Marie Rimmer
Main Page: Marie Rimmer (Labour - St Helens South and Whiston)Department Debates - View all Marie Rimmer's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(2 days, 13 hours ago)
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Liz Kendall
The hon. Lady is right to champion her constituents’ needs. We recently undertook a survey of people on sickness and disability benefits, and two in five of them said that they were on a waiting list. That really concerned us, and it is why we are putting extra investment in place. We need to go further, faster, on driving waiting lists down. We have already achieved the 2 million extra appointments that we said we would deliver in our manifesto—we did that seven months early—and we will do even more to ensure that her constituents get back to health and back to work.
Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
Nearly 1 million young people leaving school are not in employment, training or education. My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (David Baines) and I both represent St Helens. A couple of weeks ago, we received a letter from college tutors who were having difficulty getting young people to take up employment, training or education, asking if we could we do anything about that. Will the Secretary of State say a little more about the guarantee of employment for young people, and how we will get them to accept training? Those young people were afraid of a cut in universal credit. I have to admit that I did not know that young people were on universal credit.
Liz Kendall
I promised I would keep my answers shorter, because so many colleagues want to get in. Our youth guarantee will be rolled out from next month. Mayors and local leaders will bring together work, health and skills support locally. I am very happy to talk to my hon. Friend personally about what more we can do in her constituency, because she is right that we have to get those young people on a pathway to success.