Unemployment: People with Autism

Question

Asked by

To ask His Majesty’s Government what new initiatives they have introduced in the past year to reduce the level of unemployment of people with autism.

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and declare my interest as a vice-president of the National Autistic Society.

My Lords, the Government are committed to supporting autistic people into employment, including through targeted specialist support. Our £1 billion connect to work programme includes a supported employment pathway for neurodivergent people and is now live across most of England and Wales, with recent data showing encouraging early signs. We are also supporting employers to recruit and retain more neurodivergent people.

I welcome my noble friend’s response, but can I suggest an initiative that will help more autistic people into work? Businesses across the country are employing autistic people, but if we are to get more than three in 10 autistic people into work, we need to do more. Will my noble friend consider a mentoring scheme whereby those who have employed autistic people can sign up to help others and advise them to do the same? If she would like to know how this can work, I will happily provide her with some examples.

I am grateful to my noble friend and will be delighted to talk to him about examples and take them back to the department. He is right to focus on the importance of supporting employers; there are many who want to do the right thing but may not know how best to do it. Business-to-business mentoring can be key, and my noble friend will perhaps be reassured to know that we are exploring the benefits of business-to-business mentoring as part of our regional Vanguard employer work as part of Keep Britain Working. In the meantime, the Disability Confident scheme encourages collaboration between employers, including peer-to-peer learning; and connect to work, our specialist voluntary supported employment programme, works directly with employers to help secure and sustain jobs. My noble friend is absolutely right to push on this area.

My Lords, I declare my interest as chairman of Team Domenica. The Alan Milburn review on young people and employment states that for every £25 spent on benefits, £1 is spent on supporting employment. The Access to Work supported internship scheme, which was for 39 weeks, has been reduced to 26 weeks. This does not give people with autism and learning disabilities enough time to learn the skills they need to get into employment. Will the Minister consider reinstating the 39-week programme?

The noble Baroness is absolutely right to focus on support. Alan Milburn made the point very strongly about the need—across the system, not just in employment—to engage with support and early prevention work rather than just dealing with the outcomes of inactivity among young people. Access to Work is an incredibly valued and supported programme. We are looking at how to reform it. I can write to her with the details, but there was not a decision taken to reduce its length across the board; it was simply that what should have been an occasional extension had become more broad. We are looking to ensure that it ends up doing the right thing to support people. The work on supported internships is really well valued, and Access to Work does incredibly well in supporting people across hundreds of colleges to engage in work experience. For all young people, real work experience in a real workplace is the best way to help them get into work, and we are committed to that.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the individual needs of autistic people vary hugely and that individually agreed reasonable adjustments are essential to enable people to succeed in the workplace?

The noble Baroness makes an extremely important point. One reason we have focused the nature of our support through the connect to work specialist programme, which works with people who are disabled or have a health condition, is because everyone is different. Autistic people are different from each other, and there is also significant co-occurrence of autism and other neurodivergent conditions. I realise that I am telling this to a Member of the House who knows more than I will ever know about this, but she knows of what I speak. We have set out to make sure that, in that programme, someone has a specialist jobs coach who will work with them and find out what their barriers and their goals are and what they want to be. A recent example is of a young man who got his dream job in a hobby store: he needed his job worker, who went to the interview with him, went through the induction and worked with the employer to make the right adjustments, and now the young man is a really happy and thriving member of staff. That is what we can do well.

My Lords, in response to the Think Work First report, the Government accepted the recommendation to double the number of supported internships and to expand eligibility beyond those with an EHCP. Can the Minister tell the House what, if any, targets have been set to achieve this expansion and, therefore, when young autistic people without an EHCP will be able to access a supported internship in every part of the country?

What I have been trying to describe is our intention to make sure we have personalised support. The noble Baroness raises an important question. She will know, from having seen the work done and from the early report from the Department of Health, which looked into questions around prevalence of autism and other neurodivergent conditions, that one challenge is that people are having to seek out diagnosis in order to get support. In fact, we need to make sure that support is not dependent on diagnosis. Let me be really clear that a diagnosis of, for example, autism is absolutely not a requirement for engaging with employment support. We are determined to make that available. A diagnosis may be the right thing and may help many people, but it is not a prerequisite for our support.

My Lords, has my noble friend the Minister seen the drama “Patience”, which traces the actions of a young woman with autism? It demonstrates that you need to have special provision for such people but that it can be very rewarding to employers if they make that provision. Children with autism do not have special needs, just different needs.

I must confess to my noble friend that I have not seen it, but I will seek it out. His point is really important. If we can get young autistic people—indeed, any autistic people—into work, I know that many employers will find that there is a huge benefit, not just to the individual but to the organisation. Sometimes, people simply do not know what to do. Line managers are key to this. Earlier this year, for example, my department funded some ACAS-run workshops—masterclasses on neurodiversity—for employers. They were free of charge for employers and aimed particularly at smaller companies to help them understand what it would be like, how to recruit people and how to support them. We know that a lot of employers want to do the right thing, but sometimes just do not know how to do it. Our job is to make that as easy as possible.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, is taking part remotely. I invite the noble Lord to speak.

My Lords, I speak as the co-chair of the APPG on disability employment. One initiative that would benefit people with autism and disabled people in general, and which was in both the Labour manifesto and the 2024 King’s Speech, is an equality, ethnicity and disability Bill. Yet the Bill was pulled from the latest King’s Speech at the last minute by No. 10, despite the Bill manager, whom I met, having been appointed. Does the Minister appreciate the huge disappointment that this inexplicable decision has caused, and will she make every effort to ensure that the Government introduce the Bill in this session?

The noble Lord raises an important point. I reassure him that the Government are completely committed to delivering on the manifesto commitment to introduce mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting for large employers. I know that my colleagues in the Cabinet Office are working hard on this and will introduce legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows. There is always competition for Bills in the Session, but I know that they are still committed to it. In March, as the noble Lord probably knows, the pay gap reporting consultation was published, showing how the proposed approach would work. Employers with 250 or more employees would have to report their workforce composition and ethnicity and disability pay gaps and take action to address that. It is very hard to solve something if we do not know the scale of the problem. I reassure him that the Government will do this as soon as possible.

My Lords, should more be done to advertise the benefits of employing autistic people? I know of one employer who employs 20% of its workforce with autistic people with appropriate management. They find them to be loyal, hard-working and capable of solving problems that, in some cases, few other people can. There are real benefits in employing autistic people.