Baroness Sherlock (Lab)

I thank the noble Lord for that question. I have real confidence in this. The noble Lord may know that in January we published the terms of reference for the Keep Britain Working review, a review headed by the former chair of John Lewis, Sir Charlie Mayfield, who is looking at ways in which we can make workplaces more receptive and more able to take on people who have health conditions and disabilities. It could include all kinds of ways in which we can support them. We want to remove the barriers to employers doing that. We already know that this is the case: reasonable adjustments are often talked about as a way of doing it. The noble Lord may think that these difficult hires. In fact, it is estimated that, on average, employers could save between £5,000 and £11,000 for every employee they prevent from falling out of work. So having an inclusive workplace is not a “nice to have”: it is not an extra. It is a way of making sure that we protect those who are currently working. There are significant numbers of people at the moment who are working but have a condition, and hundreds of thousands of them fall out of work every year. Our system is trying to work with employers to protect those who are already in work, but we have lots of employers really engaged with us in jobcentres, in the work we are doing and in building relationships. People want to do this. We can do this.