Families: Work Incentives
Baroness Manzoor Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Freud
Clearly one thing that has happened in universal credit is that the work allowances, as the noble Baroness pointed out, have come down. On the other hand, we have increased some of the costs that are directly tied to work incentives around childcare. As my noble friend pointed out, the effect of doubling free childcare from 15 hours to 30 hours is worth £2,500 per child per year. Another element of universal credit—childcare support going up from 70% to 85%—is worth in excess of £1,000 per child per year. There are real supports coming in for parents who need them.
Baroness Manzoor (LD)
My Lords, fewer than one in 10 people with learning disabilities are in work. The Government’s welcome objective is to halve the disability employment gap. Will the Minister say what progress the Government are making in order to hit their target?
Lord Freud
The target to halve the disability employment gap implies that we need to find work for 1 million more people in this category. We are currently working pretty hard on the strategy for that. It was announced by the Secretary of State in August, and we are now consulting with the various interest groups to find out the optimal way of achieving it. One group that is particularly important is people with learning disabilities; they have had a tough time in the work market.
Work Capability Assessment
Baroness Manzoor Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Freud
The noble Baroness is quite right that the rate of appeals has fallen very steeply, by 92% in the latest quarter compared with a year earlier. It is too early to tell the definitive reasons for that. It may well be due to many of the changes that have gone through—75 recommendations have gone through—or to mandatory reconsideration so that we look at it early. However, when you look at the backlog of mandatory reconsiderations, you see that the pure numbers do not seem to be a huge influencing factor in this fall in appeals.
Baroness Manzoor (LD)
My Lords, looking at the number of people who will be moved across under TUPE, can the Minister say what percentage of new staff will be introduced to ensure that we have a faster and more effective service?
Lord Freud
All the providers within Atos were retested in 2013, so those will transfer. Maximus will bounce up the numbers—the precise numbers are not available yet—to do this particular contract.