Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Smith Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mims Davies]

We are actively working with colleagues across Government, including the Business Secretary, with whom I have had several roundtable discussions, to get people back into work and open up as soon as possible. The Government are committed to reopening businesses in a phased approach, guided by the science, when it is safe to do so; I confess an absolute personal need for these sectors to reopen. However, where there are job losses, DWP staff are on hand to work with claimants to support them to get back into work.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

Schemes such as Access to Work are vital in helping many disabled people start and remain in work. Will my hon. Friend outline how the Department is flexing existing support to help those disabled people, many of whom are now required to work from home?

[Justin Tomlinson]

That is a very important point. We are looking at additional ways we can support people, through Access to Work, to travel to and from their home to work and in terms of their ability to work from home. There are opportunities for us to make some of those changes more permanent as we start to return to normality.