My Department does a great deal to support the long-term sick and disabled, including through universal credit and its health element, and through the personal independence payment, which is a contribution to the additional costs of sickness and disability.
My constituent Jenifer Picton is currently undergoing extensive treatment for cancer and is consequently unable to work. I wish Ms Picton all the very best with her treatment. She has come to my office, which has helped with universal credit, PIP and the new-style employment and support allowance. She has now managed to get PIP, but given that she is seriously ill, why should she have to come to my office for help? Why do we make it so arduous and difficult for people who need treatment to get help?
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and the typical assiduity with which he takes up his constituency case. May I send my best wishes, and I am sure those of the whole House, to Ms Picton? I am happy to meet him to discuss in more detail the circumstances that he has described.
Data in responses to my written questions on PIP appeals shows that more than 50,000 ill or disabled people had their appeals upheld at tribunal without the need for new evidence. Given that the UK Government will be examined today by the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities following its 2016 special inquiry that found that the threshold had been met for grave and systematic violations, is it not time to replace the flawed and outdated PIP system with a framework that is fit for purpose?
Of course, we always keep all benefits under review at the Department, including PIP and the assessment processes. As the hon. Lady points out, there is rightly an appeals process for those who are not happy with the conclusions of those assessments. We keep those under review, and I can reassure her that they represent a relatively small proportion of the total number of applications.
The regional employment gap is significantly lower than in 2010. Jobcentres take a place-based approach to deliver targeted support that reflects local need and the local economy.
Helping People into Work
Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)
3. What steps he is taking to help people into work.
Jobcentre Plus provides a variety of different support to encourage and support people into work, including training and one-to-one, face-to-face counselling by work coaches.
Gordon Henderson
In February, there were 615 claimants aged 18 to 24 out of work in Sittingbourne and Sheppey. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important that schools and businesses work together to ensure that young people have the qualifications and skills they need to progress into work once they finish full-time education?
Welfare Reforms
Social Security Benefits: Vulnerable People
Job Vacancies: Banff and Buchan
Cost of Living: Food Bank Use
Jobcentres: Darlington
Support for Pensioners
Rural Poverty: Benefits System
Housing Benefit: Landlords
Personal Independence Payment Claims
Child Poverty
Topical Questions
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Chi Onwurah
LabourNewcastle upon Tyne Central and West
Health Equity North research shows high levels of economic inactivity in the north-east due to disability or ill health—40% above the national average. I visited the jobcentre in Newcastle and was very impressed by the dedication and hard work of the staff, but I know from the Public and Commercial Services union that one in four universal credit managers took time off in 2023 for mental illness, which is three times the figure before 2019. We are the only country in the G7 not to have the same level of employment as before the pandemic. Are those high rates not because of record NHS waiting lists, low staff morale and general Government incompetence?
As the hon. Lady found, within our jobcentres we have highly skilled people helping people to find work. We have a higher number of people with disabilities in work than in 2010—more than 2 million—and we intend to ensure that work coaches can work carefully and sensitively and attend to people’s needs.
In recent months, the Welsh Affairs Committee has heard from young adults about their experiences with the benefits system. We have been struck by how this group of young people want to work and feel that they can work, but they have been written off as long-term sick and passed to the long-term sickness benefit roll by jobcentres. They feel incredibly let down. Does the Minister agree that we cannot afford to be signing off so many of our young people on long-term sickness?
That is why we have WorkWell, the back to work plan, and the occupational health group, led by Dame Carol Black, looking into fit note reform. It is also why we have youth employment coaches and the youth hubs. We are working to ensure that there is the right attenuated support, including kickstart, the sector-based work academy programme and boot camps. Only last week, I met Steph, who is 27, 10 years out of work and grateful for the help that she has had.
Mel Stride
ConservativeCentral Devon
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. It is exactly why we have youth hubs providing advice and support on not just getting into work but other important matters to young people, such as housing, their health and debt management.
I was talking to the Royal National Institute of Blind People, which represents the blind and partially sighted. It told me of an employee who said,
“I am newly employed and I am unable to fulfil my role. It has been extremely stressful and frustrating”,
and this is because of Access to Work. Does the Minister agree that without having Access to Work in place within the first four weeks of someone entering work, it is incredibly difficult for them to maintain that position?
I am pleased that the hon. Lady raises Access to Work, because it is extremely effective. The grant can be there year in, year out and be up to a maximum of £66,000. Along with other approaches, it has very much led to our meeting our employment goal for disabled people in half the time that we set in 2017—over a million more disabled people were in work by 2022.