Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the barriers to local recruitment in areas of greatest deprivation.

We recognise the importance of considering the needs of local labour markets in addressing barriers to recruitment. As our Get Britain Working White Paper set out, areas with higher levels of deprivation often have lower levels of educational attainment and there are more working-age adults living with major illness in the most deprived areas (14.6%), which is more than double the rate in the least deprived areas (6.3%).

The Get Britain Working White Paper set out our ambitions to transform employment support and tackle economic inactivity. As part of this, local areas in England are producing Local Get Britain Working Plans to develop a system-wide approach to identifying and addressing local labour market challenges. Further, Trailblazers to test how locally-led responses to tackling economic inactivity and young people not in education, employment and training are being delivered across England and Wales.

Furthermore, our supported employment programme, Connect to Work, has been designed alongside Local Authorities and is being delivered by local areas in England and Wales to help more disabled people, those with health conditions and people with complex barriers to employment help to find sustainable work.

The UK Government will respect devolution settlements and work closely with the Devolved Governments, including the Northern Ireland Executive, to share best practice about how our reforms to reduce economic inactivity are working.