Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to support more deaf young people into employment.

The Government is committed to reducing the disability employment gap and seeing a million more disabled people, regardless of their disability, in work between 2017 and 2027. The DWP has a range of programmes and support to help disabled people, including deaf people.

These include:

• The Work and Health Programme which is designed to help people, particularly people with disabilities, who need extra tailored support to find employment. It will help 275,000 people over 5 years, including 220,000 disabled people.

• The Intensive Personalised Employment Support Programme which is a new, voluntary, contracted employment provision designed to help disabled people, who have complex needs or barriers and who want to work.

• Access to Work which offers eligible disabled people a grant of up to £59,200 per year to fund support above the level of reasonable adjustments, to ensure that their health condition or disability does not hold them back in the workplace. People who are deaf and hard of hearing are the largest group of users of Access to Work, and in 2018/19 Access to Work grants totalled £129m, of which £45.8m was in respect of this group.
• Jobcentre Plus: Our Jobcentres offer tailored support from Work Coaches and Disability Employment Advisers, backed by the Personal Support Package which is a 4 year, £330 million package of employment support targeted at claimants with disabilities and health conditions.

In addition, through the Disability Confident scheme, we are also working with employers to change attitudes and create employment opportunities by enabling businesses to recruit and retain disabled people in their workplace. There are already over 16,500 employers signed up to Disability Confident scheme, and their number continues to grow.