Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
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 in a) Oxford East constituency, b) Oxfordshire, and c) England.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government is committed to reducing the number of young people who are not in Education, Training or Employment.
We have already taken the first steps towards delivering the Youth Guarantee, to ensure that all 16–24-year-olds in Great Britain can access support to find work, training, or an apprenticeship. This includes launching Youth Guarantee Trailblazers in England, announcing funding to almost double our Youth Hubs across Great Britain, and commissioning an Independent Report into Young People and Work, to identify potential areas for reform to better support young people with health conditions and disabilities.
We are now going further through an expansion of the Youth Guarantee, backed by a £820 million investment over the next three years. This will reach almost 900,000 young people, including through the expansion of Youth Hubs to every area in Great Britain and the introduction of a new Youth Guarantee Gateway, offering a dedicated session and follow-up support to 16-24-year-olds on Universal Credit. This investment will also create around 300,000 additional opportunities to gain workplace experience and training. In addition, it will provide guaranteed jobs to around 55,000 young people aged 18-21.
Young people in Oxford East are already supported through the Rose Hill Youth Hub, which offers job clubs, employability advice, mental health links, and employer-led events in partnership with Oxford City Council and Jobcentre Plus.
Across Oxfordshire, Jobcentre Plus works with partners such as Abingdon and Witney College, Activate Learning, The Ethnic Minority Business Service, and Ruskin College to deliver tailored employability and sector-specific skills programmes aligned to local employer needs. This work is supported by the Oxfordshire Inclusive Economy Partnership through initiatives like employer engagement days.
As per our ambition to expand Youth Hubs to every area of Great Britain over the next three years, we will work with partners in West and South Oxfordshire to explore new opportunities.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to support the roll-out of youth hubs in a) Oxford East constituency, b) Oxfordshire, and c) England.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government is committed to reducing the number of young people who are not in Education, Training or Employment.
We have already taken the first steps towards delivering the Youth Guarantee, to ensure that all 16–24-year-olds in Great Britain can access support to find work, training, or an apprenticeship. This includes launching Youth Guarantee Trailblazers in England, announcing funding to almost double our Youth Hubs across Great Britain, and commissioning an Independent Report into Young People and Work, to identify potential areas for reform to better support young people with health conditions and disabilities.
We are now going further through an expansion of the Youth Guarantee, backed by a £820 million investment over the next three years. This will reach almost 900,000 young people, including through the expansion of Youth Hubs to every area in Great Britain and the introduction of a new Youth Guarantee Gateway, offering a dedicated session and follow-up support to 16-24-year-olds on Universal Credit. This investment will also create around 300,000 additional opportunities to gain workplace experience and training. In addition, it will provide guaranteed jobs to around 55,000 young people aged 18-21.
Young people in Oxford East are already supported through the Rose Hill Youth Hub, which offers job clubs, employability advice, mental health links, and employer-led events in partnership with Oxford City Council and Jobcentre Plus.
Across Oxfordshire, Jobcentre Plus works with partners such as Abingdon and Witney College, Activate Learning, The Ethnic Minority Business Service, and Ruskin College to deliver tailored employability and sector-specific skills programmes aligned to local employer needs. This work is supported by the Oxfordshire Inclusive Economy Partnership through initiatives like employer engagement days.
As per our ambition to expand Youth Hubs to every area of Great Britain over the next three years, we will work with partners in West and South Oxfordshire to explore new opportunities.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress he has made on increasing capacity of English as a Second Language Provision (ESOL) in line with the Government’s White Paper on Immigration.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Through the Adult Skills Fund (ASF), the Department for Work and Pensions supports adults aged 19+ in England who speak English as a second or additional language to access English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) provision. ASF co-funds or fully-funds ESOL provision subject to the eligibility requirements laid out in the ASF rules. ESOL allows learners to develop the English language skills they need for everyday life, work or further learning. Overall, we are allocating £1.4 billion for a wide range of adult skills provision through the ASF in the 2025/26 academic year.
Currently, approximately 68% of the ASF is devolved to 12 Strategic Authorities and the Greater London Authority. These authorities are responsible for the provision of ASF-funded adult education for their residents, the allocation of the ASF to learning providers, and deciding how the ASF best meets the needs of their local economy. By honouring our commitments to combine and further devolve adult skills funding, we give those with local knowledge the power they need to make decisions that are best for their areas.
The Department for Work and Pensions is responsible for the remaining ASF in non-devolved areas, where colleges and training providers have the freedom and flexibility to determine how they use their ASF allocations from the department to meet the needs of their communities. Where ASF funded provision is not available the Flexible Support Fund is sometimes used to procure ESOL provision that enables individuals to move into sustained employment, increase their earnings whilst in work, or move closer to the labour market.
Government publishes statistics on participation in ESOL provision through its Further Education and Skills publication here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/084d1d31-4477-488e-b95b-08de28d609b2
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many alternative payment requests for Universal Credit were made in (a) January and (b) February 2024 in (i) England, (ii) Scotland and (iii) Wales.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many alternative payment arrangements for Universal Credit were granted in (a) January and (b) February 2024 in (i) England, (ii) Scotland and (iii) Wales.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what information his Department holds on the number of prosecutions that were initiated by the Health and Safety Executive for ill-fitting PPE provided to women workers in the last five years. .
Answered by Paul Maynard
In the last five years, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has not initiated any prosecutions relating specifically for ill-fitting Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) provided to women workers.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department will take to ensure disabled people will be able to access the consultation on the Disability Action Plan.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
As previously announced, the Disability Action Plan will set out the immediate action the Government will take in 2023 and 2024 to improve disabled people’s lives, as well as laying the foundations for longer term change.
There is already significant work being taken forward by individual Government departments in areas disabled people have told us are a priority. This includes reforms to employment and welfare via the DWP’s ‘Transforming Support: Health and Disability White Paper’, and strategies to address health and social care via DHSC’s ‘People at the Heart of Care White Paper’. These are long term reform efforts which are already underway and outside the scope of a new one to two year action plan.
The plan will go further in areas where we think joint action across Government departments can make a tangible difference to disabled people’s lives in the immediate term - or where we can make meaningful progress towards a longer term goal, for example improved disability data and evidence.
We are planning to consult on the Disability Action Plan this summer, publishing a full draft of the plan alongside a set of consultation questions.
This consultation will be an opportunity for everyone - disabled people, disabled people’s organisations, other interested parties - to have their say on the Disability Action Plan. It will be fully accessible to ensure that disabled people can take part, including being made available in various accessible formats.
We will consider all responses to the consultation carefully before publishing the final Disability Action Plan.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of Universal Credit upper tariff income rules where a Lifetime ISA is the sole source of the claimant's capital.
Answered by Guy Opperman
No such assessment has been made.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the total cost to the Disability Unit budget in 2021-22 was relating to the judicial review of R (Binder & Others) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The cost to the DU budget for the legal costs relating to the Judicial Review is £103,099.50.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of exempting people impacted by domestic abuse from (a) the benefit cap and (b) repaying benefit advances.
Answered by Guy Opperman
There are no current plans to introduce new exemptions into the benefit cap policy.
Households receiving disability benefits and/or entitled to carer benefits are exempt together with households that earn at least £658 a month. Households may also be exempt for a period of nine months where the claimant, their partner or ex-partner has a sustained work history.
DWP recognises the pressures and challenges that this group face, which is why we have made Discretionary Housing Payments available to allow LAs to provide financial help with rental costs. In order to facilitate that, DWP has made it clear to LAs that we consider this group to be among those for whom DHPs should be a priority.
Universal Credit advances are a claimant’s entitlement paid early, repaid through future payments being automatically reduced. Making Universal Credit advances non-repayable for victims of domestic abuse would mean this cohort of claimants receiving greater entitlement than others, raising equality concerns from other groups of claimants. The Government has taken steps to support all new Universal Credit claimants receiving a new claim advance. In April 2021, the repayment period for new claim advances was doubled to give more flexibility.