Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Wednesday 29th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)]

2. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to support people with autism into employment.

[The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)]

We are committed to supporting autistic people into work. Our supported employment programme Connect to Work will be open throughout England and Wales by the summer. It has in its supported employment quality framework a specialist pathway for neurodivergent people and those with a learning disability.

[Alison Hume]

I thank the Minister for his answer. I recently chaired an employment roundtable with the all-party parliamentary group on autism where individuals with lived experience highlighted that a significant barrier to employment is a fear factor among some employers. That stems from a concern about getting it wrong when recruiting or supporting autistic employees, which can result in employers opting out of recruiting them altogether. Will the Minister outline what steps the Government are taking to address that fear factor and incentivise employers to recruit people with autism?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I commend my hon. Friend’s important work as chair of the all-party group and thank her for hosting me at the roundtable. This year, we funded ACAS to deliver masterclasses on recruiting neurodivergent people to 1,800 small and medium-sized enterprise representatives, addressing exactly the concerns that she raised. My Department has also set up the online support with employer health and disability service specifically to help employers on those issues. We will be considering what more we can do.

[Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)]

Conservative-run East Sussex county council has shut down its CLASS+ service, which supported people with autism towards independent futures, including with employment. With elections for East Sussex county council just around the corner, does the Minister agree that we should be expanding services to support autistic people into work and not shutting them down as the Conservatives are doing?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I am sorry to hear about what has happened in the hon. Member’s constituency, and I very much agree with him. We recently received the report of our expert academic panel on neurodiversity in the workplace, which was set up last year, and are carefully considering its recommendations. We will act as he suggested.

[Jack Abbott (Ipswich) (Lab/Co-op)]

3. What steps she is taking to ban conversion practices.