Wednesday, 2 September
2.20pm Committee Room 6, Palace of Westminster
The Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) will hear from four
academics during the second evidence
session of its inquiry on Equality at work: flexible
working and disability.
MPs on the cross-party committee will examine research into the
potential of flexible working to support disabled people's
employment and reduce the disability employment gap. The session
will explore the drivers of unequal access to flexible working
and variations across disabilities and health conditions,
sectors, occupations and roles.
Discussion will focus on disabled people's access to flexible
working arrangements, including via the duty on employers to make
disability-related reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act.
It will also examine employees' statutory rights to make flexible
working requests under employment law and look at the DWP's
Access to Work Scheme. MPs may touch upon changes in the
workplace, including developments in assistive technology and AI,
assessing how they could impact disabled people's employment
opportunities and outcomes.
The first evidence session
in July heard from charities including Disability Rights UK,
Arthritis UK, Scope, Down's Syndrome Association and Action for
ME. The committee's inquiry examines the
implications for disabled workers and jobseekers of flexible
working policies, legislation and guidance as part of WEC's
Equality at work focus.
Witnesses for Wednesday, 2
September
2.20pm
-
Professor Heejung Chung, Director, King's
Global Institute for Women's Leadership, King's College London
-
Dr Paula Holland, Senior Lecturer in Public
Health, Lancaster University
-
Professor Jane Parry, Professor of Work and
Employment, and Co-Director of the Work Futures Research
Centre, University of Southampton
-
Professor Daniel Wheatley, Director, Work
Inclusivity Research Centre, University of Birmingham
