Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to support young people into employment, education or training.
Answered by Pat McFadden - Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The government is investing £820m to help young people earn or learn through the Youth Guarantee. This includes a Jobs Guarantee where eligible 18–21-year-olds, who have been on Universal Credit and looking for work for 18 months, will be guaranteed six-months paid work. We are also investing £725m for the Growth and Skills Levy will help support apprenticeships for young people, alongside reforms that will simplify the apprenticeship system.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department plans to allocate funding for furniture provision through the Crisis and Resilience Fund.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The new Crisis and Resilience Fund will be introduced from 1 April 2026. This represents the first ever multi-year settlement for locally delivered crisis support
We will be working closely with local authorities and external stakeholders on the detailed design of the Crisis and Resilience Fund and We will issue further information on our planned approach in due course.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of enhanced housing benefit was paid to (a) for-profit landlords, (b) not-for-profit landlords and (c) charities in each year since 2010.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We interpret ‘enhanced housing benefit’ as Housing Benefit payable for exempt accommodation (a category of specified accommodation in the Housing Benefit regulations). For Housing Benefit claims assessed as exempt accommodation, we do not hold data on whether a landlord is a not-for-profit organisation or a charity.
DWP does not form contractual relationships with supported housing landlords or charities in relation to Housing Benefit expenditure. Housing Benefit for specified accommodation is typically paid directly to the landlord at the request of the customer.
Housing Benefit regulations for specified accommodation outline that Housing Benefit cannot be paid for claims where the landlord is for-profit.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much her Department has spent on enhanced housing benefit in each year since 2010.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We interpret ‘enhanced housing benefit’ as Housing Benefit payable for exempt accommodation (a category of specified accommodation in Housing Benefit regulations). The time series information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur a disproportionate cost.
The estimated annual cost to the benefits system for all accommodation costs associated with supported housing in 2023 is £4.1 billion per year; estimated at just over 10% of total housing support (AME); of which £2.72 billion is for Specified Accommodation through Housing Benefit.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure that employers support women managing menopause in the workplace.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
On 18th October 2024 the Secretary of State for DWP appointed Mariella Frostrup as the new Menopause Employment Ambassador. The Menopause Employment Ambassador will work closely with employers across the country to improve workplace support for women experiencing menopause and wider women’s health issues. The Menopause Employment Ambassador launched her Menopause Advisory Group on 24th April who will provide her with expert knowledge from a wide range of sectors on how businesses can better support women experiencing menopause in the workplace by creating a more supportive environment that helps women to stay in work and progress.
The government has also proposed a wide-ranging set of generational reforms to boost protections for workers, including women experiencing menopause symptoms at work. The policy proposals in the Employment Rights Bill would require large employers with more than 250 employees to produce Menopause Action Plans on how they will support employees through the menopause. Alongside this the government has also committed to publishing guidance, including for small employers, on measures to consider relating to uniform and temperature, flexible working and recording menopause-related leave and absence.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to help reduce poverty for people on the lowest incomes.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
We are committed to tackling poverty and supporting people into good work will be the foundation of our approach. Our plan to Make Work Pay will tackle poor working conditions, poor job security and low pay.
To take crucial steps towards the creation of a genuine living wage that supports families the Government increased the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage rates on 1 April 2025, delivering a pay rise to over three million workers.
Our Get Britain Working White Paper, backed by £240 million investment, will target and tackle economic inactivity and unemployment and join up employment, health and skills support to meet the needs of local communities.
Alongside this, we are committed to reviewing Universal Credit to make sure it is doing the job we want it to do, to make work pay and tackle poverty. We have begun this work with the announcement of the Fair Repayment Rate in April, giving 1.2 million of the poorest households an average of £420 per year. Furthermore, in the Pathways to Work Green Paper, we announced that we will improve the adequacy of the standard allowance with the first sustained above inflation rise in the basic rate of Universal Credit since it was introduced.
To further support struggling households, funding of £742 million has been provided to enable the extension of the Household Support Fund from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026 in England, plus additional funding for the Devolved Governments through the Barnett formula to be spent at their discretion.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of trends in the level of poverty among people in receipt of social security; and if she will introduce a statutory poverty reduction target.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Statistics on the number of people living in absolute and relative poverty in the UK are published annually in the “Households Below Average Income” publication at Households below average income: for financial years ending 1995 to 2024 - GOV.UK. Tables giving the percentage of individuals in relative poverty by state support received by the family are published in “table 5.9db” of “workingage-hbai-detalied-breakdown-2023-24-tables”, “table 6.6db” of “pensioners-hbai-detailed-breakdown-2023-24-tables”, and “table 4.6db” of “children-hbai-detailed-breakdown-2023-24-tables”. The latest statistics published on 27 March 2025 are for the financial period 2023/24.
The latest available data can also be found on Stat-Xplore: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/. Guidance on how to use it can be found here: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/User-Guide.html.
The Child Poverty Taskforce is continuing its urgent work and is exploring all available levers to drive forward short and long-term actions across government to reduce child poverty.
Our metrics must also reflect the experience of poverty in households across the UK and the urgent need to focus on those children experiencing the most severe and acute forms of poverty. The Taskforce will consider how best to measure this as the strategy develops, including through our work on the material deprivation measure following the recent review of the material deprivation survey questions carried out by the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to page 72 of the National Disability Strategy, published in July 2021, what progress his Department has made on establishing the Extra Costs Taskforce.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
We are pleased that we can restart the work around the Extra Costs Taskforce. The Taskforce will be focused on bringing together disabled people, regulators and businesses, to better understand the extra costs faced by disabled people, including how this breaks down for different impairments.
The Disability Unit is currently working up a project plan and engaging with other government departments to take this commitment forward. The Disability Unit has begun to engage with interested stakeholders, including the Disability Charities Consortium, to develop an understanding around the definition of extra costs and what the terms of reference and focus areas of the Taskforce could be.
The Disability Unit will also be using insight from the Disability Action Plan consultation findings regarding the impact of the cost of living on disabled people when taking forward work on the Extra Costs Taskforce.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of how many families have received funding from the Household Support Fund in (a) Manchester, Gorton constituency and (b) Greater Manchester since October 2021.
Answered by Jo Churchill
There have been four Household Support Fund (HSF) schemes to date, with the current iteration running until the end of March 2024. Management Information (MI) was published for HSF1-3 following the completion of each scheme and can be found here.
Household Support Fund management information: 6 October 2021 to 31 March 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The latest MI covering HSF3 was published in August 2023. We will similarly look to publish MI for the entirety of HSF4 following scheme completion and subject to quality assurance processes. An evaluation of the current HSF4 scheme is underway. This will seek to understand the delivery and impacts of scheme funding.
The number of awards is reported by Authorities, and so data at a constituency level is not available. A total of 1.8m HSF awards were provided to residents in the Local Authorities that make up Greater Manchester (Manchester, Stockport, Tameside, Oldham, Rochdale, Bury, Bolton, Wigan, Salford and Trafford) during HSF1-3,including 420,000 in Manchester City Council. The number of awards, as reported by Authorities, may not represent the number of people helped as some may have received multiple awards.
No assessment has been made of the impact of the Household Support Fund on child poverty. The HSF is an intentionally flexible scheme designed to enable Local Authorities to respond to local need. Local Authorities are encouraged through our scheme guidance to consider the needs of households including families with children of all ages.
A total of £80.7m has been spent in the Local Authorities that make up Greater Manchester during HSF1-3 of which an average 69% has been spent on families with children. This includes 19.4m spent in the Manchester Local Authority of which 52% has been spent on families with children. Overall, Greater Manchester has been allocated £134.6m over all 4 rounds of the Household Support Fund including £32.3m for the Manchester Local Authority. Information regarding HSF4 funding allocations can be found here.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Household Support Fund on levels of child poverty in Manchester, Gorton constituency since October 2021.
Answered by Jo Churchill
There have been four Household Support Fund (HSF) schemes to date, with the current iteration running until the end of March 2024. Management Information (MI) was published for HSF1-3 following the completion of each scheme and can be found here.
Household Support Fund management information: 6 October 2021 to 31 March 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The latest MI covering HSF3 was published in August 2023. We will similarly look to publish MI for the entirety of HSF4 following scheme completion and subject to quality assurance processes. An evaluation of the current HSF4 scheme is underway. This will seek to understand the delivery and impacts of scheme funding.
The number of awards is reported by Authorities, and so data at a constituency level is not available. A total of 1.8m HSF awards were provided to residents in the Local Authorities that make up Greater Manchester (Manchester, Stockport, Tameside, Oldham, Rochdale, Bury, Bolton, Wigan, Salford and Trafford) during HSF1-3,including 420,000 in Manchester City Council. The number of awards, as reported by Authorities, may not represent the number of people helped as some may have received multiple awards.
No assessment has been made of the impact of the Household Support Fund on child poverty. The HSF is an intentionally flexible scheme designed to enable Local Authorities to respond to local need. Local Authorities are encouraged through our scheme guidance to consider the needs of households including families with children of all ages.
A total of £80.7m has been spent in the Local Authorities that make up Greater Manchester during HSF1-3 of which an average 69% has been spent on families with children. This includes 19.4m spent in the Manchester Local Authority of which 52% has been spent on families with children. Overall, Greater Manchester has been allocated £134.6m over all 4 rounds of the Household Support Fund including £32.3m for the Manchester Local Authority. Information regarding HSF4 funding allocations can be found here.