Asked by: Lord Laming (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to figures released by the Office for National Statistics on 21 November showing that 946,000 young people aged 16 to 24 are not currently in education, employment or training, what steps they are taking to address this.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Minister for Women and Equalities)
This government is determined to break down barriers to opportunity for all our young people. We will act to prevent the damage caused to the lives of young people who are not in education, employment or training. The government recognises the complex, long-standing nature of the challenge, and will make a raft of changes to tackle it.
Young people are required to continue in education or training until they turn 18. We are preventing young people from losing touch with education or employment before the age of 18 through a guaranteed place in education and training for all 16 and 17-year-olds, expanded work experience and careers advice, action to tackle school attendance and improved access to mental health services for young people in England. Over £7.5 billion in 16 to 19 programme funding will be invested during the 2024/25 academic year, to pay for education for any 16, 17 or 18-year-olds in post-16 education.
£240 million has been announced to drive forward measures in the Get Britain Working White Paper. This includes a youth guarantee for all young people aged 18-21 in England to ensure that they can access quality training, educational opportunities or help to find work. Working with Mayoral Authorities, and building on existing provision and entitlements, we will test new ways of supporting young people into employment or training. To do this, we will mobilise eight place-based youth guarantee trailblazers with £45 million of funding in 2025/26.
The comprehensive package also includes: a new national jobs and careers service to help more people into work, foundation apprenticeships to give people a new route into skilled work, Get Britain Working Plans for the economically inactive, and the launch of Skills England to open new opportunities for young people.
Asked by: Lord Laming (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend to introduce amendments to the Employment Rights Bill to clarify that foster carers are not employees.
Answered by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
I pay tribute to the vital efforts of foster carers, who carry out a challenging role that requires skill, dedication and love. The government will ensure more children can receive loving care in foster families.
We will work with councils and fostering services to ensure foster carers receive the support they need and deserve. However, there are no plans to use the Employment Rights Bill to legislate on the employment status of foster carers.
My officials are working closely with officials from the Department for Education on how best to support foster carers.
Asked by: Lord Laming (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the proposal by the Share Foundation to introduce a 'Default Withdrawal at 21' scheme for HMRC-allocated child trust funds.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government is grateful for the suggestion made by the Share Foundation of a way in which HMRC could develop a system of paying out the savings held in matured Child Trust Fund (CTF) accounts that have not been accessed by the account owners by the age of 21.
This proposal is complex and could not be implemented easily, or without allocating significant resources. The savings in these accounts belong to the account owner even if they are not aware of the account’s existence. For HMRC to close these accounts, obtain the savings in those accounts and transfer them with or without the owner’s consent would require careful legal consideration. This is quite apart from the operational systems and resources across Government departments and CTF providers that would be required to monitor the transactions.
The Government is committed to reuniting all young adults with their CTFs and recognises the importance of ensuring that young adults can benefit from these funds as they reach adulthood.
To that end, HMRC continues to work with CTF providers, industry representatives and stakeholders to explore ways of increasing the profile of CTFs and enabling account owners to be aware of and trace their accounts. HMRC has ongoing work with the University and Colleges Admissions Service to encourage awareness among student peer groups and a communications plan which targets young people. HMRC has recently amended gov.uk to reference The Share Foundation’s CTF account tracing service, providing an additional way for young people to trace their accounts.