Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what additional support has been made available for claimants of (a) jobseeker's allowance and (b) employment support allowance during the covid-19 outbreak.

In response to the Covid-19 outbreak, the Chancellor announced an unprecedented series of measures to support businesses and their employees to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. This includes over £6.5 billion of extra support through the welfare system.

We introduced a range of additional measures to support legacy claimants deal with the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. From the 30^th March 2020 we provided for claimants who have an award of old-style Jobseeker’s Allowance to be treated as available for work and actively seeking employment for a period of three months, for the purposes of their entitlement to the benefit.

We also removed the waiting days for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) for claimants affected by Covid-19, so it will be payable from day one of the claim, subject to the claimant satisfying the normal conditions of entitlement. On Monday 20 April, we launched the New Style ESA online portal which allows applications to be completed online. We have been receiving claims successfully since then. For those claimants or appointees who still require a telephony service, this remains available.

This also included increasing the Local Housing Allowance rates for private renters claiming Housing Benefit to the 30th percentile of local rents. As a result, claimants receiving Housing element or Housing Benefit claim will gain on average an additional £600 this year in increased housing support.

We regularly update the guidance and up-to-date information about the employment and benefits support available, including Universal Credit, Statutory Sick Pay, New style Jobseeker's Allowance, and Employment and Support Allowance, can be found here:

www.understandinguniversalcredit.gov.uk/employment-and-benefits-support/.