Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when her Department plans to publish the disability White Paper.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The Health and Disability Green Paper proposals will be detailed in the White Paper set to publish in mid-2022.
More than 40 events with disabled people, people with health conditions and their representatives were held throughout the consultation period for ‘Shaping Future Support: The Health and Disability Green Paper’. This was to ensure that their views shaped the content of the consultation.
The responses to the Health and Disability Green Paper will be analysed to determine suitable proposals for improvement in the health and disability space and wider benefit reform. We continue to engage stakeholders regularly, particularly on the broader aspects of the paper that focus on future reform.
The Government published the National Disability Strategy which aims to improve disabled people’s everyday lives. The strategy sets out a very wide-ranging set of cross-government practical actions to improve the lives of disabled people, across jobs, education, housing,
transport, shopping, culture, justice, public services, and data and evidence.
The National Disability Strategy committed to review the way the UK government engages with disabled people, in discussion with disabled people, disabled people’s organisations and charities. That work is already underway.
The National Disability Strategy committed to publishing an annual report in summer 2022, which will detail the progress made against all commitments.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
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 enable disable people to contribute their experiences into the process for compiling the planned disability White Paper.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The Health and Disability Green Paper proposals will be detailed in the White Paper set to publish in mid-2022.
More than 40 events with disabled people, people with health conditions and their representatives were held throughout the consultation period for ‘Shaping Future Support: The Health and Disability Green Paper’. This was to ensure that their views shaped the content of the consultation.
The responses to the Health and Disability Green Paper will be analysed to determine suitable proposals for improvement in the health and disability space and wider benefit reform. We continue to engage stakeholders regularly, particularly on the broader aspects of the paper that focus on future reform.
The Government published the National Disability Strategy which aims to improve disabled people’s everyday lives. The strategy sets out a very wide-ranging set of cross-government practical actions to improve the lives of disabled people, across jobs, education, housing,
transport, shopping, culture, justice, public services, and data and evidence.
The National Disability Strategy committed to review the way the UK government engages with disabled people, in discussion with disabled people, disabled people’s organisations and charities. That work is already underway.
The National Disability Strategy committed to publishing an annual report in summer 2022, which will detail the progress made against all commitments.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
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 impact of the universal credit taper rate reduction on household budgets.
Answered by David Rutley
The reduction in the taper rate, together with an increase in the work allowances, means 1.9m households will keep, on average, around an extra £1,000 a year. These changes represent an effective tax cut for low income working households in receipt of Universal Credit, worth £2.2 billion a year in 2022-23, and will allow working households to keep more of what they earn and strengthen incentives to move into, and progress, in work.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she has taken to progress the Departmental target of increasing employment of disabled people by a further million people in the next 6 years.
Answered by Chloe Smith
Figures for January to March 2021 showed that, in the first four years (between 2017 and 2021) of the goal to see one million more disabled people in employment, the number of disabled people in employment increased by 850,000.
A range of DWP initiatives are supporting disabled people and people with health conditions to start, stay and succeed in employment. These include the Work and Health Programme, Intensive Personalised Employment Support programme, Access to Work, Disability Confident and support in partnership with the health system, including Employment Advice in NHS Improving Access to Psychological Therapy services.
In July this year we published three major documents: Shaping future support: the health and disability Green Paper; the response to the Health is Everyone’s Business consultation on minimising the risk of ill-health related job loss; and the National Disability Strategy. These together form our holistic approach and vision for supporting disabled people and people with health conditions to live independent lives.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
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 (a) identify and (b) reduce fraud within the benefits system.
Answered by David Rutley
The Department takes benefit fraud very seriously. We have taken further steps to reduce and minimise fraud and error during the past 18 months at a time where the Department processed an additional 3 million new Universal Credit claims.
We are continuing to expand our Integrated Risk and Intelligence Service that coordinates the detection of, and response to, fraud risks from organised crime groups seeking to exploit the benefit system. This included preventing a large attack in May 2020, stopping substantial sums being paid out to scammers and led to a number of arrests.
This has been further expanded, following investment at the Spring Budget and Spending Review, to further develop pre-payment ‘risking’ techniques and maintain our new Enhanced Checking Service for high risk claims.
We have also revisited more than 900,000 high risk claims paid during the early period of COVID-19, which has generated over £400m in potential savings. Where fraud is established, we are committed to the use of appropriate penalties and to recovering monies from the perpetrators.
We also continue to work with other Government departments and law enforcement agencies nationally and across borders to ensure appropriate intelligence and resources are shared, enabling the totality of any criminality to be identified and investigated
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with the Minister for the Cabinet Office on the delivery of the National Disability Strategy across Government departments.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The Secretary of State has regular discussions with Cabinet colleagues on a wide range of issues, including the National Disability Strategy which was published in July 2021. The Minister for Disabled People, who has cross government responsibility for disabled people, works with the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and also Equalities Ministers.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether individual support programmes are available to employment seekers over the age of 50.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
As part of the £500m Plan for Jobs expansion, we are funding a new enhanced support package for workers aged 50 and over to help them to stay in or return to work. This offer has two strands. Older workers will receive better information and guidance on later life planning, helping them make informed choices and supporting them to plan their career and remain in work. For those who have lost their jobs, this funding will ensure that older job seekers on Universal Credit receive more intensive, tailored support as they look to take the next step in their career.
Additionally, the Department’s Plan for Jobs provides funding to ensure that jobseekers of all ages get tailored support, including to reskill or pivot sectors. This includes programmes such as the Job Finding Support service, Job Entry Targeted Support (JETS) and the Restart scheme, to help them find work. In particular, the JETS scheme, which has just been extended to September 2022, helps jobseekers update their digital skills, job searching tools and to identify transferrable skills.
To provide support to our Work Coaches, we have a network of 50PLUS Champions across all 37 Jobcentre Plus districts who reinforce Jobcentre Plus commitment to supporting claimants aged 50 and over to find and stay in work.
Their role is to raise the profile of claimants 50 and over across Jobcentre Plus and share good practice including promoting the benefits of employing people aged 50 and over to employers. 50PLUS Champions work closely with Work Coaches to help them identify the most appropriate support from within the Plan for Jobs and the wider offer.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what initiatives her Department has undertaken to assist jobseekers under the age of 25 to find employment.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
We have announced our Plan for Jobs expansion which will see another £500 million invested in supporting people into jobs, with young people at the heart of this through Kickstart and our DWP Youth Offer.
The Kickstart scheme is dedicated to helping 16-24-year olds at risk of long-term unemployment develop their skills and experience through 6-month jobs. Around 112,000 Kickstart jobs have been started by young people and the scheme will continue until March 2022, offering jobs and experience to many thousands more young people.
We are extending the DWP Youth Offer to 2025 and have expanded eligibility to include 16 and 17-year olds, in addition to 18 to 24-year olds, who are claiming Universal Credit and searching for work. The Youth Offer currently provides intensive work search support through the Youth Employment Programme, specialised Youth Employment Coaches for young people with additional barriers to work, and over 150 Youth Hubs across England, Scotland and Wales.
DWP is working in collaboration with the Department for Education, National Careers Service, devolved administrations, and other partners to deliver a comprehensive package of support for young people.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what initiatives she is promoting to assist older people on Jobseekers Allowance who are considering changing career or retraining.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The Chancellor announced in the 2021 Spending Review that an enhanced offer for workers aged 50 and over will be introduced, to ensure that older workers receive the support they need to remain in or return to work.
The enhanced offer will build on the Department’s existing Plan for Jobs which provides funding to ensure that more jobseekers of all ages get tailored support, including to reskill or pivot sectors. That includes programmes such as the Job Finding Support service, Job Entry Targeted Support (JETS), Sector-based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs) and the Restart scheme, to help them find work. The JETS scheme in particular helps claimants to update their digital skills, job searching tools and to identify transferrable skills which has led to over 48,780 jobseekers in England and Wales and over 1,960 in Scotland start work.
The SWAPs provides opportunities in sectors with high volumes of current local vacancies, such as hospitality, allowing people to learn the skills and behaviours that employers need. DWP is increasing the number of SWAPs opportunities to 80,000 in 2021/22.
A network of 50 Plus Champions provides dedicated support to Work Coaches across all 37 Jobcentre Plus districts to enable and encourage them to direct suitable Plan for Jobs and local support to claimants aged 50 and over. The Government’s Business Champion for Older Workers also spearheads the Government’s work to support employers to hire and re-train older workers, promoting the benefits of older workers to employers across England.
To help people plan for employment in later life, we launched a Mid-life MOT in 2019, encouraging those in their 40s, 50s and 60s to consider aspects of their wealth, work and wellbeing. This helps them to make informed decisions about future income provision and longer-term employment prospects, supporting individuals to stay in work for longer and to achieve the later life that they want.
The UK government are also investing in the National Skills Fund in England to aid The Lifetime Skills Guarantee. Since April 2021, adults of any age over 24 who are looking to achieve their first full Level 3 qualification have been able to access fully funded courses which will give them new skills and greater prospects in the labour market. Skills Bootcamps, which are free, flexible courses of up to 16 weeks, are giving adults the opportunity to build up sector-specific skills and fast-track to an interview with a local employer. As announced at the Budget, a total investment of over £550m by 2024-25 will make sure adults, at any age, can upskill to reach their potential, transforming lives and delivering on the National Skills Fund commitment.
The free online Skills Toolkit also provides online learning focused on digital, numeracy and employability skills.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what support her Department provides to disabled people in (a) Hendon constituency and (b) the UK to transition from education into employment.
Answered by Chloe Smith
DWP Schools Advisers in Hendon and across the London Borough of Barnet, work with the local Special Educational Needs or Disability (SEND) schools to help their young people transition into work. They work with the schools to deliver sessions on building employability skills and providing help with CVs, identifying suitable employment options that align their skills with available jobs and delivering sessions on interview skills.
Across the UK, including Hendon, there are a range of DWP initiatives that are supporting disabled people and people with health conditions to live independent lives and start, stay and succeed in employment. These include the Intensive Personalised Employment Support programme, Access to Work, Supported Internships, Disability Confident and support in partnership with the health system, including Employment Advice in NHS Improving Access to Psychological Therapy services.
As part of the Government’s Plan for Jobs, the Kickstart scheme is aimed specifically at young people. Disabled people or people with long-term health conditions can access the Kickstart scheme, supported through Access to Work if required.
We have also increased the number of Disability Employment Advisers (DEAs) to 1000 nationally. DEAs work alongside Jobcentre Plus Work Coaches, including Youth Employability Coaches, specialising in finding the right support to help all customers that have a disability or health condition.