Neurodiversity in the Workplace Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Work and Pensions
Derek Twigg
Main Page: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)Department Debates - View all Derek Twigg's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
Neurodiversity in the Workplace
Derek Twigg Excerpts(1 day, 19 hours ago)
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Derek Twigg (in the Chair)
I will call Sarah Hall to move the motion and then the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with the prior permission of both the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.
Sarah Hall (Warrington South) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered neurodiversity in the workplace.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. Neurodiversity is still too often misunderstood, overlooked or treated as a marginal issue, when in reality it affects millions of people across our workforce, across every sector and across every part of the country. This debate is about fairness, dignity at work and whether our workplaces are genuinely designed for the people who work in them.
I also requested this debate for a more personal reason. I was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as an adult, and like many people who are diagnosed later in life, that diagnosis did not change who I am, but it clarified things. It helped me understand why some environments drained me, why others energised me, and why I had spent years adapting myself to systems that were never designed with people like me in mind.
Since I became a Member of Parliament, many constituents have written to me with experiences that echoed that same story. This included people who have spent years masking, people who have been labelled difficult or unreliable, and people who have quietly left jobs they were good at because the barriers became too much. So when we talk about neurodiversity at work, we are not talking about abstract theory; we are talking about real people, real workplaces and real lost potential.
Around one in seven people in the UK are neurodivergent, including autistic people, and people with ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia and other conditions. Many neurodivergent people will qualify as disabled under the Equality Act 2010, which means that they are legally entitled to reasonable adjustments at work.