Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress has been made on the roll out of universal credit in Wolverhampton North East.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The Department rolled out Universal Credit for Wolverhampton Jobcentre Plus in December 2017. To ensure safe and secure delivery of Universal Credit to larger Jobcentre Plus offices, the Department rolls out to 50% of the postcodes at the announced go live date, with the remaining postcodes rolled out approximately three months later. In Wolverhampton’s case this will happen later this month.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment her Department has made of the level of child poverty in Wolverhampton North East constituency using the four measures of poverty under the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
This Government is committed to action that improves long-term outcomes for children and families by focusing on tackling the root causes of poverty and disadvantage. The four ‘Life Chances’ measures introduced through the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016, which replaced the income based targets set out in the Child Poverty Act 2010, are designed to drive action and measure progress in the areas that we know can make the biggest difference - parental worklessness and children’s educational achievement.
The measures are based on official statistics produced by the Office for National Statistics on the proportion of children in workless households and the proportion of children in long-term workless households; and on Department for Education statistics on the educational attainment at Key Stage 4 of all pupils, and of disadvantaged pupils.
Although these statistics do not all provide data for individual constituencies, local authority-level data is available for the measure of all children in workless households and for both the educational attainment measures.
In 2016, 21.4 per cent of children were in workless households in Wolverhampton local authority. This compares to 27.2 per cent in 2010.
Source:
In 2017, pupils sat reformed GCSEs in English language, English literature and maths for the first time, graded on a 9 to 1 scale. 35.6 per cent of all pupils and 22.8 per cent of disadvantaged pupils in the Wolverhampton local authority area achieved 9-5 in English and maths.
GCSE outcomes by constituency are available for all pupils but not broken down by disadvantaged pupils. In 2017, 28.3 per cent of all pupils in the Wolverhampton North East constituency achieved 9-5 in English and maths.
Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/revised-gcse-and-equivalent-results-in-england-2016-to-2017
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate his Department has made of the number of people in Wolverhampton who will (a) receive universal credit, (b) qualify for an advanced payment of that benefit and (c) qualify for the maximum advance payment allowed of that benefit in its first year of roll-out.
Answered by Damian Hinds
Forecasts for Universal Credit below national level are not available.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what extra resources his Department plans to provide to Wolverhampton Molineux House Jobcentre Plus to enable it better to support people claiming universal credit.
Answered by Damian Hinds
I refer the Member to the answer I gave in response to PQ 107132 on 26 October 2017.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of whether Wolverhampton Molineux House Jobcentre Plus requires extra staff to deal with the roll-out of universal credit.
Answered by Damian Hinds
I refer the Member to the answer I gave in response to PQ 107132 on 26 October 2017.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate his Department has made of the number of people in Wolverhampton North East constituency who will qualify for universal credit after the roll-out is complete.
Answered by Damian Hinds
We do not hold this information as we do not break it down by area.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress the Government has made in reducing long-term unemployment in areas of high unemployment in the last 12 months.
Answered by Damian Hinds
According to the Office for National Statistics’ Labour Force Survey, long-term unemployment has fallen nationally by 86,000 (17.5%) over the past 12 months. Equivalent figures are not available below national level due to the limitations of the sample size of the ONS survey.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the reasons for long-term unemployment in Wolverhampton North East constituency.
Answered by Damian Hinds
According to the Office for National Statistics, long-term unemployment has fallen nationally by 384,000 since 2010. Equivalent figures are not available for Wolverhampton North East due to the limitations of the sample size of the ONS survey. As such it is difficult to make an assessment of the specific reasons for long-term unemployment within the constituency.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much his Department has spent on tackling long-term unemployment in Wolverhampton North East constituency in each of the last five years.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.