She said some employers taking part in the Government’s Disability Confident campaign had become more open-minded but that its flagship Work Programme, designed to help people into jobs, tended to ignore people with the most severe conditions.
Disability Confident was backed by Falklands veteran Simon Weston and Paralympics gold medallist Sophie Christiansen, who toured cities to dispel myths about disabled employees. Among the big companies which signed up were Asda, Sainsbury’s, the Royal Mail and GlaxoSmithKline.
Mark Harper, the minister for disabilities, said: “We hope smaller businesses will also come to realise that hiring disabled people need not cost them a penny extra and will actually help make their companies more productive.”
One in five Britons has a disability. Evidence suggests disabled people tend to stay in a job for longer and have a strong commitment to their employer. Nationally, an extra 265,000 have found work in the past year.
