Speeches by Cane.

“You said that quite a few people came to you in 2021.”

“Did that continue? Did people continue coming to you? Do you have any idea why that might be?”

“This Committee is clearly of the view that the HR function was not working particularly well. You have said that colleagues of yours raised concerns with you about HR and how things were operating. You were aware of the problems, and yet you effectively promoted the leader of the HR operation to be a director of operat…”

“When did colleagues first raise concerns with you about HR?”

“So not until late 2024?”

“You seem to be saying that it was a function that was actually doing a pretty good job, but there were mitigating reasons why people felt unhappy with it. In the time that you were at the ONS, did you really feel that the staff culture and staff morale were good?”

“Did none of your direct reports report any concerns or issues about staff morale, either that they had or that had been raised with them by their direct reports?”

“Okay, thank you.”

“I thank everyone who spoke in the debate. It is good to see that across parties we are all agreed on this issue. We have heard about the many barriers that people face, but we have also heard about some really good employers and opportunities. I welcome the Minister’s commitment to build on the Buckland review and to w…”

“I thank the hon. Member for those points; I agree entirely. We need to help employers to help these people into work and help them to thrive in work. Will the Minister set out the Government’s position on a wide roll-out of specialist apprenticeships and planned actions to encourage it? The Buckland review recommended …”

“That is absolutely true, and I have seen people trying to deal with filling in the forms. These people are likely to be dyslexic or have similar conditions, so they will inevitably have real trouble with those forms. A scheme designed to grow inclusion and increase support should really do better than that. I hope the …”

“Absolutely. It needs to be much faster in doing the assessments and delivering the payments. One of Mona’s staff experienced a traumatic event that made it difficult to manage work without more regular therapy, so they applied to Access to Work. They were told that they could not be supported because they were already …”

“I will make some progress. Think of the challenges that neurodivergent people can face in everyday life: knowing they are different from others; being unable to read social situations in the same way as others; being uncomfortable travelling on public transport; and, commonly, experiencing anxiety after years of bullyi…”

“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and I agree that we must provide these people with much more guidance and support, and also give them fair access to work and a career. In addition to the problems that autistic people encounter in finding and staying in employment, the raw pay gaps for people with autism an…”

“It is great to hear that example. One thing I am calling for is proper structured apprenticeships.”

“I do agree and will speak about that. Local businesses have described employing people with learning disabilities to me as like a game of bureaucratic hopscotch. They can see the end goal but they need to hop from square to square, assessment to assessment, with a lack of resources to dedicate to training staff. Sadly,…”

“I agree with my hon. Friend that recognising neurodivergence in school and giving support at an early stage is incredibly important. As I said, I want to make the distinction and recognise that neurodivergent people and those with learning disabilities are distinguishable groups, both of which I will speak about. Over …”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered the matter of supporting neurodivergent people into employment. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I am pleased to have secured this debate on an important topic and I want to acknowledge that neurodiversity has a huge range of impacts. Many neurodive…”

“I do not know about self-employment being “better”, but it is certainly important, because different things will work best for different people. Neurodivergent people need the same full choice as non-neurodivergent people.”

“I agree with the hon. Member that helping people to stay and flourish in employment, once they are in employment, is hugely important.”