Asked by: Charlotte Cane (Liberal Democrat - Ely and East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to improve health outcomes for agricultural sector workers.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In line with its published Strategy 2022 to 2032, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) focuses on the most effective and efficient ways to improve the health and safety performance of all industries in Great Britain, including farming.
Many of the health risks agricultural workers face are common to other industries such as manual handling and noise and vibration. However, some are very specific to agriculture, such as pesticides or zoonoses (animal diseases which may infect humans).
Between 2018 and 2024, in partnership with the industry, HSE ran a campaign to offer farmers free health and safety training which was then followed up by an inspection to a selection of those farms invited to take the training. HSE will continue to visit farms where they have intelligence to suggest risk is not being managed adequately and investigate incidents in line with their published selection criteria.
As well as appropriate site visits, HSE continues to engage with farming through a variety of other methods including delivering industry talks; webinars and presentations; engaging with the media and publishing targeted articles for farmers; producing industry notifications which include health messaging; and producing awareness raising campaigns. It also produces an extensive range of freely available guidance to enable farmers to comply with health and safety law and keep themselves and others safe.
HSE’s commitment to working with the agricultural industry through stakeholders such as Britain’s Farm Safety Partnerships (FSPs) remains strong.
Asked by: Charlotte Cane (Liberal Democrat - Ely and East Cambridgeshire)
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 tackle child poverty in Ely and East Cambridgeshire constituency.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In developing a Child Poverty Strategy, the Taskforce is considering all children across the United Kingdom. The UK Government is committed to tackling child poverty across the UK where progress is contingent on reserved, devolved, and local levers. The Child Poverty Strategy will be UK-wide, drawing on devolved and reserved levers and working closely with Devolved Governments, recognising the progress that has been made on their poverty strategies and policies, and in England, with mayors and other local leaders.
Local authorities are a key part of our approach to learning directly about the experience of poverty in different communities and solutions already underway. Both the Taskforce and officials in the Child Poverty Unit have engaged with local communities regularly throughout the development of the strategy. This includes through a ministerial taskforce meeting with local leaders from combined and local governments in England, who joined Ministers to discuss the experience of poverty in their local communities, and innovative solutions underway. The Child Poverty Unit also consulted local authorities across England through a virtual webinar in December 2024, allowing authorities to feed into the development of the strategy. and visits to Manchester, Ashton-Under-Lyme, Cheshire and Merseyside.
As a significant downpayment ahead of strategy publication, we have already taken substantive action across major drivers of child poverty including an expansion of Free School Meals and a £39 billion investment in social and affordable housing. At the 2025 Spending Review we also announced a new March 2025 £1 billion package to reform crisis support, including the first ever multi-year settlement to transform the Household Support Fund into a new Crisis and Resilience Fund. This longer-term funding approach enables local authorities to provide preventative support to communities as well as assist people when faced with a financial crisis.
Asked by: Charlotte Cane (Liberal Democrat - Ely and East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to strengthen retrospective rural-proofing of his Department's policies.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
I refer the hon. member to the answer I gave on 10 September to PQ 73922
Asked by: Charlotte Cane (Liberal Democrat - Ely and East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what training his Department provides to Jobcentre Plus employees on the provision of appropriate support for disabled people.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP is committed to ensuring that Jobcentre Plus employees are equipped with the skills and knowledge necessary to provide appropriate support to disabled people.
All Work Coaches and Disability Employment Advisers (DEAs) undertake comprehensive learning and development to enable them to support claimants effectively which continues at point of need throughout their role and includes additional mandatory 2 day learning specifically for Mental Health.
DEAs complete full Work Coach learning, followed by additional learning designed to support their role. This learning enables DEAs to treat each claimant as an individual, understand the impact of different disabilities and health conditions, and provide tailored support to help overcome barriers to employment.
The Department continually reviews and updates the learning provided to Work Coaches and DEAs, ensuring it remains relevant and effective.
Asked by: Charlotte Cane (Liberal Democrat - Ely and East Cambridgeshire)
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 help encourage businesses to increase the employment of (a) neurodivergent people and (b) people with learning disabilities.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In its plan to Make Work Pay, the government committed to raising awareness of all forms of neurodiversity in the workplace. Employers have a key role to play in helping neurodivergent people and people with learning disabilities get into and thrive at work.
We are helping employers to do so through a range of initiatives. Our digital information and advice service, developed alongside employers, provides tailored advice and guidance on supporting employees in common workplace scenarios involving health and disability, including managing absences, deciding on changes to help employees, and managing complex situations.
Our Disability Confident scheme, which as of 31 August 2025 has over 19,000 members, encourages employers to create disability inclusive workplaces and to support disabled people to get work and get on in work. The scheme covers all disabilities, including hidden disabilities. It provides employers with the knowledge, skills, and confidence they need to attract, recruit, retain and develop disabled people in the workplace and to take positive action to address the issues employees face.
Other significant help includes Access to Work grants. These grants support workplace adjustments that go beyond what would normally be expected from an employer through their duty to provide reasonable adjustments as outlined in the Equality Act 2010. They can enable access to, for example, specialist equipment and assistive software.
In January this year, DWP launched an independent panel of academics with expertise and experiences of neurodiversity to advise us on boosting neurodiversity awareness and inclusion at work. The panel has considered the reasons why neurodivergent people have poor experiences in the workplace, and a low overall employment rate, and will make recommendations this autumn.
In our Get Britain Working White Paper, published November 2024, we committed support for employers to recruit, retain and develop staff. As part of that, the Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions and Business and Trade asked Sir Charlie Mayfield to lead ‘Keep Britain Working’, an independent review to consider how best to support and enable employers to recruit and retain more people with health conditions and disabilities, promote healthy workplaces, and support more people to stay in or return to work from periods of sickness absence. Sir Charlie Mayfield will deliver a final report with recommendations later in the autumn.
Asked by: Charlotte Cane (Liberal Democrat - Ely and East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to help tackle youth unemployment.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As set out in the Get Britain Working White Paper, we are developing a Youth Guarantee to ensure young people are either learning or earning. This includes access to high-quality training, apprenticeships, and personalised support to find work.
As a first step, eight Mayoral Strategic Authorities in England began mobilising the Youth Guarantee Trailblazers in April. These Trailblazers are testing new local approaches to identify and support young people at risk of falling out of education, employment or training and becoming NEET.
A key element of the Youth Guarantee, the Chanceller has announced a new Jobs Guarantee Scheme for young people on Universal Credit who have been unemployed for over 18 months. This will provide an opportunity for young people to gain essential skills and experience and prevent the damaging effects of long-term unemployment.
Already in place is our Youth Offer which provides tailored support to young people aged 16-24 who are claiming Universal Credit. This includes a range of support designed to help young people move closer to employment, such as dedicated support from Youth Employability Coaches, access to Youth Hubs, and intensive guidance from Jobcentre Work Coaches during the first 13 weeks of a Universal Credit claim.
For those with more complex needs, specialist Youth Employability Coaches provide intensive, tailored support. These coaches work closely with Disability Employment Advisors, to ensure that interventions meet the specific needs of each young person.
Asked by: Charlotte Cane (Liberal Democrat - Ely and East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance his Department provides to claimants of Carer’s Allowance who are self-employed on (a) the number of years of accounts they are required to submit and (b) the format in which those accounts must be provided; and whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of accepting electronic copies.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Carer's Allowance can be claimed online through the GOV.UK website or by post by requesting or downloading and completing a paper claim form. Eligibility criteria set out that earnings are any income from employment and self-employment after tax, National Insurance and expenses.
When claiming Carer’s Allowance, the claim form asks claimants for detail about their self-employment and for the most recent finalised accounts for their business.
DWP can accept formalised accounts or information supplied on DWP forms issued to clarify the self-employment, either details for a new business, where there has been a change likely to affect the pattern of trading, or details for an ongoing business. DWP will include a return envelope where additional information has been requested.
Where agreement has been made with the claimant, DWP can accept the requested information via electronic copy. However, DWP takes its security of claimant personal data very seriously and will not include any identifying personal information in any email responses.
Asked by: Charlotte Cane (Liberal Democrat - Ely and East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of unemployment in Ely and East Cambridgeshire constituency.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is published and available at:
https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/default.asp
Guidance for users can be found at:
https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/home/newuser.asp
The estimated unemployment levels can be found by selecting “Query data” on the NOMIS home page and selecting “Annual Population Survey/Labour Force Survey” and then “annual population survey (Dec 2004 to Jun 2025)” in the lists of data sources. The Geography will need to be set for the relevant Westminster constituency from the menu, and the Variable set to “Unemployment rate - aged 16+” from the “Key variables” list.
Asked by: Charlotte Cane (Liberal Democrat - Ely and East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to his Department's guidance entitled Support with employee health and disability, whether he plans to review the guidance.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Support with Employee Health and Disability digital service, which provides tailored guidance for employers managing health and disability in the workplace, including guidance on disclosures, having conversations, legal obligations and making reasonable adjustments, is in national live testing and we continue to update it on an iterative basis, including in response to user research.
Asked by: Charlotte Cane (Liberal Democrat - Ely and East Cambridgeshire)
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 encourage businesses to employ people with autism.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In the plan to Make Work Pay (October 2024), government committed to raising awareness of all forms of neurodiversity in the workplace. This includes autism.
In January 2025, DWP launched an independent panel of academics with expertise and
experiences of neurodiversity to advise us on boosting neurodiversity awareness and inclusion at work.
The panel have reviewed the workplace barriers neurodivergent people encounter in getting into or remaining in employment and will be making their recommendations later this autumn.
The work of the expert panel will also be shared with the Keep Britain Working Review on healthy and inclusive workplaces, being led by Sir Charlie Mayfield.