Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the adequacy of the funding provided to support people who are unemployed.

The government is investing billions of pounds in supporting people who have become unemployed due to the impact of Covid-19 on the UK economy. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is at the heart of delivering this support, which includes:

• the new 3-year long £2.9 billion Restart programme which will provide intensive and tailored support to over 1 million unemployed people and help them find work

• the £2 billion Kickstart Scheme which will create hundreds of thousands of new, fully subsidised jobs for young people across the country. To date, tens of thousands of Kickstart jobs have already been created.

• The recruitment of 13,500 new Work Coaches to provide essential support through Jobcentre Plus. This includes delivering DWP’s new Youth Offer, comprising of a 13-week Youth Employment Programme, DWP Youth Hubs co-located and co-delivered with our network of external partners and the expansion of Youth Employability Coaches.

• Expanding Sector-based Work Academy Programmes (SWAP), which assist unemployed people to pivot into priority sectors, including construction, infrastructure and social care. In the ‘Plan for Jobs’, the Chancellor announced an extra 32,000 SWAP participant starts in 2020/21, providing £17m for Department for Education to triple the number of associated vocational training placements. DWP’s Secretary of State also pledged to increase further the number of people taking part in 2021/22. The Sector-based Work Academy Programmes offer training, work experience and a guaranteed job interview to those ready to start a job. This is alongside the expansion of support for traineeships in England and for apprenticeships, which enable people to work while having a structured training programme.

• DWP, through contracts with externally contracted providers are also delivering the new Job Finding Support Service, which will help familiarise newly unemployed people with current recruitment practices, gain an understanding of sector specific approaches and develop a personalised job finding action plan; and

• Job Entry: Targeted Support, which will provide up to 6 months of essential support for people who have been unable to find work within the first 3 months of unemployment.

• The government is also investing an additional £150 million into the Flexible Support Fund, which will increase the capacity of the Rapid Response Service, supporting people through redundancy and providing additional local support to claimants by removing barriers to work such as travel expenses for attending interviews and child care.