, employers want to do the right thing but often simply do not know how. When they are pointed in the right direction and try it, it turns out to be a positive experience. What can the Government do to give employers confidence in this area?

The review calls on the Department to

“Continue to develop Disability Confident, increasing the rigour of developmental work needed to achieve the higher Disability Confident levels”.

I think that is a very kind way of expressing the point. The noble Lord Shinkwin, who sits on the Government Benches in the other place and chaired the disability commission for the Centre for Social Justice, spoke for many of our witnesses when he said that Disability Confident

“is not making a measurable impact”

at the moment. Employers can, as things stand, achieve the highest level of Disability Confident accreditation without employing a single disabled person.

In response to our predecessor Select Committee six years ago, the Department said that it was developing proposals for an evaluation of Disability Confident. That commitment, first expressed six years ago, was announced again in response to our report almost three years ago in November 2021. However, I have still seen no sign of anything happening. Perhaps the Minister can update us. Is that evaluation of Disability Confident now complete, and when can we expect Disability Confident finally to be reformed?

I call the SNP spokesperson.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Running through my mind are the words, “Follow that!” I thank the right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) for producing this outstanding report. His family’s lived experience has absolutely made for a much better report, and I thank him for all the work that he has done on it. To follow the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) is always a privilege and a pleasure—he has taken away some of my best lines, but I will carry on regardless.

It is a real pleasure to speak in the debate, which I signed up for immediately, having spoken many times in this place on the subject of autism. I think it would be remiss of me not to mention Dame Cheryl Gillan at the start of my remarks. One of the first debates that I spoke in was on the closure of the autism One Stop Shop in Motherwell back in 2015, and Dame Cheryl was so kind and helpful to me when I spoke to that important topic. I should point out that I am very close to someone with three autistic sons. My own youngest son has never been diagnosed, but I do not think there is much doubt that he is somewhere on the spectrum, and I think he would admit that himself. I also thank Ambitious about Autism and the National Autistic Society for their briefings, which are always helpful.

The current situation regarding employment for those with autism is simply not good enough across the UK. The UK Government have consistently banged on about reducing economic inactivity and encouraging people into work, but their rhetoric is still not matched with proper support, especially for the neurodiverse, about whom we are talking today.

As we have heard, issues with access to work and the provision of workplace adjustments mean that many autistic people are slipping through the gaps. This is certainly the case for those with autism: as we have also heard, only three in 10 working-age autistic people in the UK are in employment. That statistic is five in 10 for all disabled people, and eight in 10 for non-disabled people. Ambitious about Autism’s employment survey found that 71% of those unemployed would like to be in work, but less than a third were confident that they would find work within the next year. That signifies a huge gap in the support currently provided.

I call the shadow Minister.