(11 years, 5 months ago)
Commons Chamber9. What progress he has made on supporting disabled people back into work.
The Department offers a range of support to help disabled people get into work and stay in work, including the Work programme, Work Choice and Access to Work. Although there has been a welcome improvement in the disability employment rate over recent years, much still needs to be done. We will be doing that by launching a new, two-year disability employment campaign in July.
I thank the Minister for that reply. I also thank the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr Hoban), who is coming to our jobs fair tomorrow morning where there will be information about jobs that local companies have designed around people with certain abilities and disabilities. What can we do to communicate to businesses the value of employing people with elements of disability and to ensure that they play a good part in our work force?
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work she is doing. Employers have the jobs and young people want those jobs, so getting them together is key. That is precisely what we will be doing when we launch our new employment strategy: getting together all the FTSE 100 companies, SMEs and young disabled entrepreneurs so that they can employ people and share best practice.