Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson]

Lots of discussions go on in government among officials on these issues, but I have not personally had any such discussions with Welsh Ministers. However, Governments have a role to play in leading by example with the civil service, in trying to make it easier for women to achieve parity with men on pay and progression, and in working with businesses to make the business case that diverse teams achieve better results.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

6. What steps she is taking to improve the position of disabled people in the workplace.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mike Penning)]

The Government have a number of programmes in place to enable disabled people and people with health conditions to get into and remain in work. We intend to publish proposals for those programmes in our employment strategy by the end of the year.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

One of those programmes is the Access to Work scheme, but since the election the number of disabled people it supports has dropped by over 15%—that is about 6,000 people. Will the Minister commit himself to taking steps to ensure that that worrying trend is reversed?

[Mike Penning]

I will commit myself to giving everybody who wants to get into work the opportunity to do so, whether they are disabled or have health difficulties or not, and to keep their jobs and continue in employment. I will look carefully at the figures. The Access to Work scheme is working very well, but nothing is perfect.