Debates between Thérèse Coffey and Daniel Kawczynski during the 2019-2024 Parliament

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Daniel Kawczynski
Monday 25th January 2021

(3 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Daniel Kawczynski Portrait Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

What steps her Department is taking to support vulnerable people with essential costs in winter 2020-21.

Thérèse Coffey Portrait The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
- Hansard - -

The £170 million covid winter grant scheme is supporting disadvantaged people through the challenging winter months to the end of March with food and utilities. The first wave of funding was given to councils in November. The next tranche of payments is due next month and support for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales is already included in the pre-agreed Barnett funding. I have been pleased to see councils go beyond just issuing food vouchers. For example, in Telford and the Wrekin, where a large number of pupils had reportedly been going to school without a warm coat, some of the funding will help ensure that these disadvantaged children are warmly dressed for the cold winter months.

--- Later in debate ---
Daniel Kawczynski Portrait Daniel Kawczynski
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, by providing funding to support families with children of all ages, including pre-school children, the covid winter grant scheme will give local authorities the flexibility they need to ensure that no child goes hungry this winter?

Thérèse Coffey Portrait Dr Coffey
- Hansard - -

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. The terms of the condition of the grants to councils were clear that they needed to reach out to support children of all ages who are disadvantaged. Councils have the ties and the knowledge that make them well placed to identify that. I commend Shropshire County Council, which has received £850,000 over the scheme, for drawing on this information to target its support to help children of all ages, including pre-schoolers and care leavers who are exactly the groups that I hoped would also benefit from the support.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Daniel Kawczynski
Monday 29th June 2020

(4 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Daniel Kawczynski Portrait Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

What steps she has taken to meet the increased demand on her Department’s services resulting from the covid-19 outbreak.

Thérèse Coffey Portrait The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
- Hansard - -

I want to praise our excellent jobcentre staff and all Department for Work and Pensions staff and contractors for their tireless work through this emergency in supporting an unprecedented level of new claimants as well as existing claimants. To assist this effort, we redeployed thousands of staff and streamlined our processes where possible. Looking forward, we are now working with local managers to start fully reopening jobcentres in July to help get Britain back into work. Over 17,00 people are now working remotely, and we have already recruited new people into DWP to help with the increased demand.

Thérèse Coffey Portrait Dr Coffey
- Hansard - -

My hon. Friend is right to pay tribute to staff at his local jobcentre. Without the success of the furlough scheme introduced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, this could have been far worse. We are working hard across Government to help people in these challenging times to get back into work as soon as possible and to support an economic recovery that levels up all parts of the country, including Wolverhampton. I am sure he can refer people to the two new websites, job help and employer help, to signpost people to live vacancies and online support.

Daniel Kawczynski Portrait Daniel Kawczynski
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I would like the Secretary of State to pass on our thanks to her team for the tremendous work that her officials have been doing at this very difficult time, but does she agree that the digital nature of universal credit has enabled it to respond effectively in recent months?

Thérèse Coffey Portrait Dr Coffey
- Hansard - -

My hon. Friend is spot on. The Department has acted at incredible pace to bring in measures as quickly as possible to help those most financially disadvantaged as a result of c-19. Through the digital universal credit system, we have enabled those changes while meeting that unprecedented demand. The legacy system, which was heavily paper-based, would simply have been unable to cope.