Asked by: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether people in receipt of Employment and Support Allowance will face any deductions to their benefits in the event that they support a Ukrainian refugee under the Homes for Ukraine scheme.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The Government is grateful to individuals who wish to play their part in supporting Homes for Ukraine. DWP is working at pace with DLUHC and the Home Office to ensure benefit claimants who feel they can support the scheme are able to do so.
Asked by: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many sector-based Work Academy Programme starters there were in financial year 2020-21 in each region and nation; and how many of those have started a new job as a result.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
Data for the financial year 2020 – 21 shows that there were a total of 64,500 starts to a Sector-based Work Academy Programme (SWAP). The breakdown of these starts by nation and region is displayed in the following tables:
Table 1: SWAP starts by nation
Nation | Starts |
England | 58,320 |
Scotland | 6,120 |
Unknown | 60 |
Total | 64,500 |
Table 2: SWAP starts by region
Region | Starts |
West Midlands | 5,000 |
Central, East & North Scotland | 4,340 |
South & West Scotland | 1,780 |
London & Essex | 12,950 |
North & East Midlands | 7,800 |
North Central | 6,960 |
North East | 5,550 |
North West | 5,340 |
South East | 8,200 |
South West | 6,510 |
Unknown | 60 |
Total | 64,500 |
Note on above: Figures are rounded to the nearest 10; components may not sum due to rounding. These figures reflect the number of starts by claimants in receipt of Universal Credit (UC), Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA), Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) or Income Support (IS). We do not hold data on the number of participants who have started a job as a result of starting a SWAP.
Asked by: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department's new temporary site on High Street Dudley, will be used to support (a) new and (b) existing customers; and whether that site will be made a permanent location.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The Department has seen an increase in demand for its services and, as a result, is rapidly expanding the space available, on a temporary basis. These offices will supplement the existing Jobcentre network and will serve both existing and new customers.
As the economy recovers and/or social distancing requirements are eased, the Department will look to close the temporary sites, ensuring there is balance in providing essential services for customers with value for money for taxpayers. If, however, any of the new sites offer better, more suitable accommodation than our existing offices the Department may look to retain them.
Asked by: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if her Department will take steps to investigate the matter of unclaimed child maintenance payments made by fathers when the child and mother have moved abroad.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The Child Maintenance Service is only able to make a maintenance calculation when the paying parent, receiving parent and qualifying children are all habitually resident in the UK.
Asked by: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to deliver civil service jobs in her Department to Dudley North constituency.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
Our Jobcentre Employment Advisers within Dudley North work closely with other Government Departments located in the area to ensure any planned recruitment is fully supported. Work Coaches undertake job-matching to identify customers in the area who have indicated an interest in joining the Civil Service, and provide assistance to register on the Civil Service Jobs website, including support with searching for vacancies and setting up job alerts.
Jobcentres across Dudley Borough have a partnership with the ‘Skills Shop’ at the Merry Hill Centre, where customers can be referred for further assistance with Civil Service applications and interview techniques. They also have a partnership with Go Train, a local provider, to provide support to customers with applying for the recent Work Coach recruitment exercise, including help and advice with the application process.
Asked by: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many job work coaches her Department is planning to deploy in (a) Dudley, (b) the Black Country and (c) the West Midlands region.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The Department currently has 71 Work Coaches allocated to two Jobcentres in the Dudley North constituency; 21 at Tipton and 50 at Dudley. A proportion of a further 55 new entrants are due to be deployed by early 2021.
In the Black Country as a whole we are looking to deploy a total of 574 by early 2021, and there is projected to be a total of 1702 Work Coaches across West Midlands by the time that our current recruitment concludes.
Asked by: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of reclassifying (a) myalgic encephalomyelitis and (b) chronic fatigue syndrome as a disability rather than as an illness for the purposes of (a) benefit assessments and (b) employee rights.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
Entitlement to health and disability-related benefits is determined by the functional effects of a person’s disability or health condition. Classification of the disability or condition is irrelevant for the purposes of benefit assessment.
With regard to employee rights, though they are not automatically treated as a disability under the Equality Act 2010, people with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) and chronic fatigue syndrome can be treated as disabled depending upon the effect it has on their daily life. ME is specifically listed amongst “impairments with fluctuating or recurring effects” in the 2010 Act Guidance document
Any employment rights would then flow from being classified as disabled under the Equality Act 2010.