Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the (a) Answer of 26 March 2021 on Disability: Public Consultation and (b) Social Security Advisory Committee’s Occasional Paper 25 of December 2020 entitled How DWP involves disabled people when developing or evaluating programmes that affect them, if she will implement the primary recommendation of that Paper which recommends that her Department should develop a clear protocol for engagement with disabled people, which should be co-produced and applied consistently and comprehensively and cover both national and local engagement, and policy design and operational development and evaluation.

I am grateful to the Committee for their report and pleased to see that our sustained efforts to engage with disabled people have been recognised. We are planning to respond to the Committee in the coming weeks.