Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps is she taking to improve the collection of benefit and employment data about people with a learning disability within her Department.
The Department collects data in relation to people with a learning disability where it is relevant to their claim to certain health and disability benefits, as well as making use of the Office for National Statistics Labour Force Survey.
The Department regularly publishes these statistics for those claiming Personal Independence Payment, Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance, and these can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/.
Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
Detailed information about the primary disability of those on Universal Credit receiving the Limited Capability for Work or Limited Capability for Work Related Activity element, and those receiving Employment and Support Allowance is not readily available and has not previously been published.
The Department already publishes annual Official Statistics on the employment of disabled people. These include employment levels and rates for disabled people with severe or specific learning difficulties.
The data can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/the-employment-of-disabled-people