Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the number of young people out of (a) work, (b) education and (c) training in Liverpool Walton constituency.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department publishes national statistics on those not in education, employment or training (NEET) for England from the labour force survey for young people aged 16 to 24. However, these are only published at national and regional level due to limitations with sample sizes for lower-level geographies. Therefore, NEET rates for young people aged 16 to 24 cannot be provided for the area requested. The available statistics can be found at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/neet-statistics-annual-brief.
Local authorities are required to encourage, enable or assist young people’s participation in education or training and return management information for young people aged 16 and 17. This data shows that of the 10,372 young people aged 16 and 17-years-old who were known to Liverpool local authority around the end of 2022 (average of December 2022, January 2023 and February 2023), 885 were NEET or their activity was not known (530 known to be NEET and 355 young people whom the local authority could not confirm their activity). This data is published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/neet-and-participation-local-authority-figures. These are not national statistics but published as transparency data so some caution should be taken if using these figures. Data is not available for Liverpool, Walton constituency.
In addition, 16 to 18 destination measures are published. These official statistics show the percentage of pupils not continuing to a sustained education, apprenticeship or employment destination in the year after completing 16 to 18 study, that is 6 months of continual activity. This can be used as a proxy for NEET at age 18. Data for Liverpool Walton is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/55eab43f-7467-408e-90c8-08dd184e91f8. This shows that out of 357 pupils completing 16 to 18 study in the 2021/22 academic year in Liverpool Walton, 39 pupils were not recorded as having a sustained destination in the 2022/23, and 23 pupils did not have their activity captured.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to increase uptake of Pension Credit in winter 2024-25.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Department’s campaign to promote Pension Credit has been running across Great Britain since September. The latest phase of the campaign, which launched on 8 November, is aimed at friends and family - especially adult children of eligible pensioners - asking them to tell people they know about Pension Credit, encourage them to check their eligibility, as well as help them make a claim. It is running on TV, radio, social media such as Facebook and Instagram, on YouTube and on advertising screens, including on GP and Post Office screens.
The Department’s ‘Invitation to Claim’ initiative was launched on 30 October. Since then, we have written to around 120,000 pensioner households across Great Britain who are in receipt of Housing Benefit but not Pension Credit. The letter and accompanying leaflet urge these households to claim Pension Credit by the 21 December, which is the latest date for making a successful backdated Pension Credit claim and qualify for a Winter Fuel Payment in winter 2024/25.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Youth Guarantee on young people in Liverpool Walton constituency.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In the Get Britain Working White Paper, the Government announced £45 million of funding for eight trailblazers in England to test delivery of the Youth Guarantee. Liverpool City Region are one of the eight areas set to receive a proportion of this funding to support 18-21 year olds access education, training and employment opportunities in their area.
Working closely on the detail of the design and delivery in the Liverpool City Region, we will be able to maximise the difference it makes to young people’s lives locally. Further analysis will be available through the course of the trailblazer.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Get Britain Working White Paper on the services provided by Jobcentres in Liverpool Walton constituency.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The reforms to Jobcentres across Great Britain that we have announced in the recent Get Britain Working White Paper will be transformative.
Key to the White Paper’s successful delivery will be ensuring it is locally responsive and engaged. This will mean it will operate differently in different areas to reflect local systems and needs.
We will work closely with key partners, including Mayoral Combined Authorities, as we design, develop and test the new service into the next year. These tests will help us discover how we can shape a local service, while the UK Government maintains overall accountability for it.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will have discussions with the Electoral Commission on the potential implications for (a) her and (b) the Commission's policies of Transparency International's position paper entitled Cheques and balances: Countering the influence of big money in UK politics, published in December 2024.
Answered by Rushanara Ali - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Effective regulation and enforcement of political finance are crucial for maintaining public trust in our electoral systems. The Government is committed to strengthening our democracy and upholding the integrity of elections and, as stated in our manifesto, we intend to strengthen the rules around donations to political parties to protect our democracy. My department is working closely with the Electoral Commission on developing proposals to give effect to this commitment. We are also seeking, and remaining open to, evidence from key stakeholders, particularly in relation to threats to our democracy.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps his Department is taking to provide transition pathways for oil and gas workers.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Clean Energy Mission will create hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country. The UK has a highly skilled oil and gas workforce, with high transferability of skills to these new roles.
The Office for Clean Energy Jobs (OCEJ) has been created to ensure that clean energy jobs are abundant, high quality, paid fairly, and have favourable terms and good working conditions.
The OCEJ will also set out targeted interventions to support specific skills needs in the clean energy workforce. It recently announced support for the Energy Skills Passport to support oil and gas workers into new roles in the clean energy sector.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her Department's policies of the report entitled Fix the CMS: key findings from our research on child maintenance, published by Gingerbread in November 2024.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) continues to engage regularly with stakeholders as we consider CMS reform. We are currently considering the recommendations and our response to the Gingerbread report ‘Fix the CMS’.
The CMS Service Modernisation Programme has delivered improvements to the customer experience enabling parents to access their on-line My Child Maintenance Case, ensuring parents can report changes of circumstances and access their digital communications at any time of the day. In addition, caseworker training to support vulnerable customers has been updated following invaluable engagement with stakeholders.
The CMS has recently consulted on significant reforms and are analysing the responses. This included removing the Direct Pay service and managing all CMS cases in one service to allow the CMS to tackle non-compliance faster. The consultation also sought views on how victims and survivors of domestic abuse can be better supported to use CMS and whether removing Direct Pay completely would benefit victims and survivors of domestic abuse. The Government will publish a response in due course.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of extending reimbursement of employer National Insurance contributions to the voluntary sector.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
At the recent Budget, the government took a number of difficult decisions on tax, welfare, and spending to fix the foundations of the public finances, fund public services, and restore economic stability.
Ministers have met with representatives from the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector to discuss this issue and the department is aware of their concerns about the impacts of the increase to employer National Insurance Contributions (NICs).
The government recognises the need to protect the smallest businesses and charities, which is why we have more than doubled the Employment Allowance to £10,500. This means that more than half of businesses (including charities) with NICs liabilities will either gain or see no change next year.
We are also expanding eligibility of the Employment Allowance by removing the £100,000 eligibility threshold, to simplify and reform employer NICs so that all eligible employers now benefit. Businesses and charities will still be able to claim employer NICs reliefs including those for under 21s and under 25 apprentices, where eligible.
The Government publishes Tax Information and Impact Notes (TIINs) for tax policy changes, which give a clear explanation of the policy objective and an assessment of the impacts. The TIIN for the employer NICs changes was published on 13 November 2024.
Within the tax system, we provide support to charities through a range of reliefs and exemptions, including reliefs for charitable giving. More than £6 billion in charitable reliefs was provided to charities, Community Amateur Sports Clubs and their donors in 2023 to 2024. The biggest individual reliefs provided are Gift Aid at £1.6 billion and business rates relief at nearly £2.4 billion.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of proposed changes to employer National Insurance contributions on the voluntary drug and alcohol treatment sector.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
A Tax Information and Impact Note that covers the employer NICs changes was published by HMRC on 13 November and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-the-class-1-national-insurance-contributions-secondary-threshold-the-secondary-class-1-national-insurance-contributions-rate-and-the-empl/changes-to-the-class-1-national-insurance-contributions-secondary-threshold-the-secondary-class-1-national-insurance-contributions-rate-and-the-empl .
The Government has protected the smallest businesses from the impact of the increase to Employer National Insurance by increasing the Employment Allowance from £5,000 to £10,500, which means that 865,000 employers will pay no NICs at all next year, more than half of employers will see no change or will gain overall from this package, and all eligible employers will be able to employ up to four full-time workers on the National Living Wage and pay no employer NICs.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of the National Audit Office's report entitled Managing conflicts of interest, HC 307, published on 22 November 2024.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
We are committed to restoring public confidence in government and ensuring that all those in public service are held to the highest standards.
We will consider carefully the National Audit Office’s recommendations in its recent report ‘Managing Conflicts of Interest’.