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 consult with young people with autism during the development of the Youth Employment Strategy.

We know that young people with autism can face significant barriers to seeking and remaining in employment.

We have ambitious plans to better support our young people to lead fulfilling lives and careers as set out in the Get Britain Working white paper and Pathways to Work green paper.

The government is committed to consulting with stakeholders, including young people with health conditions and those who are neurodivergent. We will run a series of collaboration committees with a wide range of stakeholders.

We are also in the process of establishing the Disability Advisory Panel to connect the Department to more voices and perspectives and improve how we collaborate with disabled people. The Disability Advisory Panel will be a strategic advisory panel consisting of up to 12 disabled people and individuals with long-term health conditions, supporting on longer-term strategic aims and specific policy design. We will finalise the workplan together with the Chair and Panel.

The Youth Advisory Guarantee Panel as part of the Youth Guarantee is being shaped and informed by the voices and lived experiences of young people, including autistic and neurodiverse young people, building on the Youth Voice Forum, established in collaboration with the Department for Education, Youth Futures Foundation and Youth Employment UK.

In addition, in January 2025, we launched an independent panel of academics with expertise and experiences of neurodiversity to advise employers and government on boosting neurodiversity awareness and inclusion at work. This will build on the work of the independently led Buckland Review which focused more specifically on autism employment. The panel will report in the summer.