Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many jobs have been (a) approved and (b) commenced under the Kickstart scheme in (a) England, (b) the North East and (c) Newcastle East constituency.

We are unable at present to provide data on the number of approved jobs by region, as at that stage in the process we do not hold information about the exact location of a job, only the head office of the employer.

For the most recently released information about the number of Kickstart jobs commenced by region I refer the honourable member to the answer given for PQ 546.

Delivering the Kickstart Scheme at pace has led to a limited data set which makes it harder to accurately present a snapshot of a smaller geographical area. We are continuing to develop our data, which may help in sharing constituency level information in due course