Asked by: Imogen Walker (Labour - Hamilton and Clyde Valley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the number of young people in Scotland who will be supported through the Youth Guarantee.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
With around one million young people not in education, employment and training, this Government will not leave an entire generation of young people behind. The government is investing an additional ÂŁ2.5 billion by 2029 into the Youth Guarantee and the Growth and Skills Levy, supporting almost one million young people and creating up to 500,000 opportunities to earn and learn.
This includes the expansion of Youth Hubs across Great Britain. As of 16 September 2026, there are 9 Youth Hubs open in Scotland with a further 19 planned to open by 2029. This investment also supports the introduction of a new Youth Guarantee Gateway in Jobcentres, to provide earlier and more intensive support to 16–24-year-olds on Universal Credit.
Our investment will create up to 500,000 opportunities to earn and learn including 300,000 additional opportunities to gain workplace experience and training and up to 200,000 additional employment opportunities, through a new £3,000 Youth Jobs Grant for employers hiring 18–24-year-olds who have been on Universal Credit for over six months, and the Jobs Guarantee scheme, which is available in Central and East Scotland, rolling out nationally from November 2026. All young people in Scotland who meet the eligibility criteria will be offered the relevant support.
Asked by: Imogen Walker (Labour - Hamilton and Clyde Valley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to help support young disabled people into work in Scotland.
Answered by Andrew Western - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
With around one million young people not in education, employment or training, this Government will not leave an entire generation of young people behind. In Scotland, health, skills, careers and employment support are partially devolved to the Scottish Parliament, resulting in a mix of Scottish and UK-wide control. Our officials work closely with those in the Scottish Parliament, sharing best practice on providing employment support to disabled people.
We set out our plan for the Pathways to Work Guarantee in our Pathways to Work Green Paper and we are building towards our guaranteed offer of personalised work, health and skills support for disabled people and those with health conditions on out of work benefits. The guarantee is backed by ÂŁ1 billion a year of new, additional funding by the end of the decade. We anticipate the guarantee, once fully rolled out, will include: a support conversation to identify next steps, one-to-one caseworker support, periodic engagement, and an offer of specialist long-term work health and skills support. The Scottish Government received consequential funding in the usual way.
Disabled people and people with health conditions can face a wide range of unique, yet intersecting barriers, relating to not just their health, but their employment and circumstance. We therefore have a range of specialist initiatives to support individuals to stay in work and get back into work, including those that join up employment and health systems. Existing measures include support from Work Coaches and Disability Employment Advisers in Jobcentres and Access to Work grants, as well as joining up health and employment support around the individual.
Youth Hubs, Youth Guarantee Gateway, work experience and training, jobs grant are available across Great Britain. This includes the expansion of Youth Hubs to more than 360 areas across Great Britain, and the introduction of a new Youth Guarantee Gateway in Jobcentres, to provide earlier and more intensive support to 16–24-year-olds on Universal Credit. Our investment will create up to 500,000 opportunities to earn and learn including 300,000 additional opportunities to gain workplace experience and training and up to 200,000 additional employment opportunities, through a new £3,000 Youth Jobs Grant for employers hiring 18–24-year-olds who have been on Universal Credit for over six months, and the Jobs Guarantee scheme, providing long-term unemployed 18–24-year-olds with a fully funded six month job. The apprenticeship system is devolved in Scotland.
We recognise the crisis of participation that Alan Milburn has so clearly laid out in his interim report. We will use this interim report to continue to build our reforms and look forward to final recommendations in the Autumn.
Asked by: Imogen Walker (Labour - Hamilton and Clyde Valley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of checks on the welfare and age of dogs imported into Great Britain for sale.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK has one of the toughest pet border checking regimes in the world and this Government is committed to preserving the high standards of biosecurity and animal welfare.
The Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Act 2025 gives the Government powers to prohibit the import into Great Britain of puppies and kittens under six months old and introduce measures to strengthen current enforcement mechanisms. Defra will continue to work with UK enforcement bodies as we develop these measures.
Asked by: Imogen Walker (Labour - Hamilton and Clyde Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Defence Industrial Strategy on skilled jobs and apprenticeships in Scotland.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
Defence is making a landmark investment in Scotland’s future defence workforce, including apprenticeships, through the Defence Industrial Strategy’s £182 million skills package and the Scotland Defence Growth Deal.
The Scotland Defence Growth Deal has identified skills as a core priority and will support interventions to address skills shortages across the defence sector. This includes a proposed ÂŁ10 million investment in up to two Defence Technical Excellence Colleges in Scotland, creating pathways into careers in defence engineering, advanced manufacturing and maritime technologies.
Scotland will also benefit from UK-wide initiatives such as the UCAS Defence Portal, which will promote awareness of high-quality careers in defence and the apprenticeship and graduate routes into them. Similarly, through the Defence Universities Alliance, we are working with the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Strathclyde to grow collaboration between MOD, universities and defence industries to support skills and the pipeline of students into rewarding careers.
In addition, major defence programmes are creating apprenticeship opportunities in Scotland. The Type 31 frigate programme in Rosyth, for example, currently supports around 150 apprenticeships and is expected to generate further apprenticeship opportunities over the lifetime of the programme.
Asked by: Imogen Walker (Labour - Hamilton and Clyde Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he is taking to increase apprenticeships in the defence sector in Scotland.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
Defence is making a landmark investment in Scotland’s future defence workforce, including apprenticeships, through the Defence Industrial Strategy’s £182 million skills package and the Scotland Defence Growth Deal.
The Scotland Defence Growth Deal has identified skills as a core priority and will support interventions to address skills shortages across the defence sector. This includes a proposed ÂŁ10 million investment in up to two Defence Technical Excellence Colleges in Scotland, creating pathways into careers in defence engineering, advanced manufacturing and maritime technologies.
Scotland will also benefit from UK-wide initiatives such as the UCAS Defence Portal, which will promote awareness of high-quality careers in defence and the apprenticeship and graduate routes into them. Similarly, through the Defence Universities Alliance, we are working with the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Strathclyde to grow collaboration between MOD, universities and defence industries to support skills and the pipeline of students into rewarding careers.
In addition, major defence programmes are creating apprenticeship opportunities in Scotland. The Type 31 frigate programme in Rosyth, for example, currently supports around 150 apprenticeships and is expected to generate further apprenticeship opportunities over the lifetime of the programme.
Asked by: Imogen Walker (Labour - Hamilton and Clyde Valley)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of proposed restrictions on ticket resale on access to football matches for people in Scotland.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)
Our forthcoming legislation on ticket touting (Draft Ticket Tout Ban Bill) aims to improve access for fans to all live events across the UK, including in Scotland.
We're delighted Glasgow will be hosting matches as part of UEFA EURO 2028 and are working closely with the Scottish Government and other football and government partners to deliver a fantastic event. UEFA has also confirmed that there will be no dynamic pricing, more than 40% of tickets will be offered in the most affordable categories, and over 80% of all tickets will be available to fans of the participating teams and the general public.
Asked by: Imogen Walker (Labour - Hamilton and Clyde Valley)
Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, what recent assessment he has made of Royal Mail’s performance against its universal service obligations in Scotland.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Minister of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade)
The government remains committed to ensuring a reliable universal postal service for users across all parts of the United Kingdom.
We have been clear that Royal Mail’s quality of service has not been good enough. The government has discussed Royal Mail’s performance with the company and Ofcom, as the independent regulator, and they know there is more to do to improve stability and reliability for customers, but it is welcome that the most recently released quality of service figures, for Q1 26/27, show an improvement.
Ofcom is investigating Royal Mail’s quality of service performance for 2025-26, and Royal Mail has published a service improvement plan alongside a £500 million investment into frontline resourcing.
Asked by: Imogen Walker (Labour - Hamilton and Clyde Valley)
Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, what estimate he has made of the number of workers who benefited from the increase in the National Living Wage in Hamilton and Clyde Valley constituency.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Minister of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade)
Estimates by local authority and parliamentary constituency are not always available due to data reliability constraints.
Around 180,000 workers in Scotland were expected to benefit from a direct pay rise following National Minimum Wage (NMW) and National Living Wage (NLW) increases in April 2026. The 2026 NLW uplift is worth around £900 annually for a full-time worker, and over £1,500 for 18–20-year-olds on the NMW.
Further details can be found in the Impact Assessment The National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2026.
Asked by: Imogen Walker (Labour - Hamilton and Clyde Valley)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to improve the resilience of mobile networks during power outages in rural communities.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government recognises the importance of networks being as reliable as possible so that people can access the modern digital economy, communications providers have statutory responsibilities to take appropriate and proportionate measures to maintain the resilience of their networks. Power cuts can disrupt mobile services, but if the current mobile network is unavailable all emergency 999 calls automatically switch to other available networks.
Following a detailed review, Ofcom updated their regulatory guidance to operators in June 2026, confirming that mobile operators are expected to take robust measures to manage and mitigate against the risks of power outage. Government is also working closely with all of UK’s mobile operators and electricity network operators, so that industry implements measures to reduce the impact of power cuts on mobile services wherever possible.
The Government also welcomes new direct to device low earth orbit satellite services which are now available in the UK market, which can provide another means of connectivity when there is disruption to terrestrial networks.
Asked by: Imogen Walker (Labour - Hamilton and Clyde Valley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many pensioners receive Pension Credit in Hamilton and Clyde Valley constituency.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The latest available Pension Credit caseload statistics show that in November 2025, there were 2,740 Pension Credit recipients in Hamilton and Clyde Valley parliamentary constituency (rounded to the nearest 10). This data is available via: Stat-Xplore.