Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the potential effect of the (a) reduction of the universal credit taper rate and (b) increase in the work allowance on the number of children in poverty.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
It is not possible to produce a robust estimate of the effect of the reduction of the Universal Credit taper rate or the increase in work allowance on the number of children in poverty. Projecting the impacts of policies on poverty involves projecting forward the impact of the pandemic on every household’s income, which is not possible to do with confidence, not least because the latest comprehensive data on net incomes for households is from 2019-20, before the pandemic began. However, we do know that these changes will leave almost two million workers around £1000 better off per year on average.
Official child poverty statistics covering the period 2020/21, will be published in March 2022, as part of the Department’s (a) Children in Low Income Families and (b) Households Below Average Income publications, subject to the usual checks on data quality.
This Government has always believed that the most sustainable way to lift children out of poverty is by helping their parents to move into and to progress in work wherever possible. Our approach is based on clear evidence about the importance of parental employment - particularly where it is full-time – in substantially reducing the risks of child poverty and in improving long-term outcomes for families and children. In 2019/20, children in households where all adults were in work were around six times less likely to be in absolute poverty (before housing costs) than children in a household where nobody works. Compared with 2010, there were almost 1 million fewer workless households and almost 580,000 fewer children living in workless households in the UK in September 2021.
Furthermore, our multi-billion-pound Plan for Jobs, which has recently been expanded by £500 million, will help people across the UK to find work and to boost their wages and prospects.
However, we recognise that some people may require extra support over the winter as we continue our recovery from the impacts of the COVID pandemic, which is why vulnerable households will be able to access a new £500 million support fund to help them with essentials. This includes £421 million for the Household Support Fund, which will help vulnerable people in England with the cost of food, utilities and wider essentials.
We have also increased the value of Healthy Start Food Vouchers from £3.10 to £4.25, helping eligible low income households buy healthy foods such as milk, fruit and vitamins, and are investing over £200m a year from 2022 to extend our successful Holiday Activities and Food programme, which provides enriching activities and healthy meals to children in all Local Authorities in England.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
What recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Education on support for vulnerable children.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
DWP supports DfE’s Family Hubs work, backed by £82m of £300m announced in the Spending Review to transform services for parents and babies, carers and children.
At least 50% of the new Household Support Fund will be spent on support for vulnerable households with children this winter.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to encourage young people to take up careers in the hospitality sector.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is working across our Jobcentre Plus (JCP) network to encourage all suitable candidates into the hospitality sector. We are supporting our Work Coaches to help them identify new talent for employers through our Plan for Jobs programmes.
Through the DWP Youth Offer, Work Coaches are helping young people access local skills, training and jobs. This may include Kickstart placements, Sector-based Work Academy Programmes, traineeships, work experience or apprenticeships.
Our Sector-based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs) provides opportunities in sectors with high volumes of current local vacancies, such as hospitality, allowing people to learn the skills and behaviours that employers need. DWP is increasing the number of SWAPs opportunities to 80,000 in 2021/22.
Our National Employer and Partnership Team (NEPT) ran a series of Spotlight Calls for work coaches and employer engagement colleagues to ensure that they promote and maximise every opportunity available in these sectors to our customers. They have been joined on these calls by representatives from UK Hospitality and Springboard, as well as employers who spoke about the opportunities they have available.
We have made changes to our Job Help website which now includes an article on hospitality and encourages customers to consider a job in the sector, by highlighting the reasons to work in hospitality and the range of roles available. It also points jobseekers to training through the Careers Scope website and recommends jobseekers consider the key sector job boards (Caterer, Leisure Jobs, Jobsite, Hospitality UK) and the Find a Job website.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Kickstart scheme in the hospitality sector.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
As of 11th October, over 23,200 jobs have been made available in the hospitality and food sector through the Kickstart Scheme, including over 6,900 started. We are exploring how we can continue to support these sectors, whilst recognising that Kickstart jobs must be additional, not displacing existing opportunities within the wider labour market.
The Department for Work and Pensions has developed an extensive offer to support the hospitality sector, along with at least £25 billion in COVID-19-related economic support that has already been provided by the UK Government to the tourism, hospitality and leisure sectors since March 2020. In addition to having access to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, loan guarantees and protection from commercial rent eviction and debt forfeitures, hospitality businesses also had access to grants, business rates relief, a VAT cut on food and non-alcoholic beverages to 5% and the Eat Out to Help Out Scheme. DWP has also provided additional support to help businesses reopen, with an additional £5bn in the form of one-off Restart Grants of up to £18,000.
The government has also recently published its long-term plans to support the hospitality sector in the Hospitality Strategy, available here: Hospitality strategy: reopening, recovery, resilience - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
What recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Education on support for vulnerable children.
Answered by Will Quince
The Secretary of State frequently meets with counterparts across Government to discuss a range of issues, including how we can support families and vulnerable children, so we can deliver on our clear manifesto commitment to reduce child poverty.
Just last week, we announced the extension of the Covid Local Support Grant to 30th September, with a further £160 million of support to be delivered across England and primarily targeted at vulnerable families with children.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress her Department is making on meeting the 2.3 per cent public sector apprenticeship target; and when her Department will meet that target.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
As of 31 March 2020, the Civil Service has achieved a total of 2.1% of its total workforce as apprentices against the legislative target for the public sector of 2.3% by March 2021. The Department for Work and Pensions has achieved 1.8% of the total staff employed within the department. The Department is looking to recruit more apprentices over the coming months, and current forecasts predict we could achieve the target in 2020/21. Given this target is a percentage of the total workforce the percentage changes in line with workforce fluctuations over time therefore making it challenging to predict when a department will meet it. The data for 2018/19 can be found here. The data for 2019/20 will be released on gov.uk by the end of September 2020.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what her Department is taking to reach the public sector apprenticeship target.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP has a total of twenty-four different apprenticeship programmes ranging from Level 2 to Level 7 (MBA level).
Continuous learning is an important part of our Capability strategy and through access to Apprenticeships, these schemes are available widely across all professional areas throughout the department.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans she has in place to support the extremely clinically vulnerable to covid-19 who have not been furloughed and are asked to return to work after 1 August 2020 in the event that they believe that their workplace is not covid-19-secure.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
Guidance for the Clinically Extremely Vulnerable can be found here:
Guidance for employers can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/working-safely-during-coronavirus-covid-19
Guidance for employees (including links to advice services if a person is worried about going back to work) can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus/worker-support
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what support her Department is providing to people on zero-hours contracts whose employment has been terminated as a result of covid-19 and do not qualify for Statutory Sick Pay because they are not self-isolating.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The Government has been clear in its commitment to support those affected in these difficult times and we have made a number of changes to the welfare system in the past fortnight to ensure people are supported in doing this. These changes include:
Together, these measures represent an injection of over £6.5 billion into the welfare system.
The Chancellor has also confirmed that, depending on their status, workers on zero hours contracts may be eligible for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and we would urge people to explore this avenue too.
Asked by: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent discussions she has had with supermarket chains and suppliers on ensuring that the foodbanks can meet the increased demand as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Will Quince
Food banks are independent charitable organisations and, as such, are best placed to decide on the most appropriate arrangements for supporting people who use them. As both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have made clear, the Government will do whatever it takes to support people affected by COVID 19 and we have been clear in our intention that no one should be penalised for doing the right thing. These are rapidly developing circumstances, we continue to keep the situation under review and will keep Parliament updated accordingly.
I also refer the honourable member to the response given by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in response to an oral question made on 19 March:
[Additionally announcements were made at the Prime Minister’s daily briefings on 21 and 22 March in relation to food supply]