Oral Answers to Questions

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Monday 8th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising a very important point about disability employment. The Government are very proud that we delivered record disability employment—it is up 1.4 million since 2014 alone. Even during these unprecedented challenging times, over the past 12 months 25,000 more disabled people are in work. But we recognise that there will be challenges going forward, which is why we have made changes to Access to Work so that people can get support working at home; we have increased our support through Disability Confident, sharing best practice and providing resources to employers to be able to make changes, often small ones, to take advantage of the huge talent pool available. This is a key area, and in both the forthcoming national strategy for disabled people and the health and disability Green Paper we will continue to look at ways in which we can support employers to offer more opportunities for disabled people of all ages.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

What recent steps she has taken to reduce youth unemployment.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)]

This Government are committed to providing support to help young people move into work and avoid the scarring effects of long-term unemployment as we recover from the pandemic. The £30 billion plan for jobs includes new youth hubs and specific interventions targeted at young people. Our DWP youth offer and the kickstart programme are designed to move young people towards meaningful and sustained employment opportunities.

[Rushanara Ali [V]]

Happy International Women’s Day, Mr Speaker.

Last year, youth unemployment went up by 420,000, reaching 600,000, and it is set to reach 1 million, yet the Government’s kickstart programme has got only 4,000 young people into work, despite employers providing placements. Will the Minister explain by what date her Department’s own target of 200,000 placements will be met?

[Mims Davies]

The hon. Lady is absolutely correct: we are converting more than 140,000 job placements into starts and 30,000 jobs are currently being advertised. In her area, the London Borough of Tower Hamlets has approval for more than 500 kickstart opportunities in a variety of sectors across the borough. A virtual youth hub is also operating in Tower Hamlets to support people and we hope it will move to face-to-face contact shortly. There are 119 new work coaches in Hoxton and a new temporary Jobcentre Plus is opening in Leman Street in Tower Hamlets in April. We take youth unemployment incredibly seriously. As we move into recovery, we will make sure that young people take up roles and move into work safely, to get those kickstart opportunities going.