Oral Answers to Questions

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2024 Commons Chamber

The Minister for Women and Equalities was asked—

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

1. If she will make an assessment of the adequacy of Government support for people with disabilities.

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Mims Davies)]

The Government deliver wide-ranging support for disabled people, including in work and education. We continually seek to enhance support—for example, via improvements to the health and disability benefits system, and in the accessibility of homes and transport, and through delivery of the national disability strategy and the disability action plan.

[Debbie Abrahams]

The United Nations has found that the Government have breached the rights of sick and disabled people, including their rights at work, and the UK’s own equality watchdog has said that the Department for Work and Pensions has discriminated against sick and disabled people. Given that only 2.7% of participants in the Government’s work and health programme have a successful job outcome, what meaningful proposals do the Government have to reduce the 29% disability employment gap?

[Mims Davies]

I thank the hon. Lady for her point, which takes me back to our time on the Work and Pensions Committee. I genuinely feel disappointed about that report, and the Government strongly rejected its findings in 2016, but we will continue to implement the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities and the Committee’s recommendations through many of our policies to improve disabled people’s lives, whether that is WorkWell, our disability employment advisers, or the work we are doing on fit note reform. We are absolutely determined to support disabled people in work. Indeed, in the first quarter of 2024 there were 10.3 million disabled people in employment, which is an increase of 400,000 on the year before.