Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
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 economic effect of workers taking early retirement as a result of menopause.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No assessment has been made on the economic impact of the menopause, but by retiring at 63 instead of 55, a female average earner that took a 10-year career break could have £180,000 extra income and might increase her pension pot by 50%.
Too many women feel forced either to leave work, reduce their hours, or take a step back in their careers, because of the menopause. That is why we asked the 50+ roundtable of employer organisations to look at menopause and employment, emphasising the importance of the provision of support by employers. An independent report is now published which the Government will respond to.
The Women’s Health Strategy will have menopause as a priority, and the UK wide Menopause task force will take a holistic approach to menopause care from healthcare to workplace support and education, enabling national coverage which will provide benefits at a local level.
Our 37 district 50PLUS Champions provide a local response, reinforcing Jobcentre Plus’s commitment to supporting over 50s claimants find and stay in work by sharing the benefits of employing over 50s to employers. Our champions utilise their knowledge and local links to support Work Coaches and employers to understand the characteristics of our customers and the issues that may affect them such as the impact of the menopause, helping them retain women’s skills and expertise.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the extent of the potential impact on pensions of women with menopause symptoms retiring early.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
No such assessment has been made.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to tackle the jobless rates for (a) recent education-leavers and (b) young black people as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This Government’s Plan for Jobs is delivering a comprehensive package of support for all young people – including education leavers and those from an ethnic minority – which DWP is providing in collaboration with the Department for Education, schools and other partners.
For young people from all backgrounds, the DWP Youth Offer is the wrap-around support programme, helping young people access so much of the positive provision stood up as part of the Plan for Jobs. The Youth Offer includes Youth Hubs, which are co-located and co-delivered with our network of external partners to offer a range of skills and work-related services to help young people access the labour market.
The Government has also implemented a range of measures to help deliver on our commitment to provide all young people with opportunities to develop skills that will enable them to secure jobs in productive and fulfilling careers, including help for young people through Kickstart. Jobs from the Kickstart Scheme are open to 16–24-year-olds, who are claiming Universal Credit, and are at risk of long-term unemployment. Young people can speak to their work coach to find out more.
We have supported the development of the Department for Education’s Graduate Employment and Skills Guide that is published on the Office for Students website. The guide is designed to help final-year students and recent graduates by signposting to a range of public, private and voluntary sector opportunities. In addition, the Apprenticeship Support and Knowledge (ASK) programme provides targeted local and regional support on NEET prevention to raise young people’s aspirations and support their post-education progression.
DWP recognises the need for targeted support to help ethnic minority job seekers into work. We work with a range of partners and employers in this area, including on a national programme of mentoring circles.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department plans to take to tackle child poverty in (a) England, (b) the North West, (c) Lancashire and (d) Preston constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
This Government is wholly committed to tackling child poverty. Throughout the pandemic, our priority has been to protect the most vulnerable including spending an additional £7.4 billion last year to strengthen the welfare system for those most in need, taking our total expenditure on welfare support for people of working age to around £111bn in 2020/21.
Our Covid Local Support Grant is ensuring that families across England get help with food and essential utility bills. We have now extended this temporary scheme for a final time with an additional £160 million in funding between 21 June and 30 September, taking total funding under the scheme to £429 million. This funding recognises that while restrictions are planned to end in July, families might need additional help to get back on their feet as the vaccine rollout continues and our economy recovers. For Lancashire County Council this means total funding of £9,896,582.81.
This Government has long championed the principle of work as the best route out of poverty and towards financial independence. In 2019/20, there was only a 3% chance of children being in poverty (absolute, before housing costs) where both parents worked full-time compared with 42% where one or more parents in a couple was in part-time work. As the economy recovers and through investing over £30 billion in our ambitious Plan for Jobs, our ambition is to help parents move into and progress in work as quickly as possible, substantially reducing the risks of poverty.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Health and Safety Executive’s operational database, for what reason the Health and Safety Executive had not brought a prosecution against an employer for breach of covid-19 workplace regulations as at 16 February 2021.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
HSE has published an Enforcement Policy Statement which sets out the general principles and approach to enforcement and is available here.
In England & Wales, the decision to prosecute is made by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and in Scotland by the Crown Office and the Procurator Fiscal Service. HSE follows the Code for Crown Prosecutors and in order for a prosecution to go ahead there needs to be sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction and that the prosecution is in the public interest.
HSE will always act in the public interest and look to pursue cases where there is sufficient evidence to take action, and it is in the public interest to look to secure a prosecution.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of people's (a) mental health and (b) wellbeing with respect to remote working during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
This Government recognises that the COVID-19 pandemic, whether directly or indirectly, is having an impact on the mental health of individuals, including those working remotely.
The determinants of mental health and wellbeing are numerous and their relationships to one another other complex. Therefore, the impact of working from home on mental health and wellbeing is likely to vary considerably across individuals depending on wider circumstances.
There is some evidence suggesting that mental health and wellbeing have improved for some homeworkers but worsened for others, and that this impact is influenced by the degree of organisational support among wider, social, factors.
Emerging evidence from the early stages of the pandemic suggests that the negative impacts of homeworking are likely to disproportionately affect women (particularly mothers), young people and those from lower socioeconomic groups.
We will continue to monitor outcomes from the range of data sources that become available.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the effect of covid-19 national lockdown restrictions on the mental health of (a) business owners and (b) employees.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
We recognise that the COVID-19 pandemic, whether directly or indirectly, is having a significant impact on the mental health of individuals. The percentage (and number) of employees with mental health conditions has been going up steadily since 2013, the earliest comparable year. This has continued over the latest year. It is therefore difficult to make a robust assessment of the degree to which this increase is as a direct or indirect result of the pandemic. We will continue to monitor this from the range of data sources available. We do not have data available to assess the mental health conditions amongst business owners.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans she has to encourage women to resume workplace pension contributions following a period of (a) part-time work or (b) time out of working.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Automatic enrolment has hugely increased women’s pension participation, participation across all ethnic groups, and among lower earners. Among eligible women in the private sector, participation has increased from 40% in 2012 to 86% in 2019, equal to men.
Automatic enrolment requires an employer to enrol eligible workers into a qualifying pension scheme when they start work or at the point they become eligible to be automatically enrolled due to a change in their circumstances, for example, by moving from part-time to full-time work. This ensures that workplace pension contributions would resume, in respect of women who increase their hours or re-join the labour market, if they meet the relevant earnings and other eligibility rules.
The level of earnings at which workers are automatically enrolled into workplace pensions (the earnings trigger) is subject to an annual statutory review. An analysis of the equalities impact always forms part of the review, as does an assessment of reducing the trigger to the NI threshold. This review has concluded that the earnings trigger be frozen at £10,000 for every year since 2014-15; this has proportionately benefited women. Analysis for the 2020/21 thresholds showed that 75% of those made eligible by freezing the trigger were women, compared to 37% of the eligible group under the baseline proposals.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to reduce the gender pay gap in pensions savings.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Automatic enrolment was developed and implemented by successive Governments to help groups who historically were poorly served or excluded from workplace pension saving, such as women and lower earners. These reforms have helped millions more women save into a workplace pension, many for the first time. Workplace pension participation among eligible women working in the private sector has risen from 40% in 2012 to 86% in 2019 – which is equal to men.
In terms of private pensions, the most important factors driving the gap in retirement outcomes are related to the labour market with inequalities in pay and working patterns. Women are more likely to take career breaks than men and to work part-time in lower-paid jobs because of caring responsibilities. We have put in place practical support to help people with caring responsibilities return to work, and to support families to share caring responsibilities more evenly. This includes doubling the free childcare available in England for eligible working parents of 3- and 4-year-olds to 30 hours per week, and consulting on increasing the transparency of employers' flexible working and parental leave policies, and on high-level options for reforming parental leave and pay, to allow both parents to play a greater role in childcare.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
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 reducing the five-week wait time for universal credit claimants to receive their first payment.
Answered by Will Quince
No such assessment has been made and no-one has to wait 5 weeks for a payment.
New Claims Advances are available which allow claimants to receive up to 100% of their estimated Universal Credit payment upfront so that new claimants will receive their annual award over 13 payments during their first year, instead of 12. They are paid quickly and these can be applied for online or over the phone. The upfront payment phasing can be spread over a two-year cycle from October 2021, as was announced in the Budget 2020.