Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she plans to take to engage with deaf and disabled people's organisations when preparing reforms to disability benefits.

This government is committed to putting the views and voices of disabled people at the heart of all that we do. We have developed proposals for reform to the system of health and disability benefits, set out in the Pathways to Work Green Paper published on 18^th March 2025. A full 12 week consultation will run from when all accessible versions are published on GOV.UK. We are keen to hear views from a wide group of people, in particular disabled people and people with health conditions and disability organisations, and encourage responses to the consultation through the online form, email and post.

We also intend to run a number of accessible virtual and face to face events on the consultation, to hear from stakeholders, including deaf and disabled people and their representative organisations, directly. More information on these events and registration will be advertised on the consultation pages on GOV.UK in due course.

In the Green Paper, we have also announced that we will set up collaboration committees to develop our reforms further, directly with disabled people and people with health conditions and experts. This will involve bringing together disabled people, experts and civil servants around specific issues to collaborate, provide ideas, challenge, and input into recommendations. We look forward to developing these initiatives over the coming months.