Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent diplomatic steps he has taken to support peace and stability across Africa.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
The Foreign Secretary recently engaged on these issues with President Ruto and CS Mutua in Kenya, Prime Minister Abiy in Ethiopia, and FM Pandor during the South African State Visit. He raised the conflict in DRC with President Tshisekedi and Rwandan FM Biruta and exchanged views with President Hassan Sheikh on Somali security and stability. At the Münster G7 meeting, he underlined the importance of G7 partners supporting African-led solutions. The majority of FCDO ODA in Sub-Saharan Africa is spent in Fragile and Conflict Affected States. The UK contribution to UN Peacekeeping Missions in Africa was £227.5m FY 2021/2.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department is taking to support British shipbuilding.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 9 June 2022 to Question 10012 to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson).
Since then, we have launched the third round of the Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition, committing £60 million. This is the largest ever government R&D investment into the UK commercial maritime sector. This is part of Department for Transport's £206 million investment in a UK Shipping Office for Reducing Emissions, which will match-fund private investment in the commercialisation of clean maritime technologies.
The National Shipbuilding Office (NSO) which was created to drive the National Shipbuilding Strategy Refresh, has now been established as an Office of Department. It continues to engage with colleagues across Government and industry to promote growth across the entire UK shipbuilding sector.
For example, the UK Shipbuilding Skills Taskforce, led by the Department for Education, meets monthly to look at how we can ensure the UK's shipbuilding industry has a skilled workforce for the future. Working with representatives from across the shipbuilding industry, the NSO also leads on the Shipbuilding Enterprise for Growth which aims to tackle barriers to growth, boost exports and grow high-value skilled jobs across the UK shipbuilding enterprise.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent steps he has taken to help improve food security around the world.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Sustainable food security remains a priority of our humanitarian and development work and is a key objective or our International Development Strategy.
The UK is working with our international partners to address the underlying causes of food insecurity; promote robust food systems in low-income countries and support life-saving action in famine risk areas.
We are also taking action to enhance the coherence of the international response, including through a focus on the poorest and most vulnerable. Further detail is set out in the Government's recent response to the International Development Committee's inquiry into food security. [https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5803/cmselect/cmintdev/767/report.html]
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent steps his Department has taken to help improve the support available for jobseekers.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department for Work and Pensions is responsible for getting people into work and making work pay. We do this through our core Jobcentre offer which provides a range of options to those seeking employment, including face-to-face time with work coaches and interview assistance. We also have support programmes targeted towards specific cohorts, such as young people or people with disabilities.
In his Autumn Statement, the Chancellor of the Exchequer reaffirmed this government’s commitment to raising the Administrative Earnings Threshold from January 2023. This will bring more claimants into scope for intensive work coach support, helping those who are either not in work or are working but are in low pay.
The Restart scheme gives jobseekers intensive support to find work in their local area. First referrals were in July 2021, with an initial focus on those who had been on UC in the IWS regime for between 12 and 18 months. The scheme was expanded to UC claimants who have been unemployed for 9 months (January 2022) and to claimants who are in receipt of Income Based Jobseeker’s Allowance for 9 months (April 2022). By April 2022, 226,785 claimants have started on the scheme.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of the potential impact of increasing the benefit cap in line with inflation on people who receive benefits.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The benefit cap levels will be increased from April 2023 in line with CPI in the year to September 2022 (10.1%). This is the same uprating measure that will be applied to benefits and the State Pension and ensures that capped households will see an increase in their benefit income following annual uprating. There were around 130,000 capped households in May 2022 (the latest available statistics). Around 30,000 households will be taken out of the cap entirely and around 60,000 other households (who would have become capped in the absence of an increase in the levels) will not become capped. The average for all these households will be around £29 extra benefit a week.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what steps her Department is taking to improve support for people who have undergone conversion therapy.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government has launched a support service open to all victims and those at risk of conversion practices regardless of their background or circumstances. We have committed up to £360,000 over three years to this service, which includes a helpline, instant messaging service, and website to enable people to get the support they need.
More widely, the Government remains committed to protecting everyone from these practices. We are carefully considering the responses to the public consultation which closed earlier this year and will respond in due course.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Government’s cost of living payments on (a) disabled people and (b) pensioners.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We published an Impact Analysis on the Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill which includes impacts of the Cost of Living Payments on disabled people and pensioners.
Full details of the Impact Analysis can be found here.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to increase apprenticeship opportunities within the Civil Service.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the House on the 27 October:
“As announced in the civil service apprenticeships strategy, we are committed to 5% of total civil service headcount being apprentices by 2025. Some 47,490 apprentices have been recruited since April 2016, with 78% of those being outside London. We will provide entry and progression routes within a range of careers and professions for new and existing staff.”
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to reduce benefit fraud.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Our Fraud Plan, Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System, published on 19 May 2022, sets out our approach and explains how the additional investment is allowing us to recruit 1,400 more staff into our counter-fraud teams, establish a new 2,000-strong team dedicated to reviewing 2 million existing Universal Credit (UC) claims and develop enhanced data analytics as a means of preventing and detecting fraud and error. More information on our Fraud Plan can be found here:
Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The Government is investing £1.4billion of funding over the next three years in order to combat fraud and error, which includes a further £613 million to facilitate a number of new initiatives, which collectively will stop an estimated £2.0 billion of loss in fraud and error over the next three years. An additional £280m to help prevent abuse of the system and drive forward UC case checks was announced in the recent Autumn Statement.
This builds on the existing work DWP have done to address overpayments, with savings from the correction and prevention of fraud and error totalling £2 billion last year.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the Government's progress in increasing the number of disabled people in work.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
According to the latest figures from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) on working age (16-64) employment, there were 4.9 million disabled people in employment in the UK in Q3 2022. This is an increase of 240,000 on the year and an overall increase of 2.0 million since the same quarter in 2013.
The Government set a goal to see a million more disabled people in employment between 2017 and 2027.
Figures released for Q1 2022 showed that between Q1 2017 and Q1 2022 the number of disabled people in employment increased by 1.3 million – meaning the goal was met after only five years.
Estimations suggest that the rise in the total number of disabled people in employment between 2013 and 2021 has been driven by several factors. These include: an increase in disability prevalence (50%), a strong labour market (20%), internal factors such as Government policy (25%), and an increase in the size of the working population (5%).