Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of the progress of the Kickstart Scheme.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As of the 31st January 2022, over 130,000 Kickstart jobs have been started by young people and over 235,000 jobs have been made available for young people to apply to through the scheme.
The Department for Work and Pensions will be monitoring and evaluating the Kickstart scheme throughout and after its implementation and will continue to evaluate the longer-term outcomes for Kickstart participants after they have completed their six-month jobs.
Jobs made available and starts quoted here include some unfunded Kickstart jobs.
Although care is taken when processing and analysing Kickstart applications, referrals and starts, the data collected might be subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system, which has been developed quickly.
The management information presented here has not been subjected to the usual standard of quality assurance associated with official statistics but is provided in the interests of transparency. Work is ongoing to improve the quality of information available for the programme.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking following COP26 to help ensure that pension funds contribute to delivering net zero.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Building on our existing climate governance and disclosure requirements, the Department consulted (from 21 October 2021 to 6 Jan 2022) on measures requiring schemes to set out how their investments are aligned with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global average temperature increases to 1.5˚C above pre-industrial levels. We have also consulted on guidance for trustees to strengthen stewardship and voting practices which will be key to ensuring high-carbon assets transition to net zero.
We are also working across government to develop a Sustainability Disclosure Requirements regime which will create a framework for the disclosure of pension scheme’s net zero transition plans and will also help tackle ‘greenwashing’.