Oral Answers to Questions

Sally-Ann Hart Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend is right to raise this very important benefit, pension credit. He will be aware that the Department has been fully engaged in encouraging pensioners who will qualify to take up this benefit, and it is important that they do, because it is worth more than £3,000 a year and it is a gateway benefit for other benefits in turn. I pay tribute to the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), who has done a great deal to push greater uptake, including a week of effort back in June when the uptake increased by 275% in that week.

[Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

2. What steps his Department is taking to help reduce the number of people who are economically inactive.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

3. What recent assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the level of economic inactivity in the labour market.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)]

The labour market has recovered strongly since 2020, with payroll employment up on the pre-pandemic level in all 12 regions of the United Kingdom. We have comprehensive support in place to help people to find, progress and stay in work, with additional support for groups we know are more likely to be inactive, such as those aged 50-plus and people with a disability.

[Sally-Ann Hart]

Work is the best route out of poverty, and it is concerning that claimants of, and public spending on, working-age benefits have increased significantly since 2019. There is more that the Government can do beyond the conditionality regime, so can the Secretary of State confirm that implementing universal support, which is designed to help those facing barriers to work and to overcome the complex challenges holding them back, will be considered?

[Mel Stride]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend that work is the best route out of poverty, and in that regard I commend her for her private Member’s Bill, which the Department is pleased to support. Our low unemployment rate demonstrates our extensive support for those moving into work; universal support has been replaced, as she may know, by Help to Claim, which provides tailored support to individuals making a universal credit claim across England, Scotland and Wales.