Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what support his Department is giving to the Royal British Legion Industries Lifeworks programme.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) recognises that the mobile nature of Service life can create a particular difficulty for working partners who often give up their own jobs to accompany Service personnel. The MOD's Partner Employment Programme (PEP) is therefore focused on addressing the barriers that hinder spousal employment, both in the UK and on overseas postings.

As part of our drive to support partners of Service personnel, the MOD's Armed Forces Covenant Team secured LIBOR funding for a two year period (2013-2015) to support The Royal British Legion Industries' (RBLI) Lifeworks for Families in the successful delivery of vocational assessment and employability courses to Service spouses and dependants.

Lifeworks for Families has now secured private funding for continuation until 2019 and the MOD continues to support the successful delivery of this work through continued engagement and publicity with our policy staff and the single Services. I am pleased that nearly 800 individuals have already benefited from this programme. Demand continues to be high and MOD officials are working with RBLI to deliver an additional bespoke workshop in spring 2017, which will support the families of serving personnel in Cyprus as they return to the UK.

In addition, RBLI Lifeworks for Veterans received £958,000 of LIBOR funds in March 2016 to deliver intensive employment support to long term unemployed veterans across the UK. This funding supports the continuation of the current five year programme until 2018. To date, over 600 Armed Forces veterans have benefited from the course, resulting in 83% of participants achieving paid employment.