Business of the House

Steven Bonnar Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising that incredibly important point and highlighting the work that that organisation does on research and, critically, care. She will know that it has been a priority for the Government under successive Administrations to ensure that we are having the current breakthroughs on new drugs, with the second drug that is able to combat this terrible disease, and that we have the best possible care across the UK. I shall ensure that the Secretary of State has heard of her desire to have an update on these very important missions.

[Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)]

My constituent Callum from Coatbridge is a firefighter based in a station on the outskirts of Glasgow. With the support of his watch commander, he recently applied to the Government’s access to work scheme for the additional support that he is rightly entitled to, but after months of waiting he has still heard nothing. I am sure that the Leader of the House, like me, supports the aim of the access to work scheme to help people to remain in the workplace, so can we have a debate on the Floor of the House to ensure that people who are desperate to work are not being impacted once again by the intransigence of the Government?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am sorry to hear about the difficulty that the hon. Gentleman’s constituent has had in accessing the scheme. The hon. Gentleman will know that through the health and work plan, of which access to work was a large part, we have managed to get an additional 1 million people with disabilities into work. It has been a priority for the Government. If the Scottish Government were concerned that we were not moving fast enough, they could have taken up the offer of administering welfare and disability benefits and schemes themselves when that was offered by the UK Government, but they did not. The access to work scheme is vital. If he gives me the correspondence that he has had with the Department and the details of the case, I will follow it up this afternoon, because his constituent needs to get access to that money, and I will do everything that I can to help him to ensure that that happens.