Rosena Allin-Khan

This Government takes road safety seriously, and we are committed to reducing the numbers of those killed and injured on our roads. My Department is developing our road safety strategy and will set out more details in due course.

This Government takes road safety seriously, and we are committed to reducing the numbers of those killed and injured on our roads. My Department is developing our road safety strategy, and will set out more details in due course.

We are reforming Jobcentre Plus and creating a new service across Great Britain that will enable everyone to access support to find good, meaningful work, and support to help them to progress in work, including through an enhanced focus on skills and careers. The new Jobs and Careers Service will offer employment and careers support for all – not just those on benefits - who want support to find or progress in work.

Supporting our ‘Get Britian Working’ agenda, we have funded several measures to help unemployed people not in receipt of benefits to find employment:

• £115 million funding for 2025/26 for the Connect to Work programme, a voluntary, locally led Supported Employment programme in England and Wales, which will support disabled people, people with health conditions and those with complex barriers to employment.
• £125 million for 2025/26 to deliver 9 place-based economic inactivity trailblazers across England and Wales, of which £45 million is for NHS England Health Accelerators. Tailored to the needs of local areas, these trailblazers are testing different ways of reducing economic inactivity.
• Working with the Department for Education, £45 million for 2025/26 for our 8 Youth Guarantee trailblazers which are testing a cohesive education, training and employment support offer for young people aged 18-21.
• £34m funding for 2025/26 for WorkWell pilots for 15 areas to design and deliver integrated work and health support.
• Continuing with the Employment Advisers in NHS Talking Therapies programme to provide people with common mental health conditions the support they need to enter, re-enter or return to work and improve mental health.

We are reforming Jobcentre Plus and creating a new service across Great Britain that will enable everyone to access support to find good, meaningful work, and support to help them to progress in work, including through an enhanced focus on skills and careers. The new Jobs and Careers Service will offer employment and careers support for all - not just those on benefits - who want support to find or progress in work.

Supporting our 'Get Britian Working' agenda, we have funded several measures to help unemployed people not in receipt of benefits to find employment:

• £115 million funding for 2025/26 for the Connect to Work programme, a voluntary, locally led Supported Employment programme in England and Wales, which will support disabled people, people with health conditions and those with complex barriers to employment.
• £125 million for 2025/26 to deliver 9 place-based economic inactivity trailblazers across England and Wales, of which £45 million is for NHS England Health Accelerators. Tailored to the needs of local areas, these trailblazers are testing different ways of reducing economic inactivity.
• Working with the Department for Education, £45 million for 2025/26 for our 8 Youth Guarantee trailblazers which are testing a cohesive education, training and employment support offer for young people aged 18-21.
• £34m funding for 2025/26 for WorkWell pilots for 15 areas to design and deliver integrated work and health support.
• Continuing with the Employment Advisers in NHS Talking Therapies programme to provide people with common mental health conditions the support they need to enter, re-enter or return to work and improve mental health.

Our system of state, private and workplace pensions provide the basis for security in retirement. The State Pension provides a foundation to support people’s individual savings for retirement. The Government has made a commitment to the Triple Lock for the entirety of this Parliament which means annual spending on people’s State Pensions is forecast to rise by over £31 billion over this Parliament. This will see pensioners’ yearly incomes being up to £1,900 higher.

Automatic Enrolment (AE) has succeeded in transforming workplace retirement saving. Over 11 million employees have been automatically enrolled into a workplace pension since 2012. However, we know we need to do more to build on the success of AE.

The government will soon be launching the next phase of the Pensions Review, which will focus on improving pensions outcomes.

The Government committed to carry out a landmark Pensions Review to deliver better outcomes for savers and the UK economy. Our focus is on building a system that supports people to save effectively throughout their working lives and provides a strong foundation for income in retirement.

Automatic Enrolment (AE) has helped over 11 million workers start saving into a pension since 2012, but we know some people still are not saving enough. In March 2023, DWP published new analysis into future pensioner incomes, showing that 38% of working age people (equivalent to 12.5 million people) are under saving for retirement when measured against Target Replacement Rates before housing costs and 12% are not saving enough to meet the Pension and Lifetime Savings Association’s minimum living standard. That is why the second phase of our Pensions Review will in the coming months look at further steps to improve pension outcomes.

OECD rankings show that the UK’s pensions system of the new State Pension and Automatic Enrolment will provide future workers with income replacement rates which are comparable to the OECD average, alongside countries such as Germany and Norway.

The Government is committed to supporting disabled people and people with health conditions, including people with mental health conditions, with their employment journey. Appropriate work is generally good for health and wellbeing, so we want everyone to get work and get on in work, whoever they are and wherever they live. The Government announced an 80% employment rate ambition in the Getting Britain Working White Paper.

Disabled people and people with health conditions are a diverse group so access to the right work and health support, in the right place, at the right time, is key. My department therefore is investing in a range of support for individuals to help them stay in work and get back into work, including several that join up employment and health systems.

Additional Work Coach Support, delivered through our Jobcentres, provides disabled people and people with health conditions, including mental health conditions, with increased one-to-one personalised support from their work coach to help them move towards, and into, work. Support is now available in all Jobcentres across England, Scotland and Wales. This rollout has been informed by trialling in Jobcentres. This personalised support from Work Coaches aims to enable disabled people and people with health conditions, to access employment, wider support including our employment programmes earlier.

Work coaches receive specialist support from Disability Employment Advisers on how to tailor their support to help disabled customers move closer or into the labour market. Disability Employment Advisers can also offer “direct support” to disabled people and those with long-term health conditions, including mental health conditions, where additional bespoke support would benefit the customer. We will continue to ensure that every Work Coach has access to support from a Disability Employment Adviser.

The Access to Work Scheme provides grant funding to disabled people, as well as those with a health condition. The grant supports workplace adjustments that go beyond what would normally be expected from an employer through their duty to provide reasonable adjustments as outlined in the Equality Act 2010. The Scheme also includes the Mental Health Support Service which provides up to nine months of non-clinical support for people who need additional help with their wellbeing while in employment. In 2023/24, 49,920 people were in receipt of a payment for an Access to Work element. Of those, 14,310 (29%) received one or more payments for the Mental Health Support Service element in the same period.

Work in partnership between the DWP and health systems, currently includes Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care (IPSPC) a Supported Employment programme (using the place, train and maintain model) delivered in primary care settings and is aimed at people with physical or common mental health disabilities, both out of work who need help into work, and those needing support with their health issues to stay in work. IPSPC is integrated with an individual’s normal health treatment encouraging recognition of employment as an important driver of an individual’s health and wellbeing. We will be bringing this approach to all areas of England and Wales through the roll out of the Connect to Work Programme which will support 100,000 people a year from 2026/27. This complements the delivery of Individual Placement and Support for Severe Mental Illness which is delivered in secondary mental health services by the NHS in England.

The Employment Advice in Talking Therapies programme combines the expertise of therapists and employment advisers to give those with mental health conditions the support they need to find work tailored to them. Employment Advisors support patients in NHS Talking Therapies irrespective of their employment or benefit status. People who are looking for work will be supported to improve the quality of their CVs, complete application forms and improve the quality of their performance in interviews. If the client wishes, Employment Advisors can also work with NHS Talking Therapies clients and their employers to support returns to work following mental health-related absences. This could include suggesting coping mechanisms empowering clients to have better conversations with their colleagues or manager, or through suggesting workplace reasonable adjustments or a graduated return to work.

WorkWell sites went live in 15 areas across England from October 2024, providing low intensity holistic support for health-related barriers to employment, and a single joined up gateway to existing local work and health service provision. Each area designs and delivers an integrated work and health support offer, that brings together partnerships between Integrated Care Boards, local government, Jobcentres and community partners, including mental health services. People can be referred via their GP, Jobcentre, via other local services or can self-refer. By Spring 2026, WorkWell is expected to support up to 56,000 disabled people and people with health conditions, including mental health conditions, to get into work or get on at work.

Furthermore, in March we announced in the Pathways to Work Green Paper that we would establish a new guarantee of support for all disabled people and people with health conditions claiming out of work benefits who want help to get into or return to work, backed up by £1 billion of new funding.

As the Green Paper notes, we are keen to engage widely on the design of this guarantee and the components needed to deliver it. To get this right, we will be seeking input from a wide range of stakeholders including devolved governments, local health systems, local government and Mayoral Strategic Authorities, private and voluntary sector providers, employers and potential users. We will confirm further details in due course after we have completed our consultation process.

The Department has not made an assessment. Integrated care boards are responsible for delivery, implementation, and funding decisions for local services, rather than the Department.

It is the responsibility of integrated care boards (ICBs) to make available appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population, including autism assessment services, in line with relevant National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines. In doing so, ICBs should take account of waiting lists, considering how local funding can be deployed to best meet the needs of their local population.

NICE guidelines are not mandatory, but National Health Service commissioners and healthcare providers are expected to take them fully into account in designing services that meet the needs of their local populations.

Lord Darzi’s independent review of the NHS, published in September 2024, highlighted that demand for autism assessments has grown significantly in recent years. Waiting times for an assessment will be impacted by a range of factors, which may differ between areas, including the level of demand and the capacity within autism assessment services to meet that demand.

The 10-Year Health Plan will deliver the three big shifts our NHS needs to be fit for the future: from hospital to community; from analogue to digital; and from sickness to prevention.

NHS Professionals is constituted as a company that competes for business in a commercial market. The terms and conditions that it offers its employees, including access to pension schemes, are the equivalent to those of its market competitors. If access to the NHS Pension Scheme was provided, the company would be required to fully pass on any additional associated costs to its National Health Service customers. This would be counter to the Government’s ambition to eliminate agency use and reduce bank spend in the NHS.

No such assessment has been made. NHS Professionals is a private limited company operating in a competitive environment to secure contracts with National Health Service trusts, and as such it makes its own assessment of the terms upon which it attracts and retains its employees.

The Government is committed to creating a more inclusive society where autistic people are supported to thrive.

The Department is taking action to increase awareness and understanding of autism within health and adult social care services. From 1 July 2022, service providers registered with the Care Quality Commission are required to ensure their staff receive learning disability and autism training appropriate to their role, as set out in the Health and Care Act 2022. To support this, we are rolling out the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism. Over two million people have now completed the e-learning module, which is the first part of the training.

The Government has also committed to raising awareness of all forms of neurodiversity, including autism, in the workplace. An independent panel made of academics with expertise and experiences of neurodiversity, including autism, has been launched to advise the Government on fostering more inclusive workplaces. This will build on the recommendations outlined in the Buckland Review of Autism Employment, which related solely to autism.

The panel will advise employers and ministers on boosting neurodiversity awareness and inclusion at work, including for autistic people. The panel will consider mechanisms for change, making recommendations in the summer.