Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she has taken to progress the Departmental target of increasing employment of disabled people by a further million people in the next 6 years.

Figures for January to March 2021 showed that, in the first four years (between 2017 and 2021) of the goal to see one million more disabled people in employment, the number of disabled people in employment increased by 850,000.

A range of DWP initiatives are supporting disabled people and people with health conditions to start, stay and succeed in employment. These include the Work and Health Programme, Intensive Personalised Employment Support programme, Access to Work, Disability Confident and support in partnership with the health system, including Employment Advice in NHS Improving Access to Psychological Therapy services.

In July this year we published three major documents: Shaping future support: the health and disability Green Paper; the response to the Health is Everyone’s Business consultation on minimising the risk of ill-health related job loss; and the National Disability Strategy. These together form our holistic approach and vision for supporting disabled people and people with health conditions to live independent lives.