Girls’ Education
Debate between Martin Whitfield and Lord Sharma(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Alok Sharma
As the hon. Lady will know, we do a wider piece of work across government to end conflict, working with our partners internationally. For example, around £3 billion has been put into a UK programme on Syria. Clearly, however, we must keep focusing on these areas. It is important that, if children are caught up in these areas, they continue to receive basic education and we are focused on that.
Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)
I welcome the Secretary of State to his position. Will he confirm that good practices such as the “Send My Friend to School” initiative are important in exploiting the messaging on this, as is the mental health of girls involved in education? What will the Government do to continue to support the mental health of young women in their education?
Alok Sharma
Mental health is of course an important issue, which has risen up the agenda over a number of years. The Government are doing their part through the Departments of Health and Social Care and of Education, and where DFID is able to offer support, it will do so.
Universal Credit
Debate between Martin Whitfield and Lord Sharma(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Alok Sharma
We have reconfigured the jobcentre estate, as the hon. Gentleman knows. He will also know that part of the reason was that we were paying for 20% of space that we were not using. We now have a jobcentre estate that is fit for the 21st century.
Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)
The Minister has answered a number of questions about double payments in a four-week period. Christmas is coming, and the majority of part-time workers who claim universal credit will be double-paid, so their universal credit will then be affected in the next payment period. These are not individual cases, although they are individual people. This is a system fault and it should be put right for this Christmas.
Alok Sharma
As I have said, universal credit adjusts depending on the amount of money that people are earning. In periods when they are not earning a salary, obviously their universal credit payment would go up.