Written questions by Jermy.

How many people with disabilities were employed in her Department on 2 September 2025.

Information on the number of people declaring a disability by each government department are published annually as part of Civil Service Statistics 2025, an accredited official statistics publication. Latest published data are as at 31 March 2025 and can be found at Table 29 of the statistical tables at the following web address: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/civil-service-statistics-2025 Information for 31 March 2026 is due for publication in July 2026

What steps she is taking to integrate health and employment support for people with (a) arthritis and (b) other long-term health conditions.

Good work is generally good for health and wellbeing, so we want everyone to get work and get on in work, whoever they are and wherever they live. Disabled people and people with health conditions are a diverse group so access to the right work and health support, in the right place, at the right time, is key. We therefore have a range of specialist initiatives to support individuals, including people with arthritis and other long-term health conditions, to stay in work and get back into work, including those that join up employment and health systems. Measures include support from Work Coaches and Disability Employment Advisers in Jobcentres and Access to Work grants, as well as joining up health and employment support around the individual through Employment Advisors in NHS Talking Therapies, Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care and WorkWell. The Department also provides a range of support to help individuals to access, retain, and thrive in employment. This includes referrals to financial assistance, workplace adaptations, and personalised guidance. Our teams support customers with Access to Work to ensure customers have reasonable adjustment, specialist equipment, support workers and more to ensure that customers have all the necessary tools to get into and maintain work. It is also recognised that employers play an important role in addressing health and disability. To build on this, the DWP and DHSC Joint Work & Health Directorate (JWHD) is facilitating “Keep Britain Working”, an independent review of the role of UK employers in reducing health-related inactivity and to promote healthy and inclusive workplaces. The lead reviewer, Sir Charlie Mayfield, is expected to bring forward recommendations in Autumn 2025.Additionally, the JWHD has developed a digital information service for employers, continues to oversee the Disability Confident Scheme, and continues to increase access to Occupational Health. Backed by £240m investment, the Get Britain Working White Paper launched last November will drive forward approaches to tackling economic inactivity and work toward the long-term ambition of an 80% employment rate. In our March Green Paper, we set-out our Pathways to Work Guarantee, backed by £1 billion a year of new, additional funding by 2030 and a total of £2.2 billion by over four years. Our £2.2bn Pathways to Work investment brings our total investment in employment support for disabled people and those with health conditions to £3.8 billion over this Parliament. We will build towards a guaranteed offer of personalised work, health and skills support for all disabled people and those with health conditions on out of work benefits. We will further pilot the integration of employment advisers and work coaches into the neighbourhood health service, so that working age people with long term health conditions have an integrated public service offer. A patient’s employment goals will be part of care plans, to support more joined up service provision. The Department for Work and Pensions and the Department of Health and Social Care have worked together on the 10 Year Health Plan. The 10 Year Health Plan will ensure a better health service for everyone, regardless of condition or service area. The Plan sets out the vision for what good joined-up care looks like for people with a combination of health and care needs, including for disabled people.

What steps their Department is taking to implement the guidance entitled The government’s approach to rural proofing 2025, published on 15 May 2025.

The Government has made a commitment that all policy decision-making should be rural proofed. Rural proofing ensures that rural areas are not overlooked and that the intended outcomes are deliverable in rural areas. DEFRA leads on rural proofing, but individual departments are responsible for ensuring that their policy decision-making is rural proofed. Rural proofing is important because rural communities are an important part of the economy. Rural areas are home to around one-fifth of England’s population and half a million registered businesses. Policy outcomes in rural areas can be affected by economies of scale, distance, sparsity and demography. That is why it is important that government policies consider how they can be delivered in rural areas. Rural proofing ensures that these areas receive fair and equitable policy outcomes. Our department takes its obligation to rural proofing seriously. In the Get Britain Working White Paper published in November 2024, the Government committed to giving local leaders increased powers to design and deliver approaches to employment support which were tailored to local needs. All areas across England have been asked to produce local Get Britain Working plans which cover labour market priorities and challenges within their areas – including those impacted by rurality – and to work collectively across organisations including local government, Jobcentre Plus, and the local NHS to address these. As set out in the Get Britain Working White Paper, we are reforming Jobcentre Plus and creating a new service across Great Britain that will enable everyone to access support to find good, meaningful work, and support to help them to progress in work, including through an enhanced focus on skills and careers. We will develop an enhanced digital offer accessible for everyone. Our vision for our new service is for people to be able to access support through the channels that best meet their needs – whether that is online, on the phone or in person. Furthermore, the Flexible Support Fund is a non-recoverable discretionary fund that can be used to support eligible customers to move into employment, increase their earnings whilst in work or move closer to the labour market. Common barriers it can help to remove include, childcare costs; travel costs, clothing, and essential tools and equipment. It could be used to provide financial assistance which may help eligible rural customers overcome logistical barriers.

What steps she is taking to help increase awareness of (a) Access to Work and (b) other employment support programmes.

Access to Work aims to support the recruitment and retention of disabled people into employment. It is a personalised discretionary grant that provides support with workplace adjustments beyond an employer’s obligation as outlined in the Equality Act 2010. As part of our Plan for Change, and as set out in the Pathways to Work Green Paper published in March, we consulted on the future of Access to Work and how to improve the programme to help more disabled people into work and support employers.We will review all aspects of Access to Work after evaluating the findings of the Pathways to Work consultation. The Disability Confident Scheme 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 disabled employees face. We recognise there are opportunities to improve the scheme, and I have been discussing ideas for making the Disability Confident scheme criteria more robust, and officials are continuing to engage with stakeholders to discuss reform proposals. In addition, DWP has a digital information service for employers, (www.support-with-employee-health-and-disability.dwp.gov.uk), which provides tailored guidance to businesses to support employees to remain in work. This includes guidance on health disclosures and having conversations about health, plus guidance on legal obligations, including statutory sick pay and making reasonable adjustments. In January this year, we launched an expert academic panel to advise us on boosting neurodiversity awareness and inclusion at work. The panel will consider the reasons why neurodivergent people have poor experiences in the workplace, and a low overall employment rate, making their recommendations later this year. 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 have 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 in the autumn.

What assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of freezing Local Housing Allowance on future levels of homelessness.

The causes of homelessness are multi-faceted and often complex; they interact dynamically making it very difficult to isolate the relative importance of individual factors. We work closely with other departments, including MHCLG, to ensure the impacts of Local Housing Allowance (LHA) on homelessness are considered.This included consideration in last year’s Autumn Budget not to increase LHA rates for 2025/26. Rental data, the impacts of LHA rates, rate increases in April 2024, and the wider fiscal context were all considered. The April 2024 one-year LHA increase cost an additional £1.2bn in 2024/25 and approximately £7bn over 5 years.We continue to work across Government on the development of the Homelessness and Rough-sleeping strategy. Any future decisions on LHA policy will be taken in the context of the Government’s missions, goals on housing and the fiscal context.For those who need further support, Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) are available from local authorities. DHPs can be paid to those entitled to Housing Benefit or Universal Credit who face a shortfall in meeting their housing costs.

What her planned timetable is for making the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper accessible for persons with disabilities online.

Further accessible formats will be published on GOV.UK in due course. The consultation will close 12 weeks after the point at which all accessible versions of this Green Paper are available. We have published this paper ahead of all accessible versions to put detailed information about the matters subject to consultation in the public domain at the earliest opportunity, although the production of accessible versions requires additional time. The consultation will run for a full 12 weeks after all of the accessible versions of the paper are published.

What assessment she has made of the potential merits of increasing (a) digitalisation and (b) automation in the provision of welfare services.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has already implemented many automation initiatives and remains dedicated to identifying future opportunities for further enhancements. To date, 58 automations have been deployed across the DWP, with 38 of them currently active. These automation processes have handled a total of 44.46 million claims and saved 3.4 million staff hours. We will continue to explore additional automation and digitisation prospects which will help reduce operating costs, enabling agents to dedicate more time to citizens, and expedite claims processing where possible.

Whether her Department plans to increase support for (a) Citizens Advice and (b) other charitable organisations in (i) Norfolk and (ii) England.

DWPs funding will be confirmed once the outcome of the Spending Review is known.

What steps she is taking to help ensure that women on maternity leave are not subject to discrepancies in their pension employer contributions.

The Government is committed to raising labour standards and protecting workers' rights. Employer compliance with Automatic Enrolment is high with over 2.4 million employers complying with their duties to date. The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has a statutory objective to maximise and enforce employer compliance with Automatic Enrolment. Some employers can make common errors in relation to Automatic Enrolment by missing important steps in respect of calculating pensions contributions and communications to staff. These errors can include miscalculating contributions for staff receiving maternity pay. DWP does not hold data on how many women have been affected by any specific error. TPR provides guidance and engages with employers, pension schemes and advisory bodies to raise awareness of common errors and maximise employer compliance. Where the Regulator is made aware of an error or discovers one in its regular on-site visits and data monitoring, it will work with the employer where possible to notify them of their error and how to correct it. Pension scheme managers and trustees also have a responsibility to ensure the correct management of schemes including monitoring the payment of accurate and timely contributions. Where employees themselves identify errors, they can raise these with their employer in the first instance and should they need to, they can report issues and seek resolution by contacting The Pensions Ombudsman (TPO) or The Pensions Regulator. Individuals can find guidance on pension entitlements during maternity and paternity leave via the Money Helper website Maternity and paternity leave and your pension | MoneyHelper We would encourage any women who find discrepancies in their employer pensions contributions to alert their employer, and TPR or TPO if necessary, so that they can receive the pension contributions they are entitled to. MoneyHelper also provides further information as to what to do if you think your employer is failing to pay into your pension correctly: Help if your employer fails to pay into your pension | MoneyHelper

How many women have been affected by pension employer contribution discrepancies while on maternity since auto-enrolment began in 2012.

The Government is committed to raising labour standards and protecting workers' rights. Employer compliance with Automatic Enrolment is high with over 2.4 million employers complying with their duties to date. The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has a statutory objective to maximise and enforce employer compliance with Automatic Enrolment. Some employers can make common errors in relation to Automatic Enrolment by missing important steps in respect of calculating pensions contributions and communications to staff. These errors can include miscalculating contributions for staff receiving maternity pay. DWP does not hold data on how many women have been affected by any specific error. TPR provides guidance and engages with employers, pension schemes and advisory bodies to raise awareness of common errors and maximise employer compliance. Where the Regulator is made aware of an error or discovers one in its regular on-site visits and data monitoring, it will work with the employer where possible to notify them of their error and how to correct it. Pension scheme managers and trustees also have a responsibility to ensure the correct management of schemes including monitoring the payment of accurate and timely contributions. Where employees themselves identify errors, they can raise these with their employer in the first instance and should they need to, they can report issues and seek resolution by contacting The Pensions Ombudsman (TPO) or The Pensions Regulator. Individuals can find guidance on pension entitlements during maternity and paternity leave via the Money Helper website Maternity and paternity leave and your pension | MoneyHelper We would encourage any women who find discrepancies in their employer pensions contributions to alert their employer, and TPR or TPO if necessary, so that they can receive the pension contributions they are entitled to. MoneyHelper also provides further information as to what to do if you think your employer is failing to pay into your pension correctly: Help if your employer fails to pay into your pension | MoneyHelper

What steps her Department is taking to increase access to work capability assessments in South West Norfolk.

We have interpreted your question as referring to the accessibility of Work Capability Assessments (used in supporting the department in the determination of the health element of Universal Credit, Employment and Support Allowance and other specialist benefits) within the South-West Norfolk area. We take our responsibility to ensure all individuals have access to our services, without disadvantage, very seriously. We have a range of provisions in place to ensure assessments are accessible to all individuals, in line with the standards under the Equality Act 2010. DWP meets legal accessibility requirements by ensuring individuals can access our services. Consideration will be given to individuals who need a specific assessment channel due to their health condition or circumstances. At all stages of the claim, individuals are asked to advise us of any mobility restrictions. If the assessment supplier is made aware of mobility restrictions, they will consider booking a different assessment channel. As part of the Functional Assessment Services process, the feasibility of a paper-based assessment will always be considered in the first instance. Where a paper-based review is not possible individuals will be invited to an assessment.

What discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on steps to help create skilled jobs in South West Norfolk constituency.

South-West Norfolk Jobcentres Plus engage directly with local businesses as well as employment and skills forums across the region to both understand local labour market need and to influence the delivery of skills provision in line with these requirements, including training provision needed to deliver our successful Sector-based Work Academy Programme (SWAPs). As outlined in the Get Britain Working White Paper, the Government is committed to creating in England a new single universal service that will provide a stronger focus on skills and careers by bringing together Jobcentre Plus and the National Careers Service. The service will be crucial in ensuring more of our domestic workforce, especially those in regions of higher unemployment and economic inactivity can take full advantage of the opportunities and job creation that the Industrial Strategy and Government’s wider sectoral priorities will bring. As the HR department for the Government’s growth mission, the DWP ministerial team and officials work closely with colleagues across to help employers including those in sectors crucial to growth, including Industrial Strategy sectors, to help meet their recruitment needs and break down barriers to opportunity across the country. This includes the steps announced by DWP Secretary of State to overhaul our relationship with employers https://www.gov.uk/government/news/dedicated-team-to-serve-businesses-amongst-dwp-overhaul-of-employer-support-to-get-britain-working and the forthcoming joint ministerial Get Britain Working sectoral workforce summits, starting with construction, health and social care and clean energy.