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 Government's progress in increasing the number of disabled people in work.

According to the latest figures from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) on working age (16-64) employment, there were 4.9 million disabled people in employment in the UK in Q3 2022. This is an increase of 240,000 on the year and an overall increase of 2.0 million since the same quarter in 2013.

The Government set a goal to see a million more disabled people in employment between 2017 and 2027.

Figures released for Q1 2022 showed that between Q1 2017 and Q1 2022 the number of disabled people in employment increased by 1.3 million – meaning the goal was met after only five years.

Estimations suggest that the rise in the total number of disabled people in employment between 2013 and 2021 has been driven by several factors. These include: an increase in disability prevalence (50%), a strong labour market (20%), internal factors such as Government policy (25%), and an increase in the size of the working population (5%).