Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what support his Department provides to people with hearing difficulties in finding work.

People with hearing difficulties can benefit from the same support to find work as other disabled people through provision such as the Work Programme and Work Choice.

In addition we are launching a new programme, Specialist Employability Support (SES), in September. It focuses on helping those for whom other provision such as Work Choice or Work Programme is not suitable and one of the programme providers will support people with hearing difficulties in preparing for work.

SES replaces the Residential Training contracts and is expected to double the number of people supported at the same cost.