Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking following the Keep Britain Working review to improve access to paid employment for people with learning disabilities.

Sir Charlie Mayfield’s independent Keep Britain Working Review, published on 5 November 2025, highlighted the scale of the problem of people falling out of work for reasons of ill-health and disability, and the vital role employers can play in addressing this. The Review identified structural challenges for disabled people, including people with learning disabilities, creating barriers to starting and staying in work, and proposed reforms to create healthier, more inclusive workplaces.

While the Keep Britain Working programme’s central aim is to improve workplace health and inclusion for those already in employment, improving workplace conditions, support and inclusion for people with learning disabilities and other disabled people will also help remove barriers to accessing paid employment and support more people to enter and sustain work.

Since publication of the Review, Keep Britian Working has engaged with 180 employers and providers, 11 regions, and worked directly with more than 250 organisations to explore how to create healthier and more inclusive workplaces. This work has included:

• Inclusion-focused workshops with Vanguard employers, Disabled People's Organisations and people with lived experience to explore disability inclusion in the workplace.
• Employer-led sprints and feedback groups examining prevention, staying in work and returning to work, helping identify practical ways employers can better support disabled employees.
• Partnership working with the British Standards Institution to develop a recognised employer-facing standard for healthy and inclusive workplaces.
• Development of Workplace Health Provision, designed to provide employees and managers with coordinated support, advice and early intervention to help people remain in and thrive at work.

Alongside Keep Britain Working, the Government's Pathways to Work offer provides work, health and skills support for disabled people and people with health conditions, backed by £3.5bn of investment by the end of the decade. Pathways to Work includes Connect to Work, a voluntary and locally led Supported Employment programme for disabled people, those with health conditions and people facing complex barriers to work. It will deliver tailored support to around 300,000 people by the end of the decade across England and Wales.