Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of delays in the Access to Work scheme on disabled people’s ability to start or remain in employment.

To protect employment opportunities, case managers prioritise Access to Work applications where the customer is due to start a job within four weeks. In 2025, we allocated c. 96% of applications starting work within 4 weeks in 28 days. We have increased the number of staff working in this area by 29% from 500 in March 2024 to 648 in March 2026.

We know from employee and employer feedback that we inherited issues in the scheme, which is why we’re working with disabled people and their representative organisations to improve it. Reforms are essential to ensure a better service for customers, to help disabled people start and stay in work, to provide clarity in what support should be provided and to ensure we are providing value for money for the taxpayer.