With the disability employment gap persistently at nearly 30%, the Government has announced it will spend an additional £2.2 billion on employment support over the next four years. The Committee will explore the reasons behind the disability employment gap, scrutinise Government programmes to support disabled people into work and make recommendations for future support.
| Title | HC No. | Published | Items | Response |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7th Report - Employment support for disabled people: Disabi… | HC 1227 | 21 May 2026 | 18 | Pending |
| Large print - 7th Report - Employment support for disabled … | HC 1227 | 21 May 2026 | 0 | — |
| Easy Read - 7th Report - Employment support for disabled pe… | HC 1227 | 21 May 2026 | 0 | — |
| Audio summary - 7th Report - Employment support for disable… | HC 1227 | 21 May 2026 | 0 | Pending |
| BSL report summary - 7th Report - Employment support for di… | HC 1227 | 21 May 2026 | 0 | Pending |
For too many disabled people, the workplace remains a hostile environment. This manifests itself in two main ways: a reluctance among employers to make reasonable adjustments, and inaccessible workplaces and practices that leave disabled people unnecessarily reliant on reasonable adjustments in the first place. If the government is serious about …
To improve disabled people’s experiences of requesting reasonable adjustments, the government should strengthen the Equality Act 2010 by requiring employers to respond to requests for such adjustments in writing within two weeks. It should also provide in legislation that any written refusal must include the following: • the employer’s assessment …
To provide a stronger evidence base for future policymaking, the government should commission more research into: • the impact of flexible working, particularly remote working, on productivity; 38 • the costs and benefits of giving disabled people the right to a certain amount of paid time off every year to …
We also recommend that the government provide an update on its plans to improve disabled people’s access to assistive technology, including the proposal to establish an Assistive and Accessible Technology Centre. (Recommendation, Paragraph 35)
To ensure that no disabled person misses out on reasonable adjustments through a lack of awareness or confidence, the government should require employers to provide all new employees, whether they know them to be disabled or not, with information about the rights of disabled people at work, including the right …
We wholeheartedly support the ambition in the Keep Britain Working Report to transform the way employers manage the health of their employees and thereby prevent people from falling out of work and into economic inactivity. If it succeeds, disabled people, who leave work at a higher rate than non-disabled people, …
We urge the Vanguard Taskforce, and ultimately the government, to clarify the nature of the Workplace Health Provision (WHP) by the end of the year and to include within its scope at least some element of occupational health for small employers. The Vanguards should also explore how the Healthy Working …
We recognise that the focus of the Keep Britain Working Report was on preventing people from falling out of work, but the proposals being trialled by the Vanguards present an opportunity to support more disabled people into work by encouraging employers to adopt more inclusive workplace practices. We lack confidence …
We recommend that encouraging employers to make their workplaces more accessible for disabled people, beyond improving access to reasonable adjustments, be made an explicit aim of the Healthy Working Lifecycle (HWL) and Workplace Health Provision (WHP). The Vanguards should explore how the HWL and WHP could be used to encourage …
We have concerns about the idea of sharing the burden of funding the Workplace Health Provision (WHP) equally between all employers. While we disagree that smaller employers will not benefit from the WHP, making these employers pay too much, too soon, will place a particular burden on precisely those employers …
We recommend that the government explore alternatives to asking small business owners to pay for the WHP, at least until the costs and benefits have started to be clearly defined. Among these alternatives, it should include the possibility of asking larger employers to pay slightly more, for example taking a …
Employers often overestimate the costs and risks of employing disabled people, and underestimate the return on investment and long-term benefits, but employers’ concerns will sometimes be justified. It is right, therefore, that the government explore financial incentives for employers who do the right thing, as it is doing through the …
Financial incentives for small employers to engage with the proposals in Keep Britain Working and hire more disabled people should be among the first concrete proposals coming out of the Vanguards. In its response to our report, we ask the government to give a firm commitment to testing and implementing …
Mandatory disability reporting has the potential to improve disability employment rates. (Conclusion, Paragraph 69)
We recommend that the government legislate as part of the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill to require businesses with more than 250 employees to report on the number of disabled people they employ. Alongside a commitment to legislate, the government should set out its assessment of how consistently employers are …
We agree with the Keep Britain Working Report that the Workplace Health Provision (WHP) does not need to reinvent the wheel and should instead bring together and expand existing provision. There are already many third sector organisations, including disability charities, working with employers and disabled people, however, and these should …
We recommend that the WHP capitalise on the existing support available from third sector organisations by providing a single point of entry to that support for employers and employees. (Recommendation, Paragraph 75)
In the light of evidence set out throughout out report, we recommend that the Workplace Health Intelligence Unit seek to gather data on: • the impact of adjustment passports on disabled people’s access to, and experiencing of requesting, reasonable adjustments; • what adjustments work for different groups of disabled people …
| Date | Witnesses | |
|---|---|---|
| 11 Feb 2026 | Angus Gray · Department for Work & Pensions, David Lillicrap · West London Alliance, Dr Simon Marlow · Department for Work and Pensions, Lorraine Jackson · Department of Health and Social Care, Ruth Cooper · Renfrewshire Council, The Rt Hon. Dame Diana Johnson MP · Department for Work and Pensions | View ↗ |
| 17 Dec 2025 | Becci Newton · Institute for Employment Studies, Gareth Parry · Maximus UK, Laura Davis · British Association of Supported Employment, Nicola Whiteman · Papworth Trust, Professor Adam Whitworth · University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Professor Benjamin Barr · University of Liverpool, Professor Bruce Stafford · University of Nottingham, Richard Clifton · Shaw Trust | View ↗ |
| 12 Nov 2025 | Conor D'Arcy · Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, Evan John · Sense, Geoff Fimister · Inclusion Barnet, Jamie Cater · Make UK, Kate Nicholls OBE · UKHospitality, Michelle De Oude · Greater Manchester Disabled People's Panel, Patrick Milnes · British Chambers of Commerce | View ↗ |
| Date | Direction | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 15 Apr 2026 | — | Correspondence with the Minister for Employment, following her appearance befor… |