Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to support people with disabilities that impact their ability to work.

The Government has a wide range of initiatives to support disabled people and people with health conditions to start, stay and succeed in work. These include:

• The Work and Health Programme providing tailored and personalised support for disabled people;
• Access to Work grants helping towards extra costs of working beyond standard reasonable adjustments;
• Disability Confident encouraging employers to think differently about disability and health, and to take positive action to address the issues disabled employees face in the workplace;
• A digital information service for employers providing better integrated and tailored guidance on supporting health and disability in the workplace;
• Increasing access to Occupational Health, including the testing of financial incentives for small and medium-sized enterprises and the self-employed;
• Increased Work Coach support in Jobcentres for disabled people and people with health conditions to help them move towards and in to work;
• Disability Employment Advisers in Jobcentres offering advice and expertise on how to help disabled people and people with health conditions into work;
• Work in partnership between the DWP and health systems, including Employment Advice in NHS Talking Therapies, and the Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care programme, a Supported Employment model (place, train and maintain) delivered in health settings, aimed at people with physical or common mental health disabilities to support them to access paid jobs in the open labour market.

Building on existing provision and the £2 billion investment announced at the Spring Budget 2023, we announced a new package of support in Autumn Statement 2023. This includes:

• Doubling the number of places on the Universal Support employment programme, to provide support for 100,000 people per year when fully rolled out;
• Formally launching WorkWell, which will bring together the NHS, local authorities, and other partners, in collaboration with jobcentres, to provide light touch work and health support in approximately 15 pilot areas;
• Building on the extension of the certification of the fit notes to a wider range of healthcare professions, exploring new ways of providing individuals receiving a fit note with timely access to work and health support; and
• Establishing an expert group to support the development of the voluntary national baseline for Occupational Health provision.

From 2025, we are reforming the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) to reflect new flexibilities in the labour market and greater employment opportunities for disabled people and people with health conditions, whilst maintaining protections for those with the most significant conditions. Alongside these changes, a new Chance to Work Guarantee will effectively remove the WCA for most existing claimants who have already been assessed without work-related requirements removing the fear of reassessment and giving this group the confidence to try work.

People on low, or no income or earnings, who have a health condition or disability which restricts the amount of work they can do or prevents them from working altogether, and where they meet the entitlement criteria, can claim Universal Credit and/or New Style Employment and Support Allowance with medical evidence, usually a valid Statement of Fitness for work, commonly known as a ‘fit note’, from a clinician.