Oral Answers to Questions

John Milne Excerpts

Monday 27th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I very much welcome the fact that my hon. Friend’s local authority is joining up with Connect to Work, which will be available across the whole of England and Wales by this summer. These regulations are a very important step forward. More needs to be done to give people confidence that moving into work or embarking on volunteering will not trigger a benefit reassessment. I also point him to our Pathways to Work guarantee, giving tailored personalised support to young people in the position that he described, and to the “Keep Britain Working” review by Charlie Mayfield, making employer vacancies accessible to my hon. Friend’s constituents and others in the position that he described.

[John Milne (Horsham) (LD)]

My disabled constituent Joanne was holding down a good job, but delays in Access to Work resulted in her not receiving the necessary support to stay in it. The Government’s new “right to try” initiative is a positive move, but will the Minister commit to resourcing vital support services like Access to Work, and to eliminating its backlog of over 62,000 cases as a matter of urgency? If not, we will find ourselves in the same position a year from now.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

The support provided by Access to Work is absolutely vital. There has been a big surge in demand for the scheme over the last few years, which has led to some significant delay. I am very sorry to hear that the hon. Gentleman’s constituent has been affected in the way that he described. We said last year that we wanted to reform Access to Work, and that reform is much needed given the greatly increased demand. We are working on proposals and as soon as we are able to put them before the House, we will do so.