Employment and Support Allowance

(asked on 24th January 2017) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how he plans to replace the financial support for recipients claiming employment support allowance (ESA) in the work-related activity group (WRAG) after the ESA WRAG component has been removed.


Answered by
Penny Mordaunt Portrait
Penny Mordaunt
Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
This question was answered on 27th January 2017

We remain committed to ensuring that people have the best support possible to move closer to the labour market and, when they are ready, into work. This is why we are investing in a broad package of tailored support for new claimants in the Employment and Support Allowance Work-Related Activity Group and Universal Credit Limited Capability for Work element.

As part of this, we have allocated a total of £330m for new, voluntary support for people with limited capability for work, over four years starting from April 2017, and an extra £15 million through a top up to the existing Flexible Support Fund in both 2017/18 and 2018/19. In addition, we are beginning to engage with third party providers to investigate possibilities to reduce costs to claimants.

This is a substantial investment in those affected by the Work-Related Activity Component removal, but there are several factors around the nature of this group and the voluntary elements of the support which mean that we cannot demonstrate full compensation for every claimant.

Programme support for people with health conditions and disabilities will be devolved to Scotland from April 2017. The block grant to the Scottish Government will be adjusted to reflect the devolution of welfare, as set out in the Fiscal Framework.

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