Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what proportion of people with disabilities volunteer.

The latest Community Life Survey from 2016/17 shows that 25% of adult respondents with a limiting long-term illness or disability engaged in formal volunteering at least once a month, with 32% volunteering informally. 48% of young people with disabilities reported taking part in meaningful social action as part of National Youth Social Action Survey 2016.

The Government encourages volunteering by people from all backgrounds and supports a number of programmes which enable volunteering opportunities. For example, the £40m #iwill Fund aims to create more opportunities for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to volunteer and there are projects that particularly support those with disabilities to participate. This includes match funders Comic Relief and Sport England using #iwill funding to support Leonard Cheshire Disability in running the Can Do project in Southampton and the Can Do Sport project in Essex, Liverpool, London, Manchester and West Yorkshire.

We are also committed to assessing the barriers to volunteering. Our forthcoming review of community contributions in later life with the Centre for Ageing Better will look into barriers to volunteering for older people, including for those with disabilities.