Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people convicted of crimes who are detained in secure hospitals are receiving benefits.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many jobcentre clients have been assisted by an Armed Forces Champion in South Holland and the Deepings constituency in the last five years.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Since January 2023, 15 members of the local Armed Forces community have been supported in the South Holland and Deepings area.
The Armed Forces Champions have specific responsibilities for supporting members of the Armed Forces community, including building staff capability within their districts, personally handling some claims, supporting veterans into work and helping resolve complex cases where necessary.
Every Work Coach is trained on how to provide tailored and personalised support to members of the Armed Forces community and their families, working in partnership with their Armed Forces Champions. In those areas where there are particularly high levels of demand, for example garrison towns, this will form a significant part of the work done in individual Jobcentres.
Please note that the data supplied is derived from unpublished management information, which was collected for internal departmental use only, and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps is he is taking to support job seekers in rural areas.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In Lincolnshire, and across the country, our Jobcentre teams are supporting people back into work and helping those in work to progress. We have a comprehensive range of support in place and are working with local and national employers to help fill vacancies quickly, delivering sector-based work academy programmes (SWAPs), recruitment days, job fairs, and work trials. Jobcentres have the flexibility to work alongside national and local organisations to help meet the needs of their communities, including in rural areas.
In Lincolnshire, the department worked with the Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership on provision to assist with a shortage of drivers in the logistics sectors, with training delivered through Boston, Stamford, and Lincoln colleges with good levels of take up.
Adequate transport links can be a major factor that affects employment, and claimants are made aware of the bus fare cap operating throughout Lincolnshire and the East Midlands, operated by local bus companies.
DWP works closely with Boston College that provides outreach services in Spalding, as well as bus transport to facilitate access to their services from rural areas. Boston College also delivers their digital course within Spalding Jobcentre, for those unable to travel into Boston. Where access is still difficult, we have engaged with other providers to deliver virtual programmes, for example NetUK and Steadfast. We have also worked with Lincolnshire County Council for delivery of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) provision to be delivered in the Spalding Jobcentre.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people claiming disability benefits cited mental health issues as a reason for claiming those benefits in 2023.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Data on Personal Independence Payment (PIP), Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and Attendance Allowance (AA) can be found on Stat-Xplore. In particular, the requested data can be found in ‘PIP Cases with Entitlement’ dataset by going to ‘Disability’ and choosing ‘Psychiatric disorders’ from the drop-down list. The same can be done to ‘DLA: Cases with entitlement - Data from May 2018’ and ‘AA: Cases with entitlement - Data from May 2018’ dataset by going to ‘Main Disability Condition’ and choosing the mental health conditions you are interested in from the drop-down list.
Data is based on primary disabling condition as recorded on the PIP, DLA, and AA computer systems. Claimants may often have multiple disabling conditions upon which the decision is based but only the primary condition is shown in these statistics.
You may also wish to filter for “DWP policy ownership” under Geography due to the devolution of some disability benefits to Scotland.
You can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest user and, if needed, you can access guidance on how to extract the information required.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether Ministers from his Department have had discussions with Stonewall on recording equality in the workplace.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
There has been no recent discussions with the Department for Work and Pensions Ministers and Stonewall on this subject as this is not within the remit of this department.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will hold discussions with (a) Cabinet colleagues and (b) HM Prison and Probation Service on steps to help increase the number of ex offenders in employment.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The proportion of prison leavers in employment six months after their release has more than doubled in the two years to March 2023.
Ministers and officials across government already work together on measures to support ex-offenders into work and reduce reoffending. A National Partnership Agreement between Ministry of Justice, HM Prison and Probation Service, and Department for Work and Pensions sets out how we jointly support prisoners in custody to prepare for employment on release and ensure prison leavers continue to access support in the community to obtain work.
Prison Employment Hubs have increased in number providing a space where offenders can get much needed support into work. DWP provides around 200 Prison Work Coaches who work alongside Prison Employment Leads and other prison services to provide employment and training support before release. The New Futures Network and DWP’s National Employment and Partnership Team broker relationships with employers helping them understand the advantages to their business of employing ex-offenders. The Government has also recently changed rehabilitation periods to help reduce barriers to employment for ex-offenders.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department is taking steps to ensure there is specific employment support for people with epilepsy.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Government delivers an extensive programme of initiatives to support disabled people and people with health conditions, including epilepsy, to start, stay, and succeed in work. This programme was expanded upon by the Government's new Back to Work Plan, announced as part of the Autumn Statement. Measures include: Universal Support, the Work and Health Programme; Access to Work grants; the Disability Confident scheme; an online service called ‘Support with employee health and disability’; increased Work Coach support and Disability Employment Advisers in Jobcentres; reforming Occupational Health provision; and further initiatives also work to join up employment and health systems, which includes expanding Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average response time to correspondence was by the Independent Case Examiner in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Office of the Independent Case Examiner holds correspondence data on:
From 1 April – 30 September 2023:
ICE’s service standards for ‘a’ and ‘b’ are 10 and 15 working days, respectively.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department holds searchable IT archives (a) of Regulatory Impact Analysis estimates for EU-sourced regulation and (b) employing the search term out of scope relating to changes to regulatory burdens that could not be reviewed due to its EU origin.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department does not hold searchable IT archives in respect of Regulatory Impact Analysis estimates. However, all available regulatory impact assessments should be publicly accessible on legislation.gov.uk, alongside the relevant piece of legislation.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people were employed by his Department to work on matters relating to equality, diversity and inclusivity in (a) 2021 and (b) 2022.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department for Work and Pensions has a dedicated team of people working on matters relating to equality, diversity, and inclusivity. In March 2021 there were 23 colleagues working on the team. This was increased to 30 colleagues by March 2022.