Youth Unemployment
Diana Johnson Excerpts(1 week, 5 days ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Dame Diana Johnson)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to end and insert:
“welcomes the Government’s commitment to invest in young people’s futures; notes that the UK has the second highest youth employment rate in the G7; recognises that the Government announced more than £1.5 billion of investment over the next three years, consisting of £820 million of funding for the Youth Guarantee to support young people to earn or learn, and £725 million for the Growth and Skills Levy; further welcomes that the expanded Youth Guarantee will reach almost 900,000 young people, including through Youth Hubs in every area in Great Britain and a new Youth Guarantee Gateway; further notes that this investment will also create around 300,000 more opportunities to gain workplace experience and training; and further recognises that, as part of the Youth Guarantee, the Government is breaking the cycle of unemployment by guaranteeing paid work to around 55,000 young people aged 18 to 21 who have been on Universal Credit and looking for work for 18 months.”
In the north, we would say that the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) has some brass neck to make the speech she has just delivered. As an MP who has been in the House for some time, it might be helpful to us all if I remind the hon. Lady about her party’s record over the past 14 years. Her party fumbled the handling of the pandemic, setting back a whole generation of kids. It failed to deal with the growing mental health crisis among young people, left school buildings to crumble, and decimated youth centres.
Let us just look at the facts about youth employment specifically. Under the last Conservative Government, the number of young people not in education, employment or training grew by 45% in just three years. Scarily, that left almost 1 million young people—one in eight—on the sidelines when the Conservatives were chucked out of office.
Several hon. Members rose—
Dame Diana Johnson
I am just going to complete the Conservatives’ record, because I think it would be beneficial for us all to hear it. When the Conservatives were chucked out, the youth unemployment rate stood at 13%, compared with just over 9% two years earlier, and the number of young people economically inactive due to long-term sickness had more than doubled in five years to over a quarter of a million on the Conservatives’ watch. They also failed to support young people in the face of the changing retail sector, for example. Many young people start their careers in that sector—I certainly started with a Saturday job—but retail job opportunities have fallen since 2017 as new technology changes how people shop and how shops employ people. The Conservatives took no action on that, so their legacy for young people looks pretty dismal from virtually every angle.
Graham Stuart
In my experience, my neighbour is always a fair and credible person, so will she confirm that youth unemployment reduced over the 14 years that the Conservatives were in government, rather than focusing on some selective period over covid in order to give an entirely partisan and biased view of the statistics? The numbers went down, did they not? The only Government who put up youth unemployment by 45% were the last Labour Government.
Dame Diana Johnson
The right hon. Gentleman, who is a close neighbour in East Yorkshire, says that I am being partial and only giving part of the picture. I think I have been setting out a very full explanation of what the Conservatives delivered for young people over 14 years.
To expand on that point a little, the Conservatives are now talking about the need to increase apprenticeships, for example. On their watch, there was a collapse in youth apprenticeships—starts were down by almost 40% under the Conservative Government over the past decade, leaving this Labour Government to reverse that decline. They have also been critical of the welfare system for trapping people out of work; they seem to have forgotten that they presided over it for 14 years. The Conservatives introduced that system, and it has now been left to us to address the disincentive to work that they built into it. We started to deal with that task through the Universal Credit Act last year.
Dame Diana Johnson
No, I will make some progress. Put simply, the Conservatives cut off opportunity for young people. They wrote them off, and then they blamed young people for the position they were in. On the Government Benches, we know that young people are this country’s future and that their success is Britain’s success. We are not prepared to sit on our hands and let all that talent and potential go unused. That is not good enough for those young people, and it is not good enough for this country, which needs the contribution they can offer more than ever and not just now, but for the next 40 years.
Dame Diana Johnson
No, I am going to make some progress. We are investing in young people to turn around the dire legacy that the Conservatives left behind. We are supporting young people so that they can fulfil their potential, breaking the cycle of wasted talent cascading down generations. We are starting already to see some signs of progress. We have got record levels of employment and youth employment is up by 153,000 in the past year, but the scale of the crisis brewed up by the Conservatives requires much more than that. The number of young people neither learning nor earning is equivalent to three cities the size of Hull, so we know that there is more to do.
Dame Diana Johnson
I will later on, but I want to get this on the record. We know that if someone falls out of the workforce—[Interruption.] The Conservative MPs chuntering from a sedentary position might just want to listen to this, because it is about the future of our country. We know that if someone falls out of the workforce when they are young, they can lose out on £1 million in earnings, and it costs the state a similar amount to support them, but if we can ensure that they get the right opportunities and support early on, we can change their life stories for the better. That is why we are helping more young people into work, and it is why youth employment is a priority for us in the DWP.
Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)
In my constituency and across Kent we are pleased to be one of the trailblazer areas for the Connect to Work programme, which started under this Government, not the last Government. It gives people personalised support to stay in work and to get jobs in the first place, ensuring that they have a long-term future in the workplace. Is that not the sort of serious intervention we need to deal with unemployment among young people?
Dame Diana Johnson
My hon. Friend is exactly right. That is the kind of initiative that will help deliver for these young people who are out of work, particularly with health problems, health conditions and disabilities.
I think all of us in the House would recognise how disheartening it can be for young people who are looking for work who cannot find that opportunity. They may not have the confidence or knowledge to apply for the jobs that are out there. Let us put ourselves in the shoes of an 18-year-old who has perhaps lost their way a little bit and does not have the confidence; it can be difficult for them to go into a jobcentre to find out what opportunities are available. That is why, as part of the youth guarantee, we are expanding the DWP youth hubs located in places such as football clubs and other sports facilities to more than 350 areas across Great Britain. I accept that youth hubs were part of the previous Government’s plans to deal with youth unemployment, but they were small in number. We are expanding them to 350.
Youth hubs are helping people such as Erin, a young woman who was unemployed for two years and struggling with her motivation. After visiting a youth hub based at Crystal Palace football club, she was able to complete a work placement before being offered a permanent job. That came off the back of joining a hospitality programme, which gave her valuable experience and confidence. It goes to show what young people can achieve when they are motivated, confident and have that self-belief. That is why the expansion of youth hubs forms just one part of our wider youth guarantee, which is designed to make sure that no young person is left behind.
Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)
In East Kent, there is a company called HatHats, which runs coffee bars. The proprietor philanthropically employs hard-to-employ young people. In the last 12 months for which figures are available, the profit on all 25 of its outlets was £12. As a direct result of this Government’s policies, those young people are losing out on the opportunities that the Minister is describing.
Dame Diana Johnson
I will come on to talk a little about some of the accusations levelled at the Government in relation to national insurance contributions, so I shall deal with that point later in my speech, if I may.
The youth hubs will offer a helping hand, whether with writing a CV or with obtaining a work placement to include on a CV. We have announced that over the next three years, we will invest £820 million to support almost 900,000 young people who are on universal credit and looking for work. There will be new dedicated work support sessions, followed by intensive, tailored assistance to help those young people secure the right job, training or learning opportunity. We are backing that up by funding about 300,000 more opportunities for people to gain work experience and training in sectors such as construction and hospitality.
Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for her great explanation of youth hubs. We have just opened one at the Peterborough United—Posh—stadium, bringing together all sorts of partnerships. A number of issues are raised by the young people I speak to there, which the youth hub addresses. One of those issues is an element of the Opposition’s record that they have not talked about, namely the decimation of in-work support, and of career services in schools to give young people advice and help. Opposition Members talked a lot about apprentices and undergraduates, but they did not talk about levels 2 and 3, and the engine-room apprentices we need. The youth hub will start getting us back to that in Peterborough.
Dame Diana Johnson
My hon. Friend has made his point very well indeed.
Let me return to the subject of the youth guarantee. There will be guaranteed jobs for about 55,000 people over the three years. Companies have already shown an interest in taking on such employees, including E.ON, JD Sports, Tesco and Tui, and we are grateful for the offers that they are making. We Labour Members have tackled these challenges before, under the last Labour Government, through the new deal for young people, and we will do it again now.
Steve Race (Exeter) (Lab)
Along with the youth hubs and the youth guarantee, there is the £725 million investment in apprenticeships. With its new technical excellence college status, Exeter college in my constituency is becoming one of the biggest providers of apprenticeships in the country. Does the Minister agree that that stands in stark contrast to the 50% increase in youth unemployment under the last Government?
Dame Diana Johnson
My hon. Friend has made his case very well. He referred to the £725 million for the growth and skills levy, which is part of the more than £1.5 billion that has been made available for employment and skills support in the Budget. That is very much needed after the dramatic decline in the number of young people starting apprenticeships under the last Government, which we will reverse. At the same time, we are strengthening our world-leading universities.
Dame Diana Johnson
I will make some progress, because many Back Benchers want to speak.
The skills White Paper sets out our plan to build a more specialised and more efficient higher education sector that will better meet the needs of the economy. The graduate economic inactivity rate is now at its lowest on record, and we want to build on that. We recognise the need for modern technical skills, and not just the old academic subjects. I saw that for myself at the Ron Dearing university technical college in Hull only last week—young people honing their skills and getting a brilliant education.
No matter what path young people choose, we want them to have the skills to succeed. Skills are vital in the world of work today, but more than a quarter of all vacancies are skills shortage vacancies. That is why, last year, the Prime Minister set out our bold ambition for two thirds of young people to enter higher-level education or training. We have added adult skills to the Department for Work and Pension’s brief, to help us join up employment support and skills more closely, so that young people have genuine pathways into good jobs. We are significantly expanding sector-based work academy programmes—SWAPs—in England and Scotland; there will be more than 145,000 additional places over the next three years. Just today, our colleagues at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology announced a new package to give people the skills that will enable them to seize the opportunities that artificial intelligence will bring. That includes an expansion of free AI foundation training for all workers, to upskill 10 million people by 2030. All this is about opening up opportunities for young people.
However, we want to make sure that no stone is left unturned. Last month, the Government unveiled our national youth strategy, which is backed by £500 million. It will rebuild the youth services that the Conservative party decimated, and help more young people transition into adulthood. The Secretary of State has commissioned Alan Milburn to complete a wide-ranging investigation into the causes of youth inactivity, and to come up with policy solutions across the piece. As a former Health Secretary, he is well placed to give particular focus to the role of health in all this. That is needed, because over a quarter of young people not in employment, education or training now cite long-term sickness or disability as a barrier—more than double the figure in 2013-14.
Too many people are shut out of the labour market by disability or ill health. This has worsened, especially since covid, so we are rolling out a £1 billion Pathways to Work offer, which brings together programmes such as Connect to Work, which my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Jim Dickson) referred to and which I have seen in action in Lewisham, where I met a neurodiverse young man who told me that the personalised support that he was receiving from the team was helping him to stay in work; and WorkWell, which is providing really impressive integrated work and health support that I recently had a chance to see in Cambridge. Pathways to Work will ultimately guarantee access to work, health and skills support for disabled people and those with long-term health conditions who are claiming out-of-work benefits. We already have 1,000 Pathways to Work advisers on hand to provide better one-to-one support. We know that prevention is better than cure, so we want to avoid people falling out of work due to ill health wherever possible, and employers have a unique role to play.
Sarah Smith (Hyndburn) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that while it is easy to debate who is getting it right and who is getting it wrong, fundamentally, we require a systemic shift in how we look at the problem, which is generational and intergenerational? Everything that she is outlining shows that we are taking a systemic view, to get to the cause of these problems, so that we can finally move forward for the generations that have been let down. We did not have that approach from the previous Government.
Dame Diana Johnson
Those are very wise words from my hon. Friend.
I want to say something about employers, because they have a vital role to play in all this. On keeping people in work when they develop an illness or a disability, we are really pleased that we are working with over 100 Vanguard employers to take forward the recommendations in Sir Charlie Mayfield’s “Keep Britain Working” review, and helping to create a picture of what best practice looks like when it comes to building healthy and inclusive workplaces. We have had an outstanding response from businesses, because they know that when their workers win, they win too. Contrary to what some people say and believe, the interests of employees and employers are not diametrically opposed. Everybody wins when workers are secure, happy and healthy.
That leads me on to the Employment Rights Act 2025, which includes reforms such as the extension of statutory sick pay, so that more people can take the time they need to recover, instead of risking longer-term absences. That is not just good for workers; it is good for businesses, too.
I want to address the issue of national insurance contributions and business rates. Let us be clear: employers generally do not have to pay any employer national insurance contributions for employees under the age of 21 or for apprentices under 25. Yesterday we announced that every pub and live music venue will get 15% off its new business rates bill. That is on top of the support announced at the Budget. Bills will then be frozen, in real terms, for a further two years. This Government will always support businesses, giving them the stability that they need to grow, and to create good jobs.
Before I finish, there is one other thing I want to talk about. What happens at the start of people’s working lives can have many consequences for their future, and the same is true of what happens in our childhood. When a young person ends up out of work or training, it is no use pretending that that has suddenly come about in a bubble. Someone who grows up poor is less likely to do well at school and more likely to be a NEET. Poverty, low attainment and low aspiration can not only waste the potential of a young life, but cascade on to the next generation. Shockingly, the number of children in poverty increased by over 900,000 under the Conservatives, which is shameful, and they now come to this House to ask why a generation is struggling.
We are very proud to be lifting the two-child limit. That will have benefits for hundreds of thousands of children, who will be less likely to experience mental health issues, less likely to be unemployed, and more likely to be in work and earning more, yet the Conservatives oppose it. As ever, they seem determined to pull the rug out from under the next generation, and does that not sum them up? They blame; we support. They complain; we fix. They cut; we build.
We will never forget the neglect that left our young people without the hope and opportunity that every generation deserves, but this Government are doing things differently. We are laying the foundations for young people to succeed, and giving them the opportunities that they need and the skills and support to seize them. These opportunities are of course accompanied by obligations to take them up, but that is so much better than a life that is just written off. We are breaking down barriers to opportunity, so that every young person, in every part of our United Kingdom, can fulfil their potential.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Oral Answers to Questions
Diana Johnson Excerpts(2 weeks ago)
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Andrew Lewin (Welwyn Hatfield) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Dame Diana Johnson)
Good work is generally good for health and wellbeing, so we want everyone to get work and get on in work. Through our Pathways to Work guarantee, which is will be backed by £1 billion a year of new funding by the end of the decade, and our Connect to Work supported employment programme, more disabled people and people with health conditions will be supported to enter and stay in work.
Andrew Lewin
I welcome the investment and the news earlier this month from the Office for National Statistics that the number of people in employment has risen by 500,000 since July 2024. I am sure that the Minister will join me in celebrating the fact that more people are entering the labour market under a Labour Government. While we should celebrate progress, we must recognise that there is more to do. What more are the Government going to do to support people with health conditions back into the workplace, and in particular, to build on the success of the WorkWell pilot?
Dame Diana Johnson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for talking about the WorkWell pilot. When I attended a recent WorkWell session in Cambridge, I was really impressed. Following the success of the pilots, which have so far supported more than 25,000 people, WorkWell will expand across all of England, backed up by a £259 million investment over three years, and could support up to 250,000 people into work. Participants receive proactive early support based on their health-related barriers to employment, such as mental health issues, musculoskeletal problems and other long-term health issues.
David Chadwick (Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe) (LD)
Access to Work is meant to help disabled people to stay in employment, yet numerous constituents tell me they have been waiting more than nine months for an assessment, and a year or more for changes of circumstances. Those delays are putting jobs and incomes at risk. How many people has the Department assessed as losing work because of the delays and what urgent action is being taken to clear that backlog?
Dame Diana Johnson
The hon. Gentleman mentions an important scheme that enables people to move into work and stay in work. It is right to say that that there have been some issues with Access to Work. More resources have gone in to ensure that those who are moving into work in particular are prioritised by the scheme. I am sure that the Minister for Social Security and Disability, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), who leads on Access to Work, can write to the hon. Gentleman with further detail on what more we are doing.
Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)
As a result of this Government’s economic vandalism, unemployment continues to rise, particularly among young people and those with disabilities. Now more than ever, it is crucial that we support people back into work, but the Access to Work scheme is overly bureaucratic and faces significant delays. Indeed, at the weekend, one of my constituents told me they had been asked by a Department official to fill in a fraudulent timesheet in order to be paid on time. What is the Minister doing to get this programme back on track so that disabled people have the support they deserve and are contributing to the broader economy?
Dame Diana Johnson
As I just set out to the hon. Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick), there have been some problems with Access to Work, but it is this Government who are dealing with them. We have already put in resources, with a particular focus on individuals who are moving into work to make sure they get access to whatever support they need. Again, I am very happy to provide further details of what additional support we have put in, but it is this Government who are actually dealing with these problems and ensuring that people with disabilities and long-term health conditions have what they need to support them into work and to keep them in work.
Mr Lee Dillon (Newbury) (LD)
Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Dame Diana Johnson)
I thank my hon. Friend for his question on this important issue for the Government. Action to support families includes raising the national living wage, expanding access to free school meals and tripling investment in breakfast clubs. Removing the two-child limit in universal credit will benefit 1.5 million children across Great Britain, including over 2,500 children in Bolton West. We have also implemented the fair repayment rate for deductions from universal credit and announced a new £1 billion a year package to reform crisis support.
Phil Brickell
Almost 4,000 people with jobs in my Bolton West constituency still need universal credit to cope with the cost of living. Heating, water and food bills have been stubbornly high. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that families in my constituency get the support they need to pay the bills?
Dame Diana Johnson
We recognise that too many homes in England struggle to afford heating, and tackling fuel poverty is a Government priority. On 21 January, we published a new fuel poverty strategy, alongside the warm homes plan, to better protect fuel-poor households by 2030. At Budget 2025, we cut energy bills by an average of £150 and expanded the warm home discount, providing £150 rebate to a further 2.7 million low-income households.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
Food and energy costs remain high, and a significant number of families are struggling—more than they ever have before—to try to make ends meet. Has the Minister given any consideration to matching the SNP’s Scottish child payment to ensure that more families with children can be kept out of poverty?
Dame Diana Johnson
As I said, we lifted the two-child limit in the child poverty strategy. We know that will lift about 450,000 children out of poverty. Combined with all the other measures that we have set out, including on free school meals and so on, we think that about 550,000 children will be lifted out of poverty. That is against the backdrop of the 900,000 children who went into poverty during the time of the Conservative Governments from 2010 onwards. Of course, we speak all the time to the Scottish Government, and we will continue to have conversations about how we can deal with child poverty.
Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)
Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Dame Diana Johnson)
Jobcentre Plus offers tailored, flexible advice and support to help individuals get into work and overcome any barriers to employment. Work coaches offer all claimants a comprehensive menu of help, including referral to skills provision and job search support. That can include referral to local ESOL provision.
Antonia Bance
I thank the Minister for her answer. I recently visited Tipton Jobcentre Plus, and I pay tribute to the great work of the staff based there in what is a really tough jobs market. They told me that they would value the ability to refer jobseekers to an intensive ESOL course, with the expectation that the jobseeker attends every weekday for a number of months, to tackle the key barrier to sustainable employment for many, which is a lack of English skills for work. Will the Minister consider engaging with our combined authority to pilot an intensive, mandatory ESOL intervention, to get locals into work and raise incomes in my area?
Dame Diana Johnson
I thank my hon. Friend for her interest and her visit to Tipton Jobcentre Plus, and for her kind words about the staff there. Jobcentre Plus in Tipton has been reviewing local ESOL availability. It is welcoming work with the combined authority to look at expanding provision, to ensure that demand is met and so that more claimants can move into work.
Baggy Shanker (Derby South) (Lab/Co-op)
Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Dame Diana Johnson)
I meet my colleagues in the Health and Social Care Department regularly, particularly because of the important work that the joint work and health directorate is doing to get people into work and to support people with health conditions in work, including those with chronic mental health conditions. Our employment advisers in talking therapies specifically target people with mental health conditions.
Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab)
Dame Diana Johnson
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the meeting that we had on this very subject just a few months ago and for raising the issue of how important it is to get people back into work. There are lots of good examples of GPs who are doing that around the country, and I look forward to seeing what more we can do to work with him and other GPs to ensure that we get as many people as possible back into work who are not in work at the moment due to ill health.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
Poverty and Welfare Policies
Diana Johnson Excerpts(1 month ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Dame Diana Johnson)
It is a pleasure, as ever, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) on securing the debate. He spoke with great passion and knowledge about how poverty affects the individual, the family and society at large. The real-world impact is where that really matters, as he just said.
My hon. Friend spoke in his maiden speech about the nearly 7,000 residents of Poole who struggle to cover essential costs from their monthly income. In his career in Parliament, he has continued to be a strong advocate for his constituents and for the disadvantaged in our society. He has rightly pointed out that poverty is both unfair and economically reckless, and that one of the most important legacies that we could achieve as a Labour Government is a massive reduction in poverty. My hon. Friend highlighted the devastation caused by 14 years of Tory Governments to the fabric of our society and the rising levels of poverty, in particular the cost of living that we inherited from the previous Government.
To start, I refer to the child poverty strategy, which was published only last month. Under the previous Government, a shocking 900,000 more children were added to the statistics for those living in poverty. The aim of our strategy is to lift 550,0000 children out of poverty by the end of this Parliament. It is rightly a cross-Government strategy, but welfare policies clearly play a crucial part, not least the lifting of the two-child limit. I am proud that we are getting rid of that cruel policy, which affects nearly 2,000 children in Poole, 6,000 children in the Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch local authority area, and 1.5 million children in Great Britain overall.
I was touched when I spoke with several stakeholders, including the Trussell Trust, following the announcement of the removal of the two-child limit on Budget day, because they gave me the breadth and depth of insight that comes from working with those families day in, day out. Hearing their views of how the change will be felt on the ground was humbling and hugely helpful to me.
Our strategy builds on the urgent action that we have taken already to help families since we first entered Government, which has included expanding free school meals to reach half a million more families on universal credit, our new £842 million crisis and resilience fund to reform crisis support in England, expanding free breakfast clubs, and investing in Best Start family hubs to deliver early intervention and support for new parents. We recognise that tackling the causes of poverty and delivering an enduring reduction to child poverty will take time. That is why we have been clear from the start that this will be a long-term, 10-year strategy. We have put in place structures, including a monitoring and evaluation framework, and cross-Government ministerial oversight to ensure that the strategy will deliver and that we can build on its success in future.
We know that the welfare system needs continuous reform to ensure that it supports the people who need it and is a platform for opportunity. Our welfare system is not a museum; since its creation, it has adapted and changed as society has adapted and changed, in recognition of the new challenges we face.
I want to address some of the points that my hon. Friend made. As the Minister for employment, I will say a few words about employment. We know that employment plays a vital role in lifting families out of poverty and in securing better long-term outcomes for children. That is why supporting good work will always be the foundation of our approach, and it is backed by increasing investment for employment support to £3.8 billion by 2028-29, so that people have the help they need to move into and to get on in work. That includes our plans to reform Jobcentre Plus and create a new service across Great Britain that will enable everyone to access good, meaningful work, and support them to progress in work, including through an enhanced focus on skills and careers.
My hon. Friend also talked a little about in-work poverty, and we know that low pay is a key factor. Our plan to make work pay will help more people to stay in work and will improve job security and boost living standards. From April this year, the national living wage will increase to £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over—an increase of £900 a year for a full-time worker on the national living wage.
Access to suitable childcare has for too long been a barrier to progression for many parents. That is why we will invest £9 billion next year in policies such as creating new school-based nurseries and, as I have just said, rolling out free breakfast clubs. A cross-Government review of childcare is also under way, because we recognise that the current system is very complex for parents to navigate.
We also want to go further, so that every parent who can work will be able to enjoy the benefit of rewarding, secure jobs that enable them to support their families. Our ambitious labour market interventions include our inactivity trailblazers in England and Wales, skills bootcamps and the adult skills fund, which will provide a step change in the support that parents receive to help them progress in—as well as move into—work.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
The Carer’s Leave Act 2023, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain), was passed in the last Parliament. At the moment, carers in work are entitled to unpaid leave from work, which helps them to stay in employment. Does the Minister agree that making that leave paid would tackle the much higher levels of poverty among family carers and further help those people, particularly those on lower wages?
Dame Diana Johnson
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point. I will take the opportunity to reflect on what she has said and write to her with a response. I will move on because I have only limited time, and there are quite a few other things I want to say.
My hon. Friend the Member for Poole also referred to welfare reform more generally. I reassure him that the “Pathways to Work” Green Paper builds on the principle that Government should support those who can work to do so, while protecting those who cannot. We have already made significant progress in bringing forward proposals from the Green Paper to transform the support that we offer. We are taking action to get the basics right and improve the experience for people who use the system of health and disability benefits, as set out in the Green Paper.
That includes exploring ways to improve trust and transparency in the personal independence payment and the work capability assessments, by reviewing our approach to safeguarding, recording assessments to increase trust in the process and moving back to more face-to-face assessments, while continuing to meet the needs of people who may require different methods of assessment. Of course, we also have the Timms review under way. As a result of our changes, there will be 50,000 fewer individuals in relative poverty after housing costs in 2029-30. That includes a reduction in poverty for both children and working-age individuals.
I want to mention universal credit and its adequacy, as well as the essentials guarantee that a number of Members have spoken about. We know that people are struggling, and we understand the critical role of universal credit in tackling poverty and maintaining work incentives. Since April 2025, our fair repayment rate has reduced the overall deductions cap from 25% to 15% of a customer’s standard allowance, allowing approximately 1.2 million universal credit households to retain more of their award for essential living costs.
We have also gone further by taking decisive action to address the basic adequacy of the universal credit standard allowance through the first sustained above-inflation rise in the basic rate of universal credit since it was introduced. That change will benefit millions of people when it is introduced in April, while maintaining the right balance between supporting those who need it, incentivising work and providing value for the taxpayer.
My hon. Friend also referred to the benefit cap. Removing the two-child limit is the fastest and most cost-effective way to reduce child poverty and will, on its own, lift 450,000 children out of poverty by the end of this Parliament. However, it is absolutely right that we balance maintaining a strong safety net for those who need it with encouraging personal responsibility and incentivising work wherever possible. Working people are much less likely to be affected by the benefit cap, which we will review at the appropriate time and as determined by the Secretary of State, in line with the statutory obligation to review the levels at least once every five years.
My hon. Friend gave the shocking statistic about a food parcel being handed out every 11 seconds. This Government absolutely agree that the number of people having to rely on food parcels is far too high, which is why we made a manifesto commitment to end mass dependency on emergency food parcels. As I have already said, our child poverty strategy and the crisis and resilience fund, along with renewed funding of £600 million for the holiday activities and food programme, will be a vital contribution to tackling such an important issue.
I am also working closely with the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs on this matter, and will meet with my ministerial counterpart at DEFRA tomorrow to discuss shared priorities. I would also be very happy to meet with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) to discuss the work he is doing. I know he has a long-standing interest in food poverty.
In the few minutes I have left, I will talk about international comparators, particularly around state pensions. It is difficult to make meaningful comparisons between state pension schemes in different countries because there are many fundamental differences in the way they are run and operated. There are many factors to take into account, such as different tax systems, the cost of living, access to occupational pensions, the availability of other social security benefits and the provision of services and goods, either free to pensioners or available at a concessionary rate.
The UK pension system balances sustainability and adequacy with the foundation of a contributory state pension, on which private retirement savings can be built, as well as an income-related safety net for those most in need. Workers can choose to make voluntary contributions to private or occupational pension schemes to increase their retirement income.
Data from the OECD’s “Pensions at a Glance 2025” report shows that the UK’s public expenditure on pensions is lower than the average of other OECD countries. Furthermore, when Full Fact investigated the claim that the UK state pension is the lowest in the EU, it concluded that the comparison is not fair because of the differences between pension systems.
In closing, our manifesto committed to building on the legacy of the last Labour Government, which lifted more than 600,000 children and more than a million pensioners out of poverty. It promised to put good work at the heart of our approach. We are building a welfare system that is much more active in giving people opportunities not just to get by, but to get on in life.
Importantly, we are making sure these reforms are accompanied by our wider efforts to put in place the right opportunities, incentives and support—by creating good jobs, by making work pay, including through our landmark Employment Rights Act 2025, which will benefit more than 15 million people, and by overhauling employment support, so that people get personalised support to overcome the individual barriers they face getting into work. Through all those changes, we can turn the tide on poverty, making a real, lasting difference to people’s lives and building a fairer, more prosperous country.
Question put and agreed to.
Neurodiversity in the Workplace
Diana Johnson Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Dame Diana Johnson)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Sarah Hall) on securing the debate and her powerful and eloquent speech. A number of excellent interventions made important points. I have noted them, even if I do not have the chance to respond to them all.
My hon. Friend has previously spoken about her ADHD diagnosis and her determination to use her platform to make Parliament, and politics more generally, more welcoming for neurodiverse people. I am pleased that she has given us the opportunity to talk about how we can achieve that in other workplaces across the country too. At the moment, only 34% of autistic people, for example, are in any sort of employment, compared with around 55% of disabled people overall. As a country, we can and must do better.
My hon. Friend is living proof that neurodiversity does not have to be a barrier to achievement, but as she has previously highlighted, the right support makes a huge difference, whether in education or the workplace. It is important that good practice becomes standard practice—not only does everyone deserve the chance to fulfil their potential, but a more inclusive labour market is a stronger labour market. I will endeavour to answer her questions, but if I miss anything, I am very happy to write to her with further details.
This January, we launched an independent panel of academics, chosen because of their expertise and lived experience of neurodiversity, to consider why neurodivergent people can have poor experiences in work and a low overall employment rate. I am grateful to the panel for their dedication and the evidence they gathered, which will help us—both the Government and employers—to understand how we can improve the workplace experiences of neurodivergent people. The panel was led by Professor Amanda Kirby, who I am pleased to be meeting tomorrow to discuss her recommendations.
I am also pleased to hear about the excellent work that unions have been undertaking in this area, the GMB and USDAW in particular, to expand the understanding of neurodiversity in the workplace.
Laurence Turner
One problem experienced by neurodivergent workers is that, when reasonable adjustments are put in place, the manager changes and they have to start again. The TUC did some very good work on a reasonable adjustments passport, as did the civil service unions. I encourage all colleagues to look at that work to see if it can be adopted more widely.
Dame Diana Johnson
My hon. Friend speaks with great knowledge of this area. Showing our commitment to raising awareness of neurodiversity, ACAS will be offering free masterclasses to small and medium-sized employers in early 2026, which goes to the point that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made about small businesses being able to access information.
As we all know, ACAS specialises in providing free, impartial advice on workplace rights, rules and best practice. Earlier this year, we worked closely with its campaign to improve understanding and support for neurodivergent workers. The new free masterclasses will go further, helping small and medium-sized employers to build confidence, acknowledge the skills and expertise needed to support neurodivergent employees, and address the challenges those employees can face, such as barriers in recruitment, workplace adjustments and retention.
We are also setting in motion a broader mission to deliver change through the “Keep Britain Working” review, led by Sir Charlie Mayfield, which represents a pivotal moment in our mission to create genuine opportunity for all, fundamentally reshaping how we support people to stay healthy, stay in work and build better futures for themselves and their families.
We know that successful businesses and healthy workers go hand in hand, and the vanguard phase of “Keep Britain Working” is seeking partnership with employers to establish what good looks like. “Keep Britain Working” recommends developing a healthy working life cycle of best practice accompanied by a certified standard. Although it is not condition-specific, it will include best practice for early conversations between employers and employees about specific needs, and supporting all parties to navigate making the best adjustments where reasonable.
We know that supporting employers is central if we are to see real improvement in this area. That is why, in addition to our work with ACAS, we also have a suite of measures in place to support managers. We want to start making changes to ensure that we are maximising the opportunities to create accessible and inclusive workplaces for all.
We continue to oversee the voluntary Disability Confident scheme, which encourages employers to create disability-inclusive workplaces, including for people with hidden disabilities. My colleague the Minister for Social Security and Disability is leading work to strengthen that scheme to help it realise its full potential.
My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South raised Access to Work. We absolutely agree that it needs to work better, and we are doing something about that. We recently concluded the Access to Work collaboration committees, in which we engaged with a range of stakeholders, including representatives of disabled people’s organisations and people with lived experience, to provide discussion, experience and challenge to the design of the future Access to Work scheme. Although the committees have now ended, we will seek opportunities to engage with stakeholders as we move forward with policy development in recognition of the value of their input and experience.
I want to say a few words about the support in place for neurodivergent people who face barriers to getting into work. We know that disabled people and people with health conditions are a very diverse group, so the right work and health support in the right place at the right time is absolutely vital. We therefore have a range of specialist initiatives to support individuals to stay in work and get back into work, including initiatives to join up employment and health systems. They include our new voluntary, locally led supported employment programme for neurodivergent people, the Connect to Work scheme, which has a specialist pathway that is dedicated to supporting those facing particularly complex barriers.
In our jobcentres across England, Scotland and Wales, since August there have been more than 1,000 full-time equivalent Pathways to Work advisers, who provide one-to-one, personalised support to disabled customers and those with health conditions to help them move towards and into work. That intensive support aims to enable disabled people, including neurodivergent people, to gain access to employment, wider skills support and Department for Work and Pensions employment programmes.
My hon. Friend asked about strengthening the Equality Act duty. That is a matter for the Cabinet Office, but I am of course very happy to relay her points to ministerial colleagues.
My hon. Friend also raised diagnosis for neurodivergent people. The Equality Act is clear that an employee does not need a diagnosis to meet the definition of disability. Our digital support with employee health and disability service helps employers to understand these legal obligations. It includes guidance on making reasonable adjustments, and links to other helpful services and sources of guidance. It also includes questions of disclosure, equipping employers to feel confident in having conversations to better understand their employees’ needs.
We are deeply concerned that many adults, young people and children with mental health conditions, ADHD and autism have been let down by services and are not receiving timely or appropriate support and treatment. I am therefore very pleased to welcome the independent review, launched by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on 4 December, into prevalence and support for mental health conditions, ADHD and autism.
My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South also asked about neurodiversity in the public sector. I absolutely agree that the public sector should lead the way in raising awareness of neurodiversity. I am pleased to say that more than 700 public sector organisations are signed up to the Disability Confident scheme, and that all main ministerial Departments have achieved Disability Confident leader status at level 3. We are also committed to ensuring that our frontline staff have the skills and awareness to support neurodivergent people appropriately. There is a range of other commitments in place, and I am happy to write to my hon. Friend about them.
My hon. Friend raised workforce data. Our main source of data is the annual population survey, which does not contain detailed breakdowns of neurodivergent conditions beyond autism and learning difficulties, so we have limited data on employment outcomes for specific neurodivergent conditions. I will write to my hon. Friend with further details about that.
On self-advocacy, my hon. Friend will be pleased to know that the new independent disability advisory panel will provide that lived experience and make sure that policies take it into account. Zara Todd was appointed the chair of the panel in August. I am keen to show that this Government are taking action. We hear what people are saying about the need to address the particular concerns of neurodivergent people.
Finally, I wish all hon. Members and House staff a very merry Christmas.
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).
Work and Pensions
Diana Johnson Excerpts(1 month, 4 weeks ago)
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Mr Joshua Reynolds (Maidenhead) (LD)
It took the Government a year and a half to confirm that they were going to scrap the two-child benefit cap. What estimate has the Minister made of the number of children who, during that time, were unnecessarily kept in poverty because of it?
Dame Diana Johnson
…The statistic the hon. Gentleman perhaps wants me to give is that I understand 100 children a week were pushed into child poverty through the two-child limit that the previous Government introduced in 2017.
[Official Report, 8 December 2025; Vol. 777, c. 9.]
Written correction submitted by the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson):
Dame Diana Johnson
…The statistic the hon. Gentleman perhaps wants me to give is that I understand 100 children a day were pushed into child poverty through the two-child limit that the previous Government introduced in 2017.
Oral Answers to Questions
Diana Johnson Excerpts(2 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Dame Diana Johnson)
I am sure that the hon. Lady will be pleased to know that more than 329,000 more people are in work this year. The economically active working-age population has reached a record high of 34.3 million. However, the unemployment level has increased by 282,000 over the year. These figures show why we must continue supporting people into work with our Get Britain Working plan, which includes creating a new jobs and careers service, tackling economic inactivity due to ill health and delivering our youth guarantee.
Harriet Cross
As I am sure the Minister and the rest of the Front-Bench team know, we are seeing huge redundancies and mass unemployment within the oil and gas sector increasing every week. When did any of the Front-Bench DWP team last meet the oil and gas sector to discuss that?
Dame Diana Johnson
The hon. Lady might not know this, but I joined the team in September, so I will have to find out. I am happy to write to her about when the last meeting in that area took place.
Peter Fortune
I recently heard from Bill Perera, who runs a franchise of McDonald’s in my constituency of Bromley and Biggin Hill. He runs nine restaurants and employs nearly 800 people, 70% of whom are aged 16 to 24. He wants to increase this pathway and opportunity into employment for young people, but he is finding it increasingly difficult, because of the increased national insurance contributions. Does the Minister agree that one way to reduce unemployment would be to reverse this disastrous policy?
Dame Diana Johnson
The hon. Gentleman will know that, for under-21s, there are no national insurance contributions that are payable by an employer. I fully recognise that McDonald’s provides good-quality work for young people and is often their entry into the workplace. I am keen to work alongside employers. That is why we are looking at the jobs and careers service and how best we can engage with employers to ensure that they have a pipeline of young people who are ready to work and can get into those jobs, which is what the gentleman at McDonald’s to whom the hon. Gentleman has just referred is looking for.
Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)
I welcome the Government’s £820 million investment to help young people into work. In Dudley, one in five school leavers—the highest proportion in the country—are not in education, employment or training. Will the Minister guarantee that this funding prioritises areas with the greatest need, including Dudley? Will she commit to visiting my constituency?
Dame Diana Johnson
I welcome my hon. Friend’s question. The growth in the number of NEETs over time is absolutely a matter of inequality. The previous Government failed to tackle this issue and the numbers went up and up. This Government are going to do something, because it is about opportunity for young people and our economic future. We cannot have nearly a million young people not in education, employment or training.
Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)
Since the general election, the number of people claiming universal credit in my constituency has fallen by 7.3%. Does the Minister agree that central to this Government’s mission of getting people back into work is that it must reach every part of the country, including those areas that have been let down for far too long?
Dame Diana Johnson
My hon. Friend is exactly right. At the mayors council on Thursday, we were discussing this very point about ensuring that all parts of the country benefit from employment opportunities for their local people.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
I was sorry that the Secretary of State could not answer the question from my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool) earlier. Fortunately, there are people who can help. For instance, UKHospitality has told us that 100,000 people will lose their jobs because of the Budget. That is on top of the 150,000 jobs already lost since Labour came to power. At this rate, there will be queues forming outside jobcentres. Can she tell me what preparations the Government are making to cope with the influx of benefit claimants from all these job losses?
Dame Diana Johnson
May I just say gently to the shadow Secretary of State that she seems to be suffering from amnesia? We know that in the last four years of the previous Government, the number of NEETs increased by 50%. This is the Government who are going to do something about NEETs. We have our youth guarantee and our commitment to a subsidised job opportunity for those who have been out of work for 18 months or more. This is the Government who will tackle the NEETs problem.
Helen Whately
Businesses are cutting jobs at the fastest rate since the pandemic and unemployment has gone up every month under this Government, but clearly they are not ready to deal with the consequences. The number of jobcentre work coaches has actually fallen since they took over. No doubt the Minister will proudly tell us that they have just announced millions of pounds of spending on Government-created jobs for young people, but may I ask her to reflect for a moment? After hiking taxes on businesses so that they cannot afford to employ young people, the Government are spending a load of that tax on state-subsidised jobs for the same young people. Some are calling this the economics of the madhouse, but I simply call it Labour economics. Does the Minister not agree that the Government should get out of the way and reduce the burden on businesses so that they can create jobs, opportunities and economic growth?
Dame Diana Johnson
Of course we want employers and businesses to create jobs, but let me reiterate—as I am not sure that the shadow Secretary of State heard my earlier answer—that for the under-21s, no national insurance contributions are payable by an employer. Let me also refer her to my first answer and repeat that more than 329,000 more people are in work this year.
Emma Foody (Cramlington and Killingworth) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Dame Diana Johnson)
At the autumn Budget we built on the substantial action that we have already taken to tackle child poverty and announced the removal of the two-child limit, which will lift 450,000 children out of poverty by 2029-30. That rises to 550,000 alongside other measures, such as the expansion of free school meals set out in our child poverty strategy, which was published on Friday. The Secretary of State for Education will be making an oral statement on the child poverty strategy this afternoon.
Steve Race
I recently held roundtables with Exeter residents to discuss child poverty, which in some of our neighbourhoods runs as high as 30%. All the evidence suggests that ingrained poverty cuts across a wide range of policy areas, so I was delighted by the publication of the child poverty strategy and the introduction of the new measure of deep material poverty. Could the Minister set out what this will mean for integrated policy development across Government, so that we can end child poverty for good?
Dame Diana Johnson
May I commend my hon. Friend for his interest in this area? Deep material poverty is where families lack basic essentials, such as a warm home and healthy food. Families who cannot afford four or more of the 13 essential items are judged to be in deep material poverty, and 2 million children are in deep material poverty today. Over the course of the 10-year strategy, the items and thresholds that have been identified will not change, but they will enable us to use a broader set of measures when assessing our success in tackling child poverty.
Emma Foody
Child poverty in the north-east reached shameful levels under the previous Conservative Government, damaging the life chances of children and young people. As the Minister has set out, this Government are turning the tide with not only the removal of the two-child cap, but the expansion of free school meals and the introduction of breakfast clubs, lifting 550,000 children out of poverty. Can she set out how the child poverty taskforce will work with the north-east’s child poverty reduction unit to ensure that we can go even further in the north-east?
Dame Diana Johnson
Again, I thank my hon. Friend for her interest in this area. On Thursday I spoke to the North East Mayor, Kim McGuiness, at the North East combined authority about the excellent work that she is already undertaking through the child poverty reduction unit that she has created. Now that the strategy has been published, we will continue to work with mayors and local authorities, the public and private sectors, and civil society through a dedicated team in Government, with strong ministerial oversight, to deliver on tackling child poverty across the whole United Kingdom.
Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)
One thing that really concerns me is that I have met a number of parents who have had to leave work because of the unmet need of their children with special educational needs and disabilities. Children who are already really vulnerable are ending up being forced into poverty because there is not the support from schools and local authorities. What conversations has the Minister had about assessing the impact of SEND and how that leads to the unemployment of parents?
Dame Diana Johnson
That is obviously a very important question, and the Government are looking at the whole issue of SEND. I have been in the House long enough to know that the regime currently operating, which is not working for parents and children, was introduced by the previous Government—if I recall correctly, it was the Conservative Government rather than the coalition one—and we clearly need to look at how we can have a system that works, that supports families and children, and that helps parents get back into work.
Mr Joshua Reynolds (Maidenhead) (LD)
It took the Government a year and a half to confirm that they were going to scrap the two-child benefit cap. What estimate has the Minister made of the number of children who, during that time, were unnecessarily kept in poverty because of it?
Dame Diana Johnson
I think it is absolutely right and proper that this Government have the child poverty taskforce to look at not just the issue of the two-child limit, which is obviously very important, but all the other measures we need to have in place to support families. As the Employment Minister, I am particularly pleased that we have measures in the strategy to help parents into work—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Sorry about this. I do not want a complete conversation to be going on across the Chair. Mr Jopp, you are better than that. Being a Whip, you know that you are meant to set an example, not the opposite.
Dame Diana Johnson
I was saying that it is important that there are measures in the child poverty strategy to help with childcare in particular. It is not just that; we have free school meals and the breakfast clubs. There are also the issues of temporary accommodation. The statistic the hon. Gentleman perhaps wants me to give is that I understand 100 children a week were pushed into child poverty through the two-child limit that the previous Government introduced in 2017.
Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Ind)
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Dame Diana Johnson)
I thank the hon. Lady for her question; it is one that, like her, I take a deep interest in. Work coaches in jobcentres are trained to recognise a wide range of risks. If they identify safeguarding concerns, including a risk of commercial sexual exploitation, action is taken to escalate them to the appropriate agencies. The DWP does not accept jobs relating to sexual services, or those seeking employees for jobs of a sexual nature.
Rosie Duffield
Commercial sexual exploitation is the exchange of money, goods or services in return for sex acts. It is a form of violence against women. Inquiries by the all-party parliamentary group on commercial sexual exploitation have revealed that it is now taking place on an industrial scale. With the growth and mainstreaming of sites such as OnlyFans and online brothels such as Vivastreet, does the Minister agree that we should urgently outlaw pimping websites and force all pornography websites to verify the age and ongoing consent of everyone featured on their platform, as is proposed in amendments tabled to the Crime and Policing Bill?
Dame Diana Johnson
I thank the hon. Lady for her supplementary question. She will appreciate that she is raising a number of issues that are outside my role as Employment Minister, but I will certainly raise them with my ministerial colleagues in the relevant Departments. She may, however, be interested in today’s written ministerial statement on safeguarding in the DWP for vulnerable claimants, which sets out the work that is already under way to deliver in this important area.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Dame Diana Johnson)
I thank the hon. Lady for her very important question. The Government are committed to supporting those with mental health conditions, alongside those with other long-term health conditions and disabilities, into work. More disabled people and people with health conditions will be supported to enter and stay in work through our Pathways to Work guarantee and our Connect to Work supported employment programme.
Monica Harding
As is the case throughout the country, young constituents in Esher and Walton are out of work due to mental health conditions. I welcome departmental initiatives such as the disability employment advisers and cross-Government work through the joint work and health directorate and WorkWell. However, fragile mental health can be picked up on and supported earlier in school and may be a result of poorly identified special education needs—an area that we know is at breaking point—and the current state of mental health waiting lists; in Esher and Walton, for instance, the average wait for under-18s is 184 days. What current learnings from the Department for Work and Pensions are being fed back into the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that the next cohort is ready for work?
Dame Diana Johnson
The hon. Lady knows that there are already resources going into schools to provide mental health support to children and young people early on. There is also additional money going in through the Government’s investment into the NHS, which will include mental health services.
I am pleased that the hon. Lady highlighted the range of options available to people with mental health conditions, because we know that those people are very diverse and that there is no one thing that will support them into work and keep them in work. As she said, we have work coaches, Pathways to Work advisers, Connect to Work, and employment advisers in NHS talking therapies. There is a whole range of options to ensure that we get people with mental health conditions into work and keep them there.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
What conversations has the Department had with the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that the 10-year plan tackles the root causes of mental ill health? My constituents in Harlow tell me that they get mental health support only when they are really facing crisis, and by the time they have got to that crisis point, they have already given up work and training.
Dame Diana Johnson
My hon. Friend raises an important point. We know that 6,700 workers in the NHS are already providing that additional mental health support and, as I have said, work is going on in schools as well, recognising that early intervention is so important. I have also had meetings with the DHSC, particularly to look at how the two Departments can work together to ensure that we are providing wraparound care to people in work. This is happening alongside the Charlie Mayfield review “Keep Britain Working”, because we know that people may develop mental health conditions during the course of their life in employment, and we want to ensure that they stay in employment with the right support wrapped around them.
Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham Erdington) (Lab)
Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Dame Diana Johnson)
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. The transformation of our jobs and career service will provide wraparound support to individuals who are looking for work or career development. We want to change the feel of jobcentres so that they are about supporting people, rather than having people go in just to comply with benefit conditions.
Yuan Yang (Earley and Woodley) (Lab)
Dame Diana Johnson
I absolutely agree. We all know that child poverty stifles opportunity, making it harder for children to succeed and get on in life. Nearly 1 million young people aged 16 to 24 are not in education, employment or training. We need to break that cycle, and we will do so through the child poverty strategy.
Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)
Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)
Some 1,750 kids in Falkirk, most of whom have a parent in work, will be lifted from poverty and its lifelong economic consequences by the fully funded lifting of the two-child cap. Does the Minister agree that the cost of this poverty-alleviation policy is far less than the long-term cost of leaving those parents in poverty?
Dame Diana Johnson
I agree with my hon. Friend. It is shocking that during the previous Government some 900,000 children were allowed to get into poverty. The cost of that will be borne by us all, which is why the investment now will pay dividends in the future.
Chris Law (Dundee Central) (SNP)
Since Maximus began the contract to provide work capability assessments in September last year, nearly 1,000 people have had their assessment appointments cancelled. However, a whistleblower has been in touch with me to state that cancellations are a regular occurrence largely because of IT services provided by the DWP. Shockingly, one of my constituents had their assessment cancelled five times in my city of Dundee. What action is the Minister taking to monitor and improve the service provided by Maximus so that no one has to suffer the distress of such cancellations?
Autistic Adults: Employment
Diana Johnson Excerpts(2 months, 4 weeks ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Dame Diana Johnson)
As a fellow Hull MP, it is a real pleasure to serve under you today, Mr Turner.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) on securing this important debate. I thank her and all hon. Members who have spoken or intervened for their thoughtful contributions, and of course I also welcome her constituents who are with us today in the Public Gallery.
The hon. Lady made a very powerful case, talking about how a one-size-fits-all approach does not work. She referred to some of her constituents, Bradley, who is volunteering but rightly wants paid work, and Katie, who has to navigate a system that is supposed to help her, but has found that sadly it did not help her at all.
We also heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mike Reader) about Workbridge. I was really disappointed to hear what he said, and of course I will meet him to discuss what, if anything, I can do to assist. However, we also heard about the very positive example of Nordis Signs, which has been providing careers for people for more than 30 years in some cases. That is excellent.
The hon. Member for Leicester South (Shockat Adam) spoke about the need for businesses to be supported in working with and employing autistic people or other neurodiverse people, and how important that is. The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Tom Gordon), who spoke for the Liberal Democrats, talked about the importance of getting SEND issues right, and I absolutely agree with him on that. He also talked about Access to Work, which I will make some comments about in a moment.
The hon. Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith) spoke for the Conservative party and it was really good to hear from her about Alistair—it is excellent that he now has paid work. However, she was perhaps wearing rose-tinted spectacles when she described what had happened for 14 years under the previous Government and what they had actually achieved.
As the Minister with responsibility for employment, every day I see how good work can transform people’s lives. It gives people purpose, independence, pride and, crucially, a sense of belonging. We have been really clear that we want to achieve an overall 80% employment rate and that that is the key to delivering economic growth and prosperity for all of citizens. To achieve that ambition, we must address low employment rates for disabled people and people with health conditions. Until we do so, disabled people who wish to work will be denied the opportunities to participate fully in society. That has to change.
If we look more closely at the employment prospects of neurodivergent people, the picture worsens. For example, only 34% of autistic people are in any sort of employment, compared with around 55% of disabled people overall. We need to understand the workplace barriers that neurodivergent people face, and the support that employers require to create workplaces that are inclusive for neurodivergent people.
We need to do all this for those people who are currently being denied the opportunity to work and to enjoy all the benefits that we know work can bring. As has been said, there are benefits for employers, who are missing out on a significant source of talent at a time when there are over 700,000 vacancies in the United Kingdom, and there are benefits for our economy, because a more inclusive labour market, with more people in good work, is vital to delivering this Government’s No.1 mission, which is growth.
The hon. Member for Hazel Grove referred to the case of Tom Boyd, which has received quite a lot of media attention and coverage. I will say again that people such as Tom are vital to the UK’s workforce, and volunteering can play a vital role in preparing people for work. I imagine that Waitrose is regretting the way it handled the situation with Tom, and I hope it might consider progressing on its Disability Confident journey, which I will talk about in a moment. It is important to recognise the valuable role of volunteering, and how it can play an important part in getting people ready for paid work, but that should not be at the expense of finding sustainable paid employment for everyone who wants to work. I hope that is something that Waitrose, and all employers, will reflect on.
We want to ensure that neurodivergent people, disabled people and those with long-term health conditions are fully considered and supported to participate and remain in secure, sustained paid employment. That is why we are providing £1 billion to fund the voluntary supported employment programme, Connect to Work, across England and Wales. That will assist up to 300,000 people by the end of this decade. The programme follows internationally recognised evidence to deliver holistic, personalised employment support to disabled people, those with health conditions and others with complex barriers to work. It also works with employers to support participants once they are in work.
At this point, I should also mention that last week I had the great pleasure of meeting Laura Davis from the British Association for Supported Employment. We had a really interesting discussion about the diverse needs of neurodivergent people and the importance of the personalised, inclusive approach that Connect to Work can provide.
On the current offer from the DWP to employers—which I know hon. Members are particularly concerned about —we already have a digital information service that guides employers through workplace scenarios, including supporting neurodivergent employees or employees with learning disabilities. In addition, the DWP oversees the voluntary Disability Confident scheme, which I just referred to in relation to Waitrose. That encourages employers to create disability-inclusive workplaces and to support disabled people to get work and to get on in work. However, we know that there is much more to do, and the DWP is actively engaging with stakeholders to look at how we can best strengthen that scheme.
Some employers are already doing well. Microsoft has a neurodiversity hiring programme, making adjustments to its recruitment processes to be more accessible for neurodivergent people. GCHQ has not only adjusted its recruitment processes, but made specific adjustments in the workplace to help neurodiverse people to thrive. As a Government, we want that to become the norm, not just an example of good practice.
That is why in January this year, we put in place an independent panel of academics with expertise and lived experience of neurodiversity. The panel, led by leading academic expert Professor Amanda Kirby, has been reviewing the existing evidence on neurodiversity in the workplace to consider why neurodivergent people have poor experiences and a low overall employment rate. Part of its work has focused on how employers can better support neurodivergent people in the workplace.
Several hon. Members have referred to the Buckland review. The independent Buckland review on autism employment reported to the previous Government, as we have heard, in February 2024. I agree that it was a valuable piece of work, and my predecessor and the Minister for Social Security and Disability met Sir Robert Buckland last autumn to discuss its findings and to outline our plans to raise awareness of all forms of neurodiversity.
I am really pleased that we have now received the independent expert panel’s findings and recommendations, which we want to consider alongside the Keep Britain Working review. That review, which came out last week and was led by Sir Charlie Mayfield, represents a pivotal moment in our mission to create genuine opportunity for all—fundamentally reshaping how we support people to stay healthy, stay in work and build better futures for themselves and their families. It is about creating a system with greater clarity and support, and where employers feel confident and empowered to act to support their employees to deliver greater productivity. It is also about helping more people to stay and thrive in work throughout their working lives, whatever health conditions or disabilities they may face. We want to work in partnership with employers to create workplaces that support health and wellbeing. We all know that successful businesses and healthy workers go hand in hand.
The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough, who speaks for the Liberal Democrats, talked at length about Access to Work. That scheme currently supports thousands of disabled people, including people who may have hidden disabilities, to start or stay in work. I do not accept the picture that the hon. Member painted. I do accept that the scheme needs to be looked at, and we have been working directly with disabled people and the organisations that represent them to make improvements to it. I hope to be able to report back on that in due course.
I will seek your guidance, Mr Turner, because I have been speaking for more than 10 minutes now. Is it the case that there is no time limit because we can sit until 6 pm?
Dame Diana Johnson
Then I will carry on, because there are a few other issues that it might be helpful for hon. Members to be aware of.
Since August this year, there have been the full-time equivalent of more than 1,000 Pathways to Work advisers in our jobcentres across England, Scotland and Wales. I wanted to highlight that because the DWP and Jobcentre Plus committed to making sure that the personalised work advice that we talked about earlier is available to individuals. We also have 700 disability employment advisers and 90 disability employment adviser leaders supporting work coaches, or customers directly, to deliver that holistic and tailored support.
Rebecca Smith
I seek clarification on those numbers. When I have heard them in the main Chamber during questions and statements, I have wondered whether those people are new members of staff or existing members of staff who have moved into a slightly different role. When we say that there are 1,000—or the other numbers that the Minister has just read out—are they brand-new members of staff, who previously did not work for the DWP, or are they members of staff who have changed jobs?
Dame Diana Johnson
I am happy to provide the hon. Lady with the details about that, but what is happening is that we are realigning the needs of individuals who come to jobcentres to ensure that they get a much more personalised, tailored approach. That is why the work that people do has shifted around. Some of those posts will of course be new, but other people will have been moved in. I am happy to get the details of that, but I want to recognise how important it is to have that personalised approach and specialist support.
We are going further by reforming, as I said, the employment support service into the new jobs and careers service, with much more personalised support. We have a pathfinder in Wakefield that is testing what that personalised offer would look like. Of course, the findings from the academic panel that I talked about will be a valuable addition to the evidence base available when we are looking at how we reshape the jobs and careers service for people whom we want to ensure get the support that they need.
I want to make some comments about young people, because we know that tailored support is equally important for them. Almost 1 million young people are not in education, work or training—that is more than one in eight of all young people in this country—and we expect that a significant number of those young people may be neurodivergent.
It is important that there is an effective careers education approach and programme during school and college for all young people, including those who are neurodivergent. That should particularly ensure that autistic young people gain the necessary employability skills and learn about themselves, while accessing tailored opportunities to prepare for adulthood and move into the workplace. Some excellent work is already going on in some of our special schools. In my constituency, Northcott in Hull North is an outstanding special school and does amazing work with young people in Hull and the East Riding.
We are testing and delivering eight youth guarantee trailblazers around the country for localised, tailored support for 18 to 21-year-olds. They will have the flexibility to tailor support and interventions to meet the specific needs and address the barriers faced by young people in those areas. The Chancellor announced that every eligible young person who has been on universal credit for 18 months without earning or learning will be offered guaranteed paid work. That forms part of the Government’s youth guarantee, and further details will be announced in the Budget.
To conclude, I hope I have made the case that getting more autistic adults into work is the right thing to do economically in reducing the disability employment gap and helping us to meet our long-term ambition for an 80% employment rate. Fulfilling that ambition would be a major driver for economic growth, but of course it is also the moral and right thing to do. We should never lose sight of how much this matters to every single neurodivergent person who is denied the opportunity to fulfil their potential. We all want that chance in life, and that is no different for neurodivergent people.
We have a huge challenge on our hands, but it is a great opportunity. By pressing on with the work we have begun—and by working with employers and autistic people—I have every faith we will be able to grasp it.
I will also add that many of the 1,000 individuals who I talked about earlier in my speech are existing staff but there will be additional funding to create new roles, so it will be a combination of both. The key thing is those staff are offering personalised support to groups for whom the one-size-fits-all approach of the past that I referenced at the beginning did not work.
Work and Pensions
Diana Johnson Excerpts(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Dame Diana Johnson
… I am pleased that my first debate in Parliament as the new Minister for employment is about menopause. Women make up 51% of the workplace, and every woman will go through menopause.
[Official Report, 16 October 2025; Vol. 773, c. 219WH.]
Written correction submitted by the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson):
Dame Diana Johnson
… I am pleased that my first debate in Parliament as the new Minister for employment is about menopause. Women make up 48% of the workplace, and every woman will go through menopause.
World Menopause Day
Diana Johnson Excerpts(3 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Dame Diana Johnson)
Let me start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Neath and Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) on securing this important debate from the Backbench Business Committee, and on her passionate and exceptional speech. I thank her for her tireless work in raising awareness of this issue over many years, and, in particular, her leadership of the APPG on menopause, which has been instrumental in making some of the changes we have seen in support for women going through menopause over the last few years.
[Gill Furniss in the Chair]
My hon. Friend the Member for Neath and Swansea East gave an interview a few years back in which she described being sent out of the room as her mother and her aunties discussed “the change”. We can all reflect on that and think, “Well yes, a small child being sent out of the room,” but what I found interesting was that my hon. Friend was actually 36 years of age!
It is fair to say that this House has not been much better in dealing with the menopause. The term menopause was coined in 1821, but a quick scan of Hansard shows that it was 1964 before it was first mentioned in the House of Commons. We had literally sent a man to space before we had started to talk about the menopause in this, the mother of Parliaments. On that occasion, the hon. Member for Willesden West argued that women could not bear the extra mental strain of giving up smoking
“with all the other changes going on”.—[Official Report, 12 February 1964; Vol. 689, c. 513.]
That was the level of the debate back in 1964. Thankfully, things have changed considerably since then, and that is due in no small part to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Neath and Swansea East.
We have heard many passionate speeches in this debate. I will follow my hon. Friend’s use of the word flush by saying that a flush of MPs have made speeches this afternoon. In particular, the hon. Member for Frome and East Somerset (Anna Sabine) talked about the role of good information and not having to rely on Google. My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns) talked about an awful, painful experience at work but also referred to Cumbria Radical Birds, which I would love to hear more about.
As ever, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made a very thoughtful contribution. I was pleased to hear about Sandra, his wife—I had not heard about her before—as well as about his role as an employer and the support he gives to the women who work in his office.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) said at the outset that his mum had taught him well, and from what he said today, she absolutely did. He gave a shout-out to Viv Galpin and Beat the Pause. I was also interested in the Kickass Menopause Event that is going to be held.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bathgate and Linlithgow (Kirsteen Sullivan) spoke about the need to join the dots—that is vital—and said that every woman deserves to be seen, heard and supported through this transition in their lives. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare (Gerald Jones) talked interestingly about the menopause bingo event that he went along to, and my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Mrs Brackenridge) talked about early medical menopause in particular.
The Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), made a very personal speech, with which many of us can identify. The Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), has a medical background and spoke with her usual thoroughness, but I have to say that some of her comments about the role of the previous Government and what they achieved were rather rose-tinted.
I am pleased that my first debate in Parliament as the new Minister for employment is about menopause. Women make up 51% of the workplace, and every woman will go through menopause. This Saturday’s World Menopause Day throws a spotlight on the challenges faced by women and the support they need and deserve. It reminds us of the need to keep raising awareness among women and men, and challenging taboos about this very natural stage of a woman’s life, so that everyone can access the help they need.
Let me underline some facts. Each year, around 400,000 women in the United Kingdom will enter menopause, and around three quarters of them will experience symptoms—that is more than the population of my home city of Hull, each and every year. Symptoms can last for years, with one in three women’s symptoms lasting for more than seven years. For one in four women, the impact can be severe, touching on every area of life, both at home and at work.
This is an issue for every one of us. When women have their symptoms minimised or cannot get the treatment they need, it is a fairness issue. It is also an economic issue: the cost to the UK economy from menopause—from sick days, lost productivity or women leaving work entirely—is estimated at £1.7 billion each year. The loss of women and their knowledge, skills and experience from the workplace is certainly not something that I am willing to tolerate.
We have heard much about the new mega-survey from Menopause Mandate, which I had the pleasure of meeting earlier this week. It reveals that more than three quarters of women going through menopause say that they have been impacted by symptoms at work, and that four in 10 even considered quitting or changing their jobs as a result, yet only one in three women—35%—say that their workplace has a menopause policy.
We need to build understanding across women and men so that everyone has the knowledge to provide the support that is required. When workplaces fail to support women, and when they lose out on women’s unique skills and experience, our whole economy suffers. I want to move on to what we are going to do to change that.
Anna Sabine
It seems to me that an awful lot of what we have talked about today—the impact on women, particularly in the workplace—would also apply to periods, so I wonder whether the Department of Health and Social Care might think about employers considering periods as well.
Dame Diana Johnson
I am not a Health Minister, but a Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions. I take the point, however, and I will raise it with my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care. I will also raise the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Neath and Swansea East highlighted about looking at the health of women throughout their whole career in employment, including when women have children and when they are pregnant, and how we can best fit that together. That is a very important point that I will take forward.
I want to go through a few of the things that I think it is important to refer to today. Our Employment Rights Bill marks the biggest update in employment rights for a generation. For the first time, employers with more than 250 staff will have to produce menopause action plans setting out exactly how they will support women going through the menopause. The action plans will be published, so that employers can be held to account for the actions that they take. Our experience with gender pay gap reporting shows that such things are not just treated as formalities. They have the power to drive businesses’ behaviour and bring about real change. Menopause Friendly UK has said that the provisions mark “real progress” and are a
“sign that menopause in the workplace is finally being recognised as the serious issue it is.”
It is really good to hear about the work that employers such as Tesco and trade unions such as USDAW and the GMB are already doing.
Smaller employers, which some Members are concerned about, will be given guidance on how to help women experiencing the menopause, from changing the office temperature—Westminster Hall today has certainly had the thermostat set at menopause temperature—to providing fans, making changes to uniforms, allowing regular breaks and flexible working. I also take the point about the need to evaluate the policy.
Secondly, on the last World Menopause Day almost a year ago, the Government appointed Mariella Frostrup, the broadcaster, women’s rights campaigner and menopause champion, as the Government menopause employment ambassador. Her role is to work with employers nationwide to raise awareness of menopause in the workplace and improve workplace support. She has been hard at work and has already engaged with over 300 employers to raise awareness. In April, she chaired the first meeting of the independent menopause advisory group, bringing together some amazing expertise from leaders across a range of sectors, including business, media, energy, education and the law. They will draw on their real and vast experience to create practical advice on supporting women going through menopause in the workplace. As Mariella said at the time, midlife is a time when women are often balancing many other responsibilities. It is only right that they are supported themselves when they are in work. I very much look forward to working with Mariella and to meeting her soon.
Thirdly, I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Neath and Swansea East said about the need for support for women in the workplace, which will be key to helping them stay in work and thrive, or return to work and thrive. Good occupational health can be a route to achieving that. However, we need to improve the scope, coverage and quality of the support offered for all in the workplace. That is why the Government commissioned the Keep Britain Working review, led by Sir Charlie Mayfield, which is exploring the employer’s role in creating healthy and inclusive workplaces, and the support that can help them achieve this. We look forward to receiving his recommendations from the review shortly. I am pleased to note that Sir Charlie spoke to Mariella and received input on the importance of considering women’s health during the engagement for that review.
Many hon. Members raised issues relating to healthcare and support, so I want to refer to some of the work going on across Government, both in health and in education. We are updating the 2022 women’s health strategy to assess the progress that has been made and to continue delivering for women. Where shortages in vital hormone replacement therapy products have occurred, we have worked extensively with suppliers to expedite deliveries and resolve supply issues, and we have issued management guidance for healthcare professionals and serious shortage protocols to make sure that patients can get alternatives quickly and easily without needing to get a new prescription.
In November last year, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published updated guidelines on the menopause. NHS England has created a menopause self-care fact sheet, and the General Medical Council has introduced the medical licensing assessment for all doctors starting work in the UK, which includes knowledge of the menopause and building better understanding in new doctors and the profession at large.
In education, we know that taboos and stigma will end only with greater understanding. That is why the Department for Education’s revised statutory guidance, released on 15 July, on relationships, sex and health education emphasises the need for all primary and secondary pupils to have a full understanding of women’s health, including menopause.
I see that you are giving me a look, Ms Furniss. Do you want me to conclude?
Dame Diana Johnson
Okay. Although the action that the Government are taking, and the work of so many—not least my hon. Friend the Member for Neath and Swansea East—show our commitment to this issue, we are also making huge strides in society in our understanding and acceptance of the menopause. That, in turn, will make a real difference to the lives of many women. But we cannot stop here while so many women still need support.
I want to finish with Mary Wollstonecraft’s famous words:
“The beginning is always today.”
There is more to do, and we will continue to work to make sure women have that support.
Women’s State Pension Age
Diana Johnson Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Mel Stride
With great respect to the right hon. Gentleman, that is just another version of the same question about timing, and I have given a very clear answer on that.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I have heard many Ministers say from the Dispatch Box that they are working at pace, or that there will be no undue delay in dealing with scandals. This is a real opportunity for Parliament. The ombudsman laid this report before Parliament for a very good reason: he did not think that the Department for Work and Pensions would accept the recommendations on maladministration. If a Back Bencher tabled an amendment to a Government Bill that sought to implement the ombudsman’s recommendations, the Government would support it, wouldn’t they?
Mel Stride
It would be a little bit of a stretch to comment on, let alone support, an unknown amendment to an unknown Bill.