Unemployment: People with Autism

Lord Hope of Craighead Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises an important point. I reassure him that the Government are completely committed to delivering on the manifesto commitment to introduce mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting for large employers. I know that my colleagues in the Cabinet Office are working hard on this and will introduce legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows. There is always competition for Bills in the Session, but I know that they are still committed to it. In March, as the noble Lord probably knows, the pay gap reporting consultation was published, showing how the proposed approach would work. Employers with 250 or more employees would have to report their workforce composition and ethnicity and disability pay gaps and take action to address that. It is very hard to solve something if we do not know the scale of the problem. I reassure him that the Government will do this as soon as possible.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, should more be done to advertise the benefits of employing autistic people? I know of one employer who employs 20% of its workforce with autistic people with appropriate management. They find them to be loyal, hard-working and capable of solving problems that, in some cases, few other people can. There are real benefits in employing autistic people.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

The noble and learned Lord asks an excellent question; I would love to hear after this who the employer is and see what we can learn from them. I would be especially interested to know whether that employer is a member of the Disability Confident scheme. The noble and learned Lord may know that that scheme encourages collaboration between employers, not only through peer-to-peer learning, but by specifically asking leading organisations to use their influence across their networks and supply chains. There may be things that we can learn from this employer, as well as ways that we can support them to take the message out. There is some really good news out there, and I would love to hear more about it.