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Employers were called upon to "redouble their efforts" to recruit talented and skilled disabled people by minister for disabled people Anne McGuire.

In her first speech since she took on the brief, McGuire told the TUC's Disability Conference in London that employers and the government needed to pool their efforts to end exclusion from the workplace for disabled people.

"More employers are realising there's a compelling business case for employing disabled people," she said, arguing that "real landmarks" had been achieved in extending protection from discrimination to 600,000 more disabled workers and seven million more jobs in the last seven years.

Employing disabled people, McGuire added, was not "just an ethical responsibility" but a "business imperative".

She reminded delegates that last year, the government brought in changes to the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 which ended the exemption previously given to small businesses, the police, fire and prison services. This was done to ensure that no employer could reasonably discriminate against disabled employees or jobseekers, McGuire said.