Asked by: Matt Bishop (Labour - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to help reduce the number of children in poverty in Forest of Dean constituency.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Delivering our manifesto commitment to tackle child poverty is an urgent priority for this Government, and the Ministerial Taskforce is working to publish a Child Poverty Strategy which will deliver lasting change.
The Strategy will look at levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience; and better local support especially in the early years. This will build on the reform plans underway across government and work underway in Devolved Governments.
The Taskforce is listening to experts and campaigners and engaging with families, charities, campaigners and leading organisations across the UK to shape and inform the Strategy.
The vital work of the Taskforce comes alongside our commitments to triple investment in breakfast clubs to over £30 million, introduce a Fair Repayment Rate for deductions from Universal Credit, and increase the National Living Wage to £12.21 an hour from April to boost the pay of three million workers.
Asked by: Matt Bishop (Labour - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to improve (a) employment and (b) apprenticeship opportunities for young people in Forest of Dean constituency.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As part of the Get Britain Working White Paper the government announced that we will launch a new Youth Guarantee for all young people aged 18-21 in England to ensure that they have access to further learning, help to get a job or an apprenticeship.
The Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education are working closely with the eight Mayoral Strategic Authorities in England who will begin delivering the Youth Guarantee Trailblazers announced in the Get Britain Working white paper from Spring 2025. The Youth Guarantee Trailblazers will test how new local leadership, accountability structures and existing provision can be integrated into a cohesive education, training and employment support offer to tackle the rising number of young people who are not participating in education, employment or training.
We will use the learning from these Trailblazers to inform the future design and development of the Youth Guarantee as it rolls-out across the rest of England, which will include Forest of Dean constituency.
DWP currently provides young people aged 16-24 on Universal Credit with labour market support through an extensive range of interventions at a national and local level. This includes flexible provision driven by local need, nationwide employment programmes and other appropriate support, including Sector-based Work Academy Programmes, work experience and apprenticeships.
The Government is also reforming the apprenticeships offer into a more flexible growth and skills offer, aligned to the industrial strategy. The Department for Education is working to introduce new foundation apprenticeships for young people, as well as shorter duration apprenticeships, in targeted sectors. These will help more people learn new high-quality skills at work, fuel innovation in businesses across the country, and provide high-quality entry pathways for young people.
Asked by: Matt Bishop (Labour - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will take steps with Cabinet colleagues to help tackle the impact of music in shops on people with sensory sensitivities.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Equality Act 2010 places a duty on service providers to make reasonable adjustments to improve access to premises, buildings and services. This is so that disabled customers have the same access to goods and services and are not placed at a substantial disadvantage compared to non-disabled customers. This is an anticipatory duty, meaning providers should not wait to be asked before acting, but should expect that some of their customers will be disabled and require adaptations.
The Government welcomes steps some retailers are taking to introduce sensory friendly hours for customers who may find busy or loud shopping environments overwhelming.
Encouragingly, many establishments are already adopting practices like offering "quiet hours" or optimising acoustics for a more welcoming atmosphere.
The National Autistic Society has produced guidance for businesses on how this can be implemented: Autism Hour guidance (including tips for social distancing).pdf
Asked by: Matt Bishop (Labour - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure that planned reforms to the disability benefit system ensure security and support for seriously ill and disabled people.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This government believes there is a strong case to change the system of health and disability benefits across Great Britain so that it better enables people to enter and remain in work, and to respond to the complex and fluctuating nature of the health conditions many people live with today. The system must also work to reduce poverty for disabled people and those with health conditions and support disabled people to live independently.
We want to engage with disabled people, and others with expertise and experience on these issues, to consider how to address these challenges and build a better system. We are working to develop proposals for reform and will set them out for consultation and engagement in a Green Paper in spring 2025. This government is committed to putting the views and voices of disabled people at the heart of all that we do, so we will consult on these proposals with disabled people and representative organisations.
Asked by: Matt Bishop (Labour - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure that (a) the most vulnerable and (b) other people living in rural constituencies can easily access her Department's support (i) digitally and (ii) through local offices.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
All DWP colleagues are trained to support our most vulnerable customers and have access to a wide range of guidance and signposting to support them. Where further specialist help is required, DWP has a national network of Advanced Customer Support Senior Leaders who can provide additional advice and support through the local networks they have built with external partners and organisations. This could include those who can offer digital and other support to access our services.
Through the national DWP Visiting Service the Department provides additional face-to-face support across all service lines to customers who cannot access DWP services in any other way. A visit can be arranged for a customer if they need extra help to claim benefits, for example because they have complex needs, are disabled, are a vulnerable young person making a claim for the first time, have nobody else to support them or cannot claim benefits in any other way. There is also work underway to look at how we can enhance our Visiting service further so that it is even more flexible to support customers differing needs.
In close collaboration with the Advanced Customer Support team, the Digital Group is driving efforts to standardise how the Department captures and records the needs of our most vulnerable customers, introducing consistency in areas such as accessibility markers.
We are also looking at a re-launch of our Strategic Video Service at the end of 2025, to bring more choice for those customers who struggle to access a physical location. In addition, we have developed an external-facing Application Programming Interface (API), which enables Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to obtain real-time confirmation of a customer's entitlement to relevant benefits and allows eligible customers to take up a social tariff for their broadband, supporting low-income families by reducing their costs and enabling them to stay connected.