Response to interpellation 2024/25:629 on living conditions for newly arrived people with disabilities
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
1 L argues that the government has improved the living conditions for newly arrived people with disabilities through reinforced educational support, expanded interpretation support, and simplified support for business activities 1. 2 L believes that individuals have an individual responsibility to seek jobs and education in a country with high employment levels 2. 3 4 V argues that the government is dismantling the welfare model through tax cuts, which leads to record-high unemployment and cuts in LSS measures and housing construction 3 4. 5 V believes that the government lacks a long-term plan for accessible housing and meaningful jobs, and that labor market measures are being removed while the folk high schools undergo cuts 5. 6 L shares the view that Sweden is not an example 6.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Arbetsmarknads- och integrationsministern Mats Persson (L)
Mr. Speaker! Nadja Awad has asked me what measures I have taken to improve the living conditions for newly arrived people with disabilities and what measures I intend to take to improve the living conditions for these persons.
During the asylum period, the Swedish Migration Agency is primarily responsible for reception, and persons with disabilities have the opportunity to receive, among other things, accommodation adapted to their needs and grants for assistive devices. Reform work is underway with the aim that asylum seekers shall, as a rule, live in the Migration Agency's reception or return centers instead of arranging accommodation on their own. At the Migration Agency's staffed accommodations, it is assessed that it will become easier to identify when applicants have special needs for support.
A newly arrived person with a disability generally has access to the same broad support as the rest of the population with disabilities after receiving a residence permit and municipal reception. However, persons with disabilities generally report poorer living conditions, poorer lifestyle habits, and poorer health compared to the rest of the population. We also know that unemployment among persons with disabilities is significantly higher than among the rest of the population, despite the broad support that is available in Sweden.
For the government, it is important to facilitate for persons with disabilities, regardless of background, to enter employment or education. The government has therefore taken a number of measures to get more persons with disabilities into employment or education.
To improve the establishment in the labor market for persons with disabilities, the government has strengthened the special educational support, which is intended to facilitate studies at folk high schools. Through education at folk high schools, individuals' opportunities to establish themselves in the labor market are improved.
Arbetsförmedlingen has a special responsibility for the establishment of newcomers and shall, in that work, base its actions on the individual's needs. The Government has expanded Arbetsförmedlingen's interpretation support for persons with visual or hearing impairments so that they can be included in the working life to a greater extent. Additionally, the Government has allocated funds to simplify the support for starting a business for persons with disabilities.
The Government has, in the regulatory letter for 2025, tasked Arbetsförmedlingen to continue the work of significantly shortening the average time it takes to identify and register disabilities that result in reduced work capacity. Arbetsförmedlingen shall also, among other things in order to increase the number of persons with wage subsidies, carry out special information initiatives to increase employers' knowledge about the specific measures for persons with disabilities that are available in connection with and during an employment. Furthermore, the agency shall continue to refer those who have been unemployed for a long time to employment with wage subsidies for development at Samhall.
I also want to take the opportunity to inform that the government intends to decide on an action plan for disability policy during 2026. The action plan is based on the twelve priority areas established in the strategy for systematic follow-up of disability policy, where 29 agencies are specifically identified. Among others, these include Arbetsförmedlingen, Försäkringskassan, Migrationsverket, and Myndigheten för yrkeshögskolan.
Nadja Awad (V)
Mr. Speaker! I have had many debates with the government's various ministers, but I will be honest and say that Minister Mats Persson's answer probably takes the prize as the most out of touch answer I have ever received in the chamber of the Riksdag. Does the minister seriously mean that this government is improving anyone's life in any way right now – if it is not just the lives of the billionaires and the millionaires we are talking about?
It is the very richest in this society that the government, with the help of the Sweden Democrats, benefits through tax cuts in rounds. Billions of kronor are pumped out from the state treasury so that the very richest can get more in their bank accounts while everyone else has to foot the bill. That is the prioritization that this government has made.
What kind of Sweden do we have today as a consequence of this? We have a record-high mass unemployment that stands out across all of Europe. It is cuts within Swedish education, cuts in Swedish health and medical care, cuts in public education, and cuts in all LSS interventions.
They have stopped building affordable housing all over Sweden. The social security system is being dismantled. It is harder today than it has been in a long time to live on the sickness benefit. The child allowance has not been increased for several years. Public transport is also being dismantled and is becoming more expensive.
Increased discrimination, racism, and ableism in society makes it harder for this group to get jobs, while at the same time the cost of living just keeps increasing, which puts households and families with children in economic insecurity and, in the worst cases, in poverty. The government is making it tough for most in this society except for the very richest.
In what way are newcomers to Sweden to be given living conditions that are equal to everyone else when even those who have previously been settled in Sweden and are born and raised here live in an unequal society? And if they have a norm-breaking functionality in addition to that, how will it go for them, Mr. Speaker?
The government pushes people who are born and live in Sweden into exclusion, segregation, poverty, and vulnerability. The government cannot even manage that task – in what way can one then be able to include newcomers to society who also have a disability? It is the government that makes these people unemployed. It is the government that makes it harder for them to learn a new language or to educate themselves.
It is the government that is stopping all types of LSS interventions. It is the government that does not ensure that affordable housing is built across the country – housing that is also accessible.
Nevertheless, the right and the Sweden Democrats describe immigrants as societal problems and imply that all of Sweden's challenges would be solved if we only had fewer immigrants in Sweden. Then, they introduce a return migration grant of 2.5 billion kronor instead of investing in language, education, work, income, and housing. They halve the appropriations for labor market measures. They reduce the number of jobs at Samhall. Wage subsidies and other supports in the labor market decrease sharply. Appropriations for the folk high schools and SFI courses are cut.
One stops the investment support, which aimed to build affordable housing, and one eases the accessibility requirements for the construction companies, at least for those companies that remain after the bankruptcies.
Mr. Speaker! What kind of Sweden will we have left after we have voted out this government in the 2026 election? Can Minister Mats Persson see that it is completely wrong priorities that have been made so far?
Arbetsmarknads- och integrationsministern Mats Persson (L)
Mr. Speaker! It is important for Sweden that we take responsibility in a very tough time for our country. In the situation that Sweden finds itself in, with unrest in the world, it is also important that we focus on what is our country's strength, and that is that we take care of people. It is that we in this chamber can have different ideological starting points and think differently on various issues, but we still ultimately have a common view on the welfare model that we are all very proud of, where we take care of people and give people many opportunities. This applies in particular to the group of people with disabilities, who in Sweden receive help and support that one does not get in many other countries.
But this does not mean that everything in this policy is good or that there is nothing more to be done. It is clear that there is. That is also why the government is now, on several points, ensuring that the situation for persons with disabilities is improved.
We are increasing the compensation within the assistance, the so-called flat-rate compensation, so that users can receive better support and help. We ensure that we increase the support for those with different types of needs for help linked to sign language or similar so that they can, in that way, be given the opportunity to find a job. We also ensure that our authorities prioritize to a greater extent the group that is far from the labor market, so that we can, in that way, give people more empowerment and greater opportunities to enter the labor market.
Nadja Awad (V)
Mr. Speaker! Minister Mats Persson says that this government protects and takes care of its inhabitants in Sweden. I believe that most do not agree with the image and the argumentation that Mats Persson provides in his contribution.
Mats Persson says that Sweden is a welfare state. But it is exactly the welfare model that we have today that the government is currently dismantling in every way. One thing at a time is being dismantled.
Sweden is currently no showcase for the world out there. We are no role model. A strong welfare state invests in its inhabitants through language, education, income and jobs.
Does the government seriously mean that Sweden has a strong welfare system right now and that it protects its inhabitants? Does it want them to have the same living conditions as everyone else, who have obviously received enormous tax cuts in rounds by this government?
With this government, supported by the Sverigedemokraterna, we have reached a mass unemployment of a record-high 10 percent. Closer to 600,000 people in Sweden are unemployed. That is an entire Gothenburg! It is an increase of 114,000 unemployed just during the last year.
Unemployment is not only rising among foreign-born people or among people with disabilities – it is rising in all ages, among men and women, native-born and foreign-born. Youth unemployment is rising, and long-term unemployment is rising.
This is not an imported social problem – it often sounds like that otherwise when the government and the Sweden Democrats participate in debates – but it is a result of a bourgeois government that has prioritized tax cuts for the very richest in rounds. Tax cuts have been prioritized over a robust labor market policy with clear interventions.
Despite evidence and extensive research, the appropriations for labor market policy programs and measures have been halved during the Tid government's time. As I mentioned, the employment at Samhall will be reduced. The wage subsidy is being eroded and does not follow the cost development, so companies are not hiring today, because they cannot hire with the help of the wage subsidy.
The Minister mentions that the assistance allowance is being increased, but it is still not enough. Almost all LSS interventions provided by both municipalities and the state are undergoing cuts. There are clear figures on that.
The municipalities and Boverket point out the prevailing housing shortage when it comes to difficulties in finding housing that is also accessible for persons with disabilities. Furthermore, it will become more difficult to find accessible housing, as the government has now eased the accessibility requirements for the construction companies.
Minister Mats Persson mentions the folk high schools and how important they are when it comes to ensuring education and future employment for this group. But the Folkbildningsrådet's report shows that 90 percent of the folk high schools have reduced their activities in 2023 and 2024.
In what way does the government's policy lead to more people in work among the group of newly arrived people with disabilities?
Arbetsmarknads- och integrationsministern Mats Persson (L)
Mr. Speaker! Sweden is one of the countries with the highest employment levels in all of Europe. In Sweden, most people work. Most people get up in the morning, go to work, take their responsibility and support themselves.
Then we have many who do not have the prerequisites to do so. The majority of those who are unemployed today are people who were not born in Sweden, who have low education, and who have difficulty establishing themselves on the Swedish labor market. Then we need to do more to ensure that they learn the language, that employers have incentives to hire, and that we do not have too high taxes, so that we can get more of those who are today in exclusion to support themselves.
It is about ensuring that one cannot live on benefits year after year without providing a counter-performance. It is about ensuring that people engage in activities, get up in the morning, educate themselves, seek jobs, or do an internship in order to receive a benefit from all other taxpayers.
In Sweden, one gets many opportunities, but one also has obligations and a personal responsibility. Sweden is the land of opportunity, but in that lies also that one has a personal responsibility to do one's utmost to take the educations that are available and apply for the jobs that are available.
At this moment, there are 140,000 educational places. 140,000 Swedes can attend a vocational training program in Sweden during 2025 to learn a trade and in the next stage get a job so that they can support themselves.
There we can do much more. I am happy to speak with Vänsterpartiet about how we can jointly ensure that we facilitate things for those who have difficulty entering the labor market and about how we can in different ways make it easier to get a job and undergo an education.
Nadja Awad (V)
Mr. Speaker! We are currently talking about newly arrived people with different functional impairments and about their right to good living conditions, just like for everyone else.
The fact that we have a labor market, education, a housing market and so on does not mean that everyone has the same access to the different parts of the welfare system. Obviously, one must differentiate. One must provide support measures. One must see: What is it that enables the individual group to more easily obtain a livelihood, to more easily complete an education and to more easily obtain a housing unit that is accessible?
Obviously, this government has no overall plan whatsoever. There is no long-term perspective in this. It is about a society with welfare initiatives and investments in infrastructure. It is about how we are to ensure that people in this group obtain their own livelihood, that they can live on an income, that they can get a job that is meaningful and that they can enjoy different parts of leisure and cultural activities in Sweden.
Obviously, there are a number of functional impairments that make it more difficult for this group.
What I am asking for in this debate is: What does the government have planned to remove the obstacles? With all the kinds of initiatives that this government points to, this simply does not happen. The labor market measures are being removed. The folk high schools are undergoing cuts. The wage subsidy is being eroded. Sfi teaching is decreasing all over the country because there is a lack of qualified teachers. It is not possible to ensure that the courses are accessible. It is, therefore, a number of different things that are not working.
Arbetsmarknads- och integrationsministern Mats Persson (L)
Mr. Speaker! I note that the member says: Sweden is no role model.
I share that view, because what we have seen in Sweden and in Vänsterpartiet in recent years is a widespread antisemitism and a Jew-hatred that shames Sweden and creates concern for very many people who live in our country. Vänsterpartiet has a member who spreads and has spread antisemitic messages and who still remains in the party's board.
This is something that does not make Sweden an example. Vänsterpartiet should be ashamed.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.