Asked by: Peter Bone (Independent - Wellingborough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the change in the rate of (a) employment and (b) unemployment since 23 June 2016.
Answered by Damian Hinds
Since May-July 2016, the employment rate has increased by 0.6 percentage points to reach 75.0 per cent in July-September 2016. The unemployment rate has decreased by 0.7 percentage points to 4.3 per cent over the same period, the lowest rate since 1975.
Asked by: Peter Bone (Independent - Wellingborough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent estimate he has made of trends in employment.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The UK labour market is the strongest it has been for years. Over the past year, the number of people in employment has increased by 379,000. The employment rate now stands at a record 75.3%. The unemployment rate is at 4.3%, the lowest rate since 1975.
Asked by: Peter Bone (Independent - Wellingborough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of trends in unemployment since June 2016.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The ILO unemployment rate was 4.9 per cent in the three months to June 2016 and 4.8 per cent in the three months to September 2016.
Asked by: Peter Bone (Independent - Wellingborough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what transitional arrangements are in place for women affected by the planned increase in the retirement age for state pension recipients.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 20 November 2015 to Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North), Question UIN 15476
Asked by: Peter Bone (Independent - Wellingborough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the effect of the welfare cap will be in (a) Wellingborough and (b) England.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
The Welfare Cap of Annually Managed Expenditure (AME) has been set for this Parliament, at the level of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s Summer 2015 forecast for spending in scope of the Cap.
This amounts to: £115.2bn in 2016-17; £114.6bn in 2017-18; £114.0bn in 2018-19; £113.5bn in 2019-20; and £114.9bn in 2020-21.
The Welfare Cap is not assessed at a sub-national level.