Asked by: Baroness Penn (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of how many of the additional 250,000 people moved into relative poverty by welfare changes will be in work.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government’s impact assessment regarding Health and Disability reform is available at: Spring Statement 2025 health and disability benefit reforms – Impacts
This assessment does not include the impact of the £1 billion a year, by 2029/30, funding for measures to support those with disabilities and long-term health conditions into employment, which we expect to mitigate the poverty impact among people it supports into work. It is not possible, therefore, to assess how many more working people will be in relative poverty in 2029/30 as a result of these changes.
Asked by: Baroness Penn (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many people they expect to move into employment as a result of the £1 billion employment package announced on 18 March.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The DWP published an impact assessment which explained how employment interventions can have a significant and enduring impacts on peoples’ employment prospects and showed the substantial savings associated with supporting disabled people into work. For every 10,000 additional people in full time work, there would be fiscal savings of around £180m per year, with societal savings around £280m per year, (£80m and £150m respectively if in part-time work.
The Department has extensive evidence on what works, which includes the evaluation of Work Choice, a specialist employment programme for disabled people and those with health conditions, that showed people receiving tailored support were 40% more likely to be in work eight years later. We will be developing more detailed assessments of the potential impacts of the employment measures proposed in the Green Paper as these are developed in detail. The Office for Budget Responsibility has also stated that it intends to assess the labour supply impacts of the Green Paper measures in their Autumn forecast.