Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to help encourage businesses to increase the employment of (a) neurodivergent people and (b) people with learning disabilities.

In its plan to Make Work Pay, the government committed to raising awareness of all forms of neurodiversity in the workplace. Employers have a key role to play in helping neurodivergent people and people with learning disabilities get into and thrive at work.

We are helping employers to do so through a range of initiatives. Our digital information and advice service, developed alongside employers, provides tailored advice and guidance on supporting employees in common workplace scenarios involving health and disability, including managing absences, deciding on changes to help employees, and managing complex situations.

Our Disability Confident scheme, which as of 31 August 2025 has over 19,000 members, encourages employers to create disability inclusive workplaces and to support disabled people to get work and get on in work. The scheme covers all disabilities, including hidden disabilities. It provides employers with the knowledge, skills, and confidence they need to attract, recruit, retain and develop disabled people in the workplace and to take positive action to address the issues employees face.

Other significant help includes Access to Work grants. These grants support workplace adjustments that go beyond what would normally be expected from an employer through their duty to provide reasonable adjustments as outlined in the Equality Act 2010. They can enable access to, for example, specialist equipment and assistive software.

In January this year, DWP launched an independent panel of academics with expertise and experiences of neurodiversity to advise us on boosting neurodiversity awareness and inclusion at work. The panel has considered the reasons why neurodivergent people have poor experiences in the workplace, and a low overall employment rate, and will make recommendations this autumn.

In our Get Britain Working White Paper, published November 2024, we committed support for employers to recruit, retain and develop staff. As part of that, the Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions and Business and Trade asked Sir Charlie Mayfield to lead ‘Keep Britain Working’, an independent review to consider how best to support and enable employers to recruit and retain more people with health conditions and disabilities, promote healthy workplaces, and support more people to stay in or return to work from periods of sickness absence. Sir Charlie Mayfield will deliver a final report with recommendations later in the autumn.