Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to help reduce the number of people not in (a) employment, or (b) training across (i) the constituency of Wolverhampton South West, (ii) the West Midlands and (iii) the UK.

Through our Plan for Jobs, we are targeting tailored support schemes of people of all ages to help them prepare for, get into and progress in work. These include: Kickstart, delivering tens of thousands of six-month work placements for Universal Credit claimants aged 16-24 at risk of unemployment; we have also recruited an additional 13,500 Work Coaches to provide more intensive support to find a job; and introduced Restart which provides 12 months’ intensive employment support to Universal Credit claimants who are unemployed for a year. Our Plan for Jobs interventions will support more than two million people.

DWP offers significant support to unemployed people across Great Britain to access employment opportunities through our network of Jobcentres. Our Work Coaches provide support on finding a job, help with retraining or skills advice, CV, job applications and access to new vacancies we record every day, in addition to signposting to the Find a Job service.

In Wolverhampton, the Youth Hub, based at ‘The Way’, opened on 5th October 2021. DWP Work coaches, in collaboration with City of Wolverhampton Council and a range of partners such as Black Country Impact and Princes Trust, provide bespoke support to customers to move closer to work or opportunities. Across The Black Country district, we regularly host and support Jobs fairs that aim to provide the greatest opportunity for our claimants to find work.

The DWP Support for Schools programme has a relationship with a number schools across the Wolverhampton borough. The team provides advice on routes into traineeships and apprenticeships, promoting the parity of vocational and academic pathways into work. They also provide advice on local labour market including employability and soft skills that employer’s value, for example team working and commitment.