Asked by: Baroness Stroud (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to release an updated progress report of the indicators included in the Social justice: transforming lives report published in March 2012.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
The indicators from the Social Justice Outcomes Framework were replaced by the Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families indicators. On 4th April 2017, the Government published Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families which set out a framework for a continued focus on improving children’s long-term outcomes. This included publishing nine national indicators and underlying measures to track progress in tackling the disadvantages that affect families’ and children’s outcomes. The Government has a statutory duty to report data annually to Parliament on two of the nine indicators and made a commitment to publish the latest data on the seven non-statutory indicators each year.
The Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families indicators were last updated on 28th March 2018 and can be found in the attached document.
Asked by: Baroness Stroud (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much the UK spends on family benefits; and how this compares to other countries in the OECD.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
The latest data shows that the UK spends 3.8 per cent of GDP on expenditure classified by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This is more than any other country in the OECD.
“Family benefits” include cash benefits, such as person tax credits, Child Benefit; maternity benefits and child Disability Living Allowance; and benefits in kind covering child care and social services. They do not include other benefits that might be available to the claimant, such as Personal Independence Payment or Housing Benefit.
Asked by: Baroness Stroud (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much has been saved to the public purse through reducing unemployment since 2010.
Answered by Lord Bates
The unemployment rate currently stands at 4.2% and today there are 609,000 fewer jobseeking claimants than in 2010.
As a result, the government is forecast to spend £2.6 billion pounds less on benefits for jobseekers in 2018-19 than in 2010-11.
There are also likely to be indirect effects on the public purse from reduced unemployment since 2010, for example through increased tax receipts. HM Treasury has not made a detailed assessment of this.
Asked by: Baroness Stroud (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what percentage of adult offenders were in employment one year after (1) a caution, (2) a conviction, and (3) release from prison, in each year since 2012.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
We do not currently hold the data as requested. We are working with HM Revenue and Customs and Department for Work and Pensions to capture this information in the future.
From a previous joint exercise between the Ministry of Justice, HMRC and DWP to analyse the links between employment, benefits and reoffending, we know that in 2011-12, one year after a:
- police caution: 40% of working age offenders were in P45 employment
- release from prison: 17% of working age offenders were in P45 employment
Securing employment after a sentence has a positive impact on rates of reoffending. Offenders who found P45 employment in the twelve months after release from prison had one year re-offending rates that were 6-9 percentage points lower than similar offenders who did not find employment.
Asked by: Baroness Stroud (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many children who entered the UK under (1) the Vulnerable Children's Resettlement Scheme, and (2) section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016 (a) have been placed in local authority care, and (b) remain in local authority care; and in which local authorities they were placed.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
Unaccompanied children arriving in the UK through the Vulnerable Children’s Resettlement Scheme and Section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016 are placed into the care of a local authority. Placements for these children are secured from local authorities voluntarily participating in the National Transfer Scheme.
However due to the inherent vulnerability and relatively small numbers of this cohort, the Home Office does not publish a breakdown of such children entering and leaving local authority care.
Asked by: Baroness Stroud (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people granted refugee status were in employment in the UK (1) one year, and (2) five years, after refugee status was granted.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Home Office does not collect the information required to calculate the total number of people granted refugee status who are in employment in the UK for any point in time.
We recognise the difficulties refugees can face when looking for work. We have funded a pilot project to provide additional employment support to refugees resettled through the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme and we will share the learning from this pilot with the Department for Work and Pensions and others. We continue to work closely with colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that refugees are aware of, and receive, the support they are entitled to.
Asked by: Baroness Stroud (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people were prosecuted under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 in each year since it came into force; and what were their (1) nationalities, (2) ages, and (3) genders.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
The number of defendants prosecuted under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 in England and Wales, from 2015 to 2017, can be found in the table, split by sex and age. Information on nationality is not centrally held by the Ministry of Justice.
Number of people prosecuted under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 by age and sex, 2015(1)(2)
| Male | Female | Unknown | Total |
Age |
|
|
|
|
10-14 | - | - | - | - |
15-17 | - | - | - | - |
18-20 | - | - | - | - |
21-24 | - | 1 | - | 1 |
25+ | 9 | 1 | 1 | 11 |
Unknown | - | - | - | - |
|
|
|
|
|
Total | 9 | 2 | 1 | 12 |
|
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|
|
|
Source: Justice Statistics Analytical Services - Ministry of Justice. | ||||
Ref: PQ HL8459 |
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- = nil
(1) The figures given in the table relate to defendants for whom these offences were the principal offences for which they were dealt with. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences it is the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe.
(2) There can be a delay between the commencement of new offences and seeing them in court data, primarily due to the time it takes for an offence to be investigated, the police to assign it an outcome, and the prosecution, before resulting in a completed court case
Figures for 2018 are planned for publication in May 2019.
Asked by: Baroness Stroud (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what has been the cumulative saving made from welfare reform since 2010.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
Figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility put cumulative savings from welfare reform from 2010 to the end of 2015/16 at £65 billion. In addition, in 2015, the Government announced plans for welfare reform which will deliver an extra £12 billion of annual savings; these have now been legislated for, and implementation has begun.
Asked by: Baroness Stroud (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what percentage of adult offenders did not reoffend within one year of (1) conviction, and (2) release from prison, in each year since 2014.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
The percentage of adult offenders that did not reoffend within one year of conviction in each year since 2014:
The percentage of adult offenders that did not reoffend within one year of release from prison in each year since 2014:
We do not have figures beyond March 2016 as the data is not yet available.
Reoffending is costing society approximately £15 billion a year. Effective rehabilitation needs prisoners to be willing to commit to change, take advice, learn new skills and take opportunities to work – both during their sentence and after. On 24 May 2018, we launched the Education and Employment Strategy that will support ex-offenders to engage in education and secure employment so that they are less likely to reoffend.
In addition, the Cabinet Office is introducing a new Reducing Reoffending group that will work across government to tackle some of the main causes of reoffending, including employment, health and accommodation
Asked by: Baroness Stroud (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many children were resettled in the UK in each quarter of (1) 2016, and (2) 2017; and what were (a) the countries of origin, (b) the age, and (c) the gender of those children.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Home Office publishes a regular breakdown of the nationality of refugees resettled to the UK each quarter as part of the Immigration Statistics release available on the GOV.UK website at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/immigration-statistics-quarterly-release. The most recent publication contains information on the number of resettlements up to 31 September 2017 inclusive
In the period 1 January 2016 to 31 September 2017, the UK welcomed 9,897 refugees under its schemes, approximately half of which were female and half were children.