Our Homes for Ukraine scheme was formally opened for applications on Friday, with more than 150,000 Britons registering their interest. Ukrainian evacuees coming to this country are able to access DWP benefits, support and services from day one, and jobcentres will be helping people to find and move into employment, with assistance from an assigned work coach. Extra support will be available through our flexible support fund. We are also ensuring that the household benefit entitlements of those who have stepped up to sponsor a Ukrainian individual or family will not be affected as a result. As the public open their hearts and homes, we are ensuring that the right support is available to provide security, stability and safety in their hour of need.
Andrew Jones
The excellent team at my local Jobcentre Plus have briefed my office that they have placed 163 young people in Harrogate in work through the Government’s kickstart programme. Will the Secretary of State ensure that the new Way to Work scheme builds on that, especially in sectors where we are seeing workforce shortages, such as social care?
My hon. Friend is right to praise the young people in his constituency who have started their careers thanks to kickstart. Way to Work will build on our success in bringing employers and claimants together in jobcentres so that we can try to fill local vacancies, and will ensure that when candidates do not succeed in getting job interviews, they receive the feedback much more quickly. We will continue to try to directly address the barriers to entering roles in social care through job fairs and informed campaigns.
I call the shadow Secretary of State, Jonathan Ashworth.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
Families and retirees are facing rising energy bills so unaffordable, tax rises so punishing, real-terms cuts in the basic state pension so deep, and cuts in universal credit and disability benefits so severe that money-saving expert Martin Lewis has said that people will either starve or freeze. Secretary of State, Mr Lewis is correct, is he not?
We still have the household support fund, which is available for people to apply to, to get extra support from their local council. I encourage people who are struggling right now to make that approach to their council as quickly as possible.
Jonathan Ashworth
People are struggling right now, and the Secretary of State is about to cut benefits to the tune of £500 for 9 million households. That is a choice that she has made. She has also made a choice by breaking her promise on the triple lock and cutting the basic state pension in real terms by £388 this year, according to The Daily Telegraph. Her justification for that was that the increase in earnings was at 8%. The Bank of England estimates that inflation will hit 8%. Can she rule out breaking the triple lock again this year?
As was explained at the time of the emergency legislation, the increase in earnings was a statistical anomaly due to the impacts of covid. That is why the Opposition supported the Bill right through this House on its very first day—
I said the Opposition; the SNP might be the second Opposition party. The Labour Opposition did support the Bill until it came back from the Lords. There was a lot of support at the time, recognising the statistical anomaly.
T4. The jobs of the future, especially in the green industries, require technical skills, and investing in people to improve their technical skills is vital to the Government’s levelling-up agenda, which is particularly important in beautiful Hastings and Rye. What steps is my hon. Friend taking to increase the technical skills levels of people who are already in work?
I thank my hon. Friend for that question, which I think will interest the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) as well. From April this year, our new DWP in-work progression offer will support working universal credit claimants to progress and increase their earnings. It will include better support to upskill and retrain, and low-paid workers are eligible for training funded by the Department for Education via skills boot camps in digital engineering and the green sectors.
T5. It is welcome that the Government have proposed reforms to the Child Maintenance Service following the recent National Audit Office report highlighting the failures in that organisation. Will the reforms address the issues with self-employed fee-paying parents hiding their income, as well as the concerns around previously unco-operative parents being moved off collect and pay after minimal evidence of compliance?
The hon. Lady raises an important point. All parents automatically go into the direct payment process. I am working with my noble Friend Baroness Stedman-Scott, the Minister who has direct responsibility for this portfolio, to see what more we can do to accelerate reform if people are clearly not being compliant and not paying. Meanwhile, our financial investigations unit will investigate where people are hiding money and, if necessary, take them to court to ensure that the money gets paid.
T6. I would like to thank our local DWP officials and work coaches for their efforts to help more people in Delyn into work in the past few months. Some parts of my constituency remain among the most deprived in Wales. Does the Minister agree that improved transport infrastructure is key to ensuring that people can get to jobs? I appreciate that she is not a Minister in the Department for Transport, but will she in principle support my campaign to have a train station reinstated to serve Holywell and Greenfield, to help people to access more jobs and level up their communities?
That may be a devolved issue, but I would point out that many employers in Wales have been putting on transportation to bring workers in. That has been happening particularly in Ynys Môn—in Anglesey—to support production there. Working with the jobcentre to put on suitable transport makes a difference in getting people into work too.