Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when the £500 million Household Support Fund will be made available; and what amount has been allocated for each of the financial years for which the Fund will be available.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The £421m Household Support Fund has been available to Local Authorities in England since 6 October 2021 and runs until 31 March 2022. The Barnett Formula will apply in the usual way, with the devolved administrations receiving almost £80 million (£41m for the Scottish Government, £25m for the Welsh Government and £14m for the NI Executive), for a total of £500 million. The devolved administrations are responsible for making their own plans to spend their funding.
Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government to which named funds the £500 million of families and early years funding will be directed.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Supporting families and children across the country to get the best start in life is a crucial part of the government’s ambition to level up. The £500 million announced at the Autumn 2021 Budget includes:
Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much new funding for family hubs they have set aside in the Autumn Budget and Spending Review for each financial year to 2024–25; and how local authorities can apply for these funds.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
At Budget, the government announced £82 million to create a network of family hubs. This is part of a wider £300 million package to transform services for parents, carers, babies and children in half of council areas across England. The department will set out more detail in due course on how this new funding will be allocated.
The department has previously announced £39.5 million of funding to support the implementation of family hubs. Some of this has been direct support to local authorities:
The remainder of funding is for programmes to support the development of family hubs policy, evidence and data and digital implementation, covering mixed teams of local authorities, officials, and contracted partners. This includes:
Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many jobs facilitated by the Kickstart Scheme have (1) been approved, (2) been advertised, and (3) started, in each region of Great Britain.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
As of the 22nd July, 50,000 young people have started Kickstart jobs.
As of the 21st of July, over 155,000 jobs have been made available for young people to apply for through the Kickstart Scheme with over 263,000 jobs approved for funding by the Scheme.
Between 23/06/2021 and 22/07/2021 an average of almost 600 young people started a Kickstart job each working day.
We are currently unable to provide data on the number of approved jobs by location, as at that stage in the process we do not hold information about the exact location of a job, only the head office of the employer.
Below are tables listing the number of Kickstart jobs which have been made available and started by young people to date by geographical area of Great Britain and work sector. The figures used are correct as of the 21st July and these figures have been rounded according to departmental standards.
Although care is taken when processing and analysing Kickstart applications, referrals and starts, the data collected might be subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system, which has been developed quickly.
The management information presented here has not been subjected to the usual standard of quality assurance associated with official statistics, but is provided in the interests of transparency. Work is ongoing to improve the quality of information available for the programme.
Location | Jobs Made Available | Total Jobs Started |
East Midlands | 10,200 | 3,000 |
East of England | 12,200 | 3,500 |
London | 30,400 | 11,110 |
North East | 6,000 | 2,400 |
North West | 20,200 | 6,300 |
Scotland | 11,200 | 4,400 |
South East | 18,100 | 5,400 |
South West | 11,600 | 3,400 |
Wales | 8,900 | 2,600 |
West Midlands | 14,400 | 4,400 |
Yorkshire and The Humber | 11,900 | 3,700 |
*These numbers are rounded and so may not match provided totals. Figures provided include jobs created but not funded by the scheme. |
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Sector | Jobs Made Available | Total Jobs Started |
Administration | 38,800 | 12,900 |
Animal Care | 700 | 400 |
Beauty & Wellbeing | 1,100 | 400 |
Business & Finance | 5,700 | 1,800 |
Computing, Technology & Digital | 11,400 | 4,600 |
Construction & Trades | 4,900 | 1,700 |
Creative & Media | 11,800 | 5,100 |
Delivery & Storage | 4,800 | 1,500 |
Emergency & Uniform Services | 300 | 100 |
Engineering & Maintenance | 5,400 | 1,500 |
Environment & Land | 2,900 | 1,000 |
Government Services | 600 | 100 |
Healthcare | 4,600 | 1,200 |
Home Services | 1,200 | 200 |
Hospitality & Food | 15,400 | 3,600 |
Law & Legal | 300 | 200 |
Managerial | 1,000 | 300 |
Manufacturing | 3,700 | 1,400 |
Retail & Sales | 23,600 | 8,000 |
Science & Research | 700 | 200 |
Social Care | 3,900 | 800 |
Sports & Leisure | 3,800 | 1,100 |
Teaching & Education | 7,700 | 1,800 |
Transport | 600 | 100 |
Travel & Tourism | 500 | 200 |
* These numbers are rounded and so may not match provided totals. Figures provided include jobs created but not funded by the scheme. |
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Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to ensure the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief is being adequately resourced and supported in relation (1) to her role in implementing the recommendations of the Bishop of Truro’s Independent Review for the Foreign Secretary of FCO Support for Persecuted Christians, published on 8 July 2019, and (2) to enabling the planning and delivery of the international ministerial conference on freedom of religion or belief in 2022.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Government has committed to implementing in full the recommendations in the Bishop of Truro's review, and work continues to implement them in a way that will bring real improvement to the lives of those persecuted due to their faith or belief. Of the 22 recommendations we have fully delivered ten, made good progress on a further eight, and are confident that all 22 will be delivered by the time of the independent review in 2022.
I [Lord Ahmad] meet monthly with the Envoy to discuss freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) activity. The Envoy also works closely with FCDO Ministers in promoting FoRB in their respective geographic areas, and through her Private Secretary in the FCDO, with support from the FCDO FoRB team and other officials on specific aspects of her role, as well as the FCDO media office and Special Advisers. Geographic and thematic policy desks have the opportunity to feed in to policy recommendations and offer advice on activities. We have committed to holding a Ministerial conference on FoRB, which will bring countries together to make global progress on this important issue.
Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to reform the Child Maintenance Service.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
We keep Child Maintenance policy and our operational delivery under review. The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) has introduced new digital services – such as the Apply Online Service that has reduced average application times from 45 to 15 minutes – which are available 24/7 and allow greater flexibility for separated parents to contact the CMS.
Operational reforms such as these help improve outcomes for children by enabling parents to set up and manage child maintenance arrangements in ways that suit their own circumstances.
Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of any research on the effects of continuous mask-wearing over long periods; and if so what are the findings of that research.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Public Health England has not conducted any research nor conducted a review of research evidence on this topic.
Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much of the Youth Endowment Fund has been invested in working with parents of young people.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Home Office will be investing up to £23 million in intervention programmes that evidence suggests will be effective in helping to stop young people from being drawn into violence.
This will be delivered through Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) in existing serious violence hotspot areas. Investment will be made in programmes working with young people who are at risk of engagement or currently involved in violence. We will shortly be opening a competition process for VRUs to apply for the programme funding. As such, we cannot provide details of interventions working with parents, until the successful bids are selected.
The funding will also pilot the Creating Opportunities Forum, a new programme to support young people who may be at risk of serious violence to access employment opportunities. The rest of the funding is for a small number of grants including our Young People’s Advocates who work with young women and girls at risk of violence.
The Government has also invested £200 million in early intervention and prevention support initiatives over 10 years to support children and young people at risk of exploitation and involvement in serious violence, through the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF).
The YEF has 5 family focused projects from their launch grant round that work with parent and child. The nature of support includes but is not limited to therapy, resilience projects and protecting a child from abuse from the family. The total invested amount across all 5 projects is just over £5.7 million.
The YEF will launch its second grant round of 2021 in September: “A Supportive Home”, which will focus on the role of home and families to prevent youth violence. The YEF will identify programmes that are ready for robust impact evaluation or should be supported to reach this point within two years and intends to invest up to £20 million depending on the quality of applications.
Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much of the £23 million for early intervention programmes to prevent young people being drawn into violence, announced on 8 March, will be used to work with their parents.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Home Office will be investing up to £23 million in intervention programmes that evidence suggests will be effective in helping to stop young people from being drawn into violence.
This will be delivered through Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) in existing serious violence hotspot areas. Investment will be made in programmes working with young people who are at risk of engagement or currently involved in violence. We will shortly be opening a competition process for VRUs to apply for the programme funding. As such, we cannot provide details of interventions working with parents, until the successful bids are selected.
The funding will also pilot the Creating Opportunities Forum, a new programme to support young people who may be at risk of serious violence to access employment opportunities. The rest of the funding is for a small number of grants including our Young People’s Advocates who work with young women and girls at risk of violence.
The Government has also invested £200 million in early intervention and prevention support initiatives over 10 years to support children and young people at risk of exploitation and involvement in serious violence, through the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF).
The YEF has 5 family focused projects from their launch grant round that work with parent and child. The nature of support includes but is not limited to therapy, resilience projects and protecting a child from abuse from the family. The total invested amount across all 5 projects is just over £5.7 million.
The YEF will launch its second grant round of 2021 in September: “A Supportive Home”, which will focus on the role of home and families to prevent youth violence. The YEF will identify programmes that are ready for robust impact evaluation or should be supported to reach this point within two years and intends to invest up to £20 million depending on the quality of applications.
Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what the budget is for the Reducing Parental Conflict programme for the financial year 2021/2; and whether a budget for that programme has been agreed for subsequent financial years.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The Department for Work and Pensions’ Reducing Parental Conflict programme will continue in 2021-22. Budgets for the financial year 2021-2022 have not yet been set. Following completion of the one year Spending Review, the Department will commence a budget setting process for all its programmes, to conclude before the start of the 2021/2022 financial year. Decisions on subsequent financial years will be taken via future Spending Reviews.