Diana Johnson MP: speeches

Speeches

• 29 Jun 2026 · Universal Credit: People in Employment · Hansard source

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  Yes, I am very happy to meet the hon. Gentleman.

• 15 Apr 2026 · Access to Work Scheme · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that case. The Minister for Social Security and Disability, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), has responsibility for Access to Work. He sadly cannot be with us this afternoon, but I have heard that particular case, and if my hon. Friend supplies me with the details, I will certainly raise it with the Minister.

• 15 Apr 2026 · Access to Work Scheme · Hansard source

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  I fully appreciate that the case is not unique, and that far too many people are not getting the service we want them to have through Access to Work. I will say a little about what we are already doing and what we plan to do next. Access to Work is key to delivering this Government’s objectives. It removes the barriers to work for disabled people and people with health impairments, and provides essential support that people need beyond the reasonable adjustments that employers are already required to make under the Equality Act 2010. As well as being important for individuals, Access to Work is important for businesses because it helps employers to recruit disabled people confidently and, very importantly, to retain them. The National Audit Office report has been referred to a number of times. It announced its investigation into Access to Work on 1 September, and published its report, which I warmly welcomed, on 6 February. The report highlights that Access to Work is supporting more people than ever—particularly those with mental health conditions and learning disabilities—but it also documents the pressures of administrative backlogs, delays and rising costs, and the impact on people and their employers. The report also recognises the Department’s efforts to improve decision making and productivity within existing operational, budgetary and policy constraints, including our intention to make improvements following the consultation on last year’s Pathways to Work Green Paper. The NAO’s findings and recommendations are important, and we are reviewing them very carefully. They are a key contribution to ensuring that the scheme meets the needs of those who depend on it, while also delivering value for money. The NAO is right to point out that “data systems hamper productivity” and do not provide officials with “an integrated view” of all customer information. There have been some improvements, for example, to allow customers to view their claims history—a response to customer feedback. Improvements are also being made to the case management system, but there is much more to do. A new standard operating procedure has been introduced to improve consistency and quality in application processing. That needs to be fully bedded in before the new work study called for by the National Audit Office is carried out, so that it can reflect the environment in which caseworkers will be operating in the future. I want to talk about the growing demand for the scheme. As we all agree, Access to Work does a really important job, but it has come under serious strain from a major surge in demand since the pre-pandemic period. In 2024-25, although they were down somewhat that year, approval volumes were 59% higher than they had been in 2019-20. Spending on Access to Work in 2024-25 of £321 million was, in real terms, twice what it was in 2018-19 before the pandemic. The number of people receiving a grant—74,190—was almost double, and the number of applications in 2024-25—157,000—was more than double the number in 2018-19. Many more people are seeking support, particularly for mental health impairments, and that is now the largest group approved for payment, at 31%. Funding for support workers represents the largest share of expenditure, at 71%. The job aide support worker category replaced British Sign Language interpreters in 2024-25 as the category with the highest expenditure, at £63.9 million. Spending on BSL interpreter support workers was £62.8 million. Some of the increased demand has arisen from better public awareness of Access to Work. I know that hon. Members were concerned about people knowing about the scheme.

• 15 Apr 2026 · Access to Work Scheme · Hansard source

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  The Department for Work and Pensions will always be looking at and evaluating the schemes we have, and what the cost is if a scheme is not available to people, so that work will be underway. I want to go back to the issue of people being aware of the Access to Work scheme. Some will remember that Access to Work was once talked about as the Government’s best-kept secret, but the figures I have just read out show that it is not anymore. That is a positive thing; we want more disabled people being supported to move into and stay in employment. However, managing that surge in demand has damaged customer service. It has caused a substantial backlog in applications, which many service users have been inconvenienced by. In response, we have substantially increased the number of staff working on Access to Work, from 500 in March 2024 to 648 this March. We have streamlined the process by removing some routine requests for information, but I agree that serious problems remain. To protect employment opportunities, case managers prioritise applications where the customer is due to start a job within four weeks. In 2025, staff allocated 96% of those applications within 28 days. We have also heard of cases where someone who previously received Access to Work is denied it, or where awards have been reduced even though the circumstances have not changed. To be clear, the policy has not changed. There has been some misunderstanding about that, so it is important that I make it very clear: there has not been a change in the policy. There will be policy changes, but they have not happened yet. What is true is that, over the past year, officials have worked to apply the existing guidance more consistently. That means that some awards have changed at the point of renewal, but the policy itself has not changed. It is just that the existing policy has been applied more consistently. Another issue that has caused concern is the withdrawal of routine email access. The reason for that was concern about the security of the often very sensitive data being sent in relation to Access to Work, and the risk to data privacy. We are working on a new digital capability for Access to Work, which will allow documents to be uploaded online. Email correspondence is still available for those who need it as a reasonable adjustment. On the reform of Access to Work, as I have said, there is no doubt that serious problems remain with the programme. Since it was first designed over 30 years ago, the style, scope and cost of the support that people require has changed significantly, yet Access to Work has stayed largely the same. As a result, there is a strong case for reform. In last year’s Pathways to Work Green Paper last year, we consulted on the future of Access to Work and how to improve it to help more disabled people into work. Reform needs to be informed by the views and experiences of those who use or could use the service. We recently concluded the Access to Work collaboration committees, with disabled people’s organisations and lived-experience users, to inform and to challenge the design of the future Access to Work scheme. We will work closely with the Department’s recently formed independent disability advisory panel on the next phase. The panel, under the chairwomanship of the disability activist Zara Todd, will connect the expertise of disabled people and people with long-term health conditions with the design and delivery of our policies, particularly around employment support. The panel has made clear its interest in Access to Work, and has already had its first meeting specifically on the topic. Once we have a reform proposal, we will look at the timescale and work closely with stakeholders to make the transition from the current arrangements to the new ones as painless as possible. We are taking some time over the changes, but I think the House will agree that it is important to get them right. In conclusion, Access to Work is vital to our mission to break down the barriers to the workplace for disabled people and those with health conditions. We need to continue improvements to the NHS so that people can access the treatment and support that they need earlier and more consistently. Reductions, at last, in NHS waiting lists are really good news. We need Sir Charlie Mayfield’s “Keep Britain Working” review, working closely with employers, to shape future workplace environments where disabled people can thrive. We have also set up the Pathways to Work service, and we need Connect to Work and WorkWell to deliver personalised employment and health support. Through the Timms review, we need personal independence payments to support disabled people to achieve better health, higher living standards and greater independence, including through employment. Our goal is that everyone who can work gets the support, confidence and opportunities that they need to realise their full potential. Those who have spoken in this debate have been absolutely right to highlight the importance of Access to Work in achieving that goal. Question put and agreed to.

• 15 Apr 2026 · Access to Work Scheme · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairwomanship, Mrs Harris. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick) on securing this important debate and thank him for sharing his personal experience, which is so valuable and helpful when we discuss this type of issue. I know it is not the first time he has raised this matter, and he is right to focus on it. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) for sharing his personal experience. I am delighted that both hon. Members are in the House and were able to use Access to Work to help them in their rehabilitation and return to employment. The Department is looking very carefully at the report my hon. Friend referred to, and we will come back to that. I also commend my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash) and the hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) for their contributions, and, of course, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who brings an interesting perspective to every debate he speaks in. To be very clear, we want to build on our welfare state. We want it to be a working state, so that everyone has a platform of opportunity as well as a safety net. That is because everybody, regardless of disability or health condition, deserves the chance to make the most of their life. We want to remove unnecessary barriers that hold far too many people back—barriers to accessing, staying in and progressing in work—and of course, we need to reduce the disability employment gap, which at 29.5% remains far too high.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is exactly right. This is why we need to ensure that jobcentres have really good engagement with local employers, including manufacturers. She will be pleased to know that there will be an employer roundtable at the Manufacturing Centre in West Bromwich on 17 March, with Sandwell college and manufacturing employers. There will also be an employer breakfast on 29 April, again at Sandwell college, about jobcentres and what they can offer, particularly around SWAPS—sector-based work academy programmes—and manufacturing SWAPS, which are so important.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  With the Minister for Skills now working jointly across the DFE and DWP, we have very clear collaboration. We have already launched eight youth guarantee trailblazers, which are testing innovative approaches to localised support for young people who are NEET or at risk of becoming NEET, including targeted SEND support. We also have the Milburn review into young people and work and how better to support them.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Child Poverty: Bolton North East · Hansard source

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  Reducing child poverty is a moral imperative for us all, and for this Government in particular. We know that growing up in poverty damages children’s health, education and future employment prospects. We have just been discussing the number of NEETs, and many of those children could become NEETs, so child poverty is bad for the UK’s economic prosperity as well. We had not just been waiting for the strategy in December; we had already introduced the extension of free school meals eligibility, tripled access to breakfast clubs and supported the holiday activities and food programme, and we have put £1 billion into the reforming crisis and resilience fund.

• 9 Mar 2026 · Child Poverty: Bolton North East · Hansard source

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  Under the last Government an additional 900,000 children became part of the child poverty statistics, but as a result of our Child Poverty Strategy, published in December, 550,000 will be lifted out of poverty by the end of the current Parliament—the largest number ever in a single Parliament. The removal of the two-child limit from April, for instance, could benefit about 4,710 children in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

• 10 Feb 2026 · Place-based Employment Support Programmes · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Dr Murrison. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) on securing this debate. As he rightly pointed out, employment can often get bound up in numbers, targets and rates. What we all know is that this is fundamentally about people, families, communities and the world of work. Work is a huge part of people’s lives, and we should never underestimate how much it matters that we support people into work and help them succeed in their careers. I thank all hon. Members who have spoken this afternoon, in what I think has been an excellent debate, about the support that their constituents are already receiving in many cases. My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Leigh Ingham) talked about her local employers, as well as the vital role of towns in economic growth and regeneration. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack), who brings great knowledge to her role on the Work and Pensions Committee, as well as her experience prior to entering Parliament. She spoke about the Connect to Work programme, which I will say a little more about. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Sureena Brackenridge) spoke about NEETs and about the excellent work, rooted in partnerships, that is already going on in her area to support individuals. At the end of her contribution, she talked about hope, ambition and action, which I thought was a very powerful message. I would gently remind the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) that over 500,000 people entered employment over the last year. I pay tribute to what my hon. Friend the Member for Southport said, and to his commitment to helping his constituents into good work. It was great to hear him champion some of the excellent work of The Big Onion in Southport, the Cradle to Career scheme in the Liverpool city region more widely, and the various place-based employment support providers across the north of England. I was particularly interested in Zink and its microjobs, and in how it helps people move into part-time and then full-time work. My hon. Friend also spoke with great eloquence about the challenges he faced growing up in an area where the local factory had closed and work was really hard to come by. It underlines the fact that where someone lives is often a significant factor in the challenges they face and the chances before them in life. Those who live in communities like the ones that he represents, or that I represent in Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham, will always know best what the barriers and opportunities are in their local area. That is why I am committed to working closely with mayoral strategic authorities, local government, the voluntary and community sector, and others to ensure that employment support works for people, no matter where they live. I regularly meet with mayors and leaders in local government, as do my officials, to ensure that we are designing employment support that meets the needs of those local communities. In December, I met the mayoral council. Last week, the Minister for Skills, Baroness Smith of Malvern, and I met the Local Government Association’s inclusive growth committee to hear from local leaders working across England, including those representing towns, on youth employment and the jobs and careers service. Earlier today, I met the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham. We will continue to listen to and engage with local leaders as we reform employment support. A core strength of the Department is our network of jobcentres and work coaches on high streets all around the country, with staff who are knowledgeable and passionate about the communities they serve. We have to make the most of that, which is why we are building a new jobs and careers service that moves away from the one-size-fits-all approach that has been mentioned several times this afternoon. We are instead building a locally responsive service designed to meet the different needs of local labour markets, local people and local employers. We are already testing new elements of this service through our pathfinder in Wakefield, which I went to see before Christmas. We have also matched up Jobcentre Plus boundaries with mayoral strategic authorities to strengthen partnerships between jobcentres, local government and other local stakeholders. My hon. Friend the Member for Southport mentioned the efforts to make jobcentres more human. I have to say, this is not the first time that effort has been put into that. I read that, in the 1940s, as part of his drive to humanise the employment exchanges that existed then, Ernest Bevin felt it necessary to issue an instruction that staff should say “good morning” to members of the public when they came into the employment exchange looking for help. Fortunately, I think we are starting from a better position than that today, but we want to make sure that jobcentres are places that people want to go to for support, not places that they shy away from. We are making sure that the new jobs and careers service is less about benefit administration and box ticking, and that it better uses technology so we can free up our work coaches’ time to focus on giving people support that is tailored to their needs. In the English devolution White Paper, we again set out the important role of mayors in driving local growth and supporting labour market and skills needs. I will turn to some of the locally led employment support that we are investing in already, including £1 billion through our Connect to Work programme. I recently saw that support in action in Lewisham, where a neurodiverse young man told me how the personalised support that he was receiving from the team was helping him in his work as a swimming teacher. Across England and Wales, he is one of 300,000 disabled people, or people with health conditions and other complex barriers, who we will be supporting through Connect to Work by the end of the decade. Mayors and local authorities are being funded via grants to enable delivery of local Connect to Work programmes. Over two fifths of delivery areas are now up and running, and we have given areas considerable flexibility in how they deliver the service to reflect the local priorities and other support available in the area. We are also expanding WorkWell across the whole of England over the next three years to support up to 250,000 people. I visited WorkWell in Cambridge a few months ago and saw the brilliant way that it is working together with local authorities, integrated care boards and Jobcentre Plus to provide a single route to personalised, integrated work and health support. This recognises that local areas are well placed to knit together local services. For that reason, we have also commissioned local Get Britain Working plans in all areas of England. The Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne), raised the issue of Access to Work, and I heard what he said. He will know that a National Audit Office report was produced at the end of last week. Demand has soared for Access to Work; we are already putting in additional staff and we are looking at what more can be done because we recognise how important it is. I want to mention the voluntary and community sector, which was raised by a number of Members this afternoon, and how important its role is in employment support. With the mayoral strategic authorities, we are working closely with the sector to deliver 17 economic inactivity and youth guarantee trailblazers to test new, innovative ways of delivering that support, delivered by local partners. The partnership is about engaging with communities at that grassroots level to help them access holistic support to move towards work. I heard the calls this afternoon for the funding to be made available to that sector on a sustainable basis with multi year settlements. There was mention of local authority funding. The local government finance settlement is the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s most significant move yet to make English local government more sustainable. The Government are making good on long overdue promises to fundamentally update the way we fund local authorities. We are delivering fairer funding and targeting money where it is needed most through the first multi-year settlement in decades. My hon. Friend the Member for Southport spoke about the long-lasting effect on his life when he could not get a job as a young man. For so many, the consequences of what happens at the start of their working life can cascade down the years. That is why we are putting a real focus on supporting young people, not least through our youth guarantee. At the Budget, we announced the expansion of the youth guarantee, backed by £820 million of investment, which answers the question asked by the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) about supporting young people into infrastructure projects. That investment will create around 300,000 more opportunities to gain workplace experience and training for young people. I take issue with his comments, however, because he failed to acknowledge that if support and help are offered to a young person, as they will be through the youth guarantee, there is a responsibility on them to take up that offer of assistance and support. That is part of the social contract in this country. I have already mentioned the locally led trailblazers, but we are also expanding youth hub provision to more than 360 areas across Great Britain. That is important because those hubs are helping us to reach young people where they are—in places such as football clubs and other sports facilities. My hon. Friend the Member for Southport mentioned the importance of delivering support in familiar settings, and I am glad that he and several other Members highlighted JobsPlus as an example of that. It delivers community-based employment support through the social housing sector and is being piloted in 10 sites across England. I want to mention the Milburn review, which is looking at why nearly 1 million young people are not in education, employment or training. It is due to report in the summer. We cannot allow the talents of nearly 1 million young people to be wasted. It is not good for those young people, and it is not good for our economy or the taxpayer either. Whether it is our trailblazers, youth hubs, Jobcentre reform or programmes such as Connect to Work and WorkWell, we are determined that people should get the support that suits them, regardless of where they live or what their circumstances are. People’s lives are complex and people can face all sorts of barriers to work, whether it is health, skills, transport, housing or any other factor. That is why we must take a joined-up approach to deliver a locally tailored ecosystem of support to ensure that no one is left behind. We must ensure that people can access offers of support from sources that they trust and that treat them as an individual and as a whole person. That is why the Government have committed to learn from place-based support, such as the economic inactivity and youth guarantee trailblazers and Connect to Work, and it is why we are committed to truly embedding and tailoring our new jobs and careers service to meet the needs of local people and employers. As we develop our jobs and careers service, our youth guarantee and Pathways to Work, we will be working closely with local government, including mayoral strategic authorities, to ensure that they reflect the communities that they serve. Ensuring that employment support is integrated in, and meets the needs of, local communities will help people to benefit from the purpose, pride and independence of good work and to fulfil their potential.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  Those are very wise words from my hon. Friend. I want to say something about employers, because they have a vital role to play in all this. On keeping people in work when they develop an illness or a disability, we are really pleased that we are working with over 100 Vanguard employers to take forward the recommendations in Sir Charlie Mayfield’s “Keep Britain Working” review, and helping to create a picture of what best practice looks like when it comes to building healthy and inclusive workplaces. We have had an outstanding response from businesses, because they know that when their workers win, they win too. Contrary to what some people say and believe, the interests of employees and employers are not diametrically opposed. Everybody wins when workers are secure, happy and healthy. That leads me on to the Employment Rights Act 2025, which includes reforms such as the extension of statutory sick pay, so that more people can take the time they need to recover, instead of risking longer-term absences. That is not just good for workers; it is good for businesses, too. I want to address the issue of national insurance contributions and business rates. Let us be clear: employers generally do not have to pay any employer national insurance contributions for employees under the age of 21 or for apprentices under 25. Yesterday we announced that every pub and live music venue will get 15% off its new business rates bill. That is on top of the support announced at the Budget. Bills will then be frozen, in real terms, for a further two years. This Government will always support businesses, giving them the stability that they need to grow, and to create good jobs. Before I finish, there is one other thing I want to talk about. What happens at the start of people’s working lives can have many consequences for their future, and the same is true of what happens in our childhood. When a young person ends up out of work or training, it is no use pretending that that has suddenly come about in a bubble. Someone who grows up poor is less likely to do well at school and more likely to be a NEET. Poverty, low attainment and low aspiration can not only waste the potential of a young life, but cascade on to the next generation. Shockingly, the number of children in poverty increased by over 900,000 under the Conservatives, which is shameful, and they now come to this House to ask why a generation is struggling. We are very proud to be lifting the two-child limit. That will have benefits for hundreds of thousands of children, who will be less likely to experience mental health issues, less likely to be unemployed, and more likely to be in work and earning more, yet the Conservatives oppose it. As ever, they seem determined to pull the rug out from under the next generation, and does that not sum them up? They blame; we support. They complain; we fix. They cut; we build. We will never forget the neglect that left our young people without the hope and opportunity that every generation deserves, but this Government are doing things differently. We are laying the foundations for young people to succeed, and giving them the opportunities that they need and the skills and support to seize them. These opportunities are of course accompanied by obligations to take them up, but that is so much better than a life that is just written off. We are breaking down barriers to opportunity, so that every young person, in every part of our United Kingdom, can fulfil their potential.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  No, I am going to make some progress. We are investing in young people to turn around the dire legacy that the Conservatives left behind. We are supporting young people so that they can fulfil their potential, breaking the cycle of wasted talent cascading down generations. We are starting already to see some signs of progress. We have got record levels of employment and youth employment is up by 153,000 in the past year, but the scale of the crisis brewed up by the Conservatives requires much more than that. The number of young people neither learning nor earning is equivalent to three cities the size of Hull, so we know that there is more to do.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  I will later on, but I want to get this on the record. We know that if someone falls out of the workforce— [ Interruption. ] The Conservative MPs chuntering from a sedentary position might just want to listen to this, because it is about the future of our country. We know that if someone falls out of the workforce when they are young, they can lose out on £1 million in earnings, and it costs the state a similar amount to support them, but if we can ensure that they get the right opportunities and support early on, we can change their life stories for the better. That is why we are helping more young people into work, and it is why youth employment is a priority for us in the DWP.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend has made his case very well. He referred to the £725 million for the growth and skills levy, which is part of the more than £1.5 billion that has been made available for employment and skills support in the Budget. That is very much needed after the dramatic decline in the number of young people starting apprenticeships under the last Government, which we will reverse. At the same time, we are strengthening our world-leading universities.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend has made his point very well indeed. Let me return to the subject of the youth guarantee. There will be guaranteed jobs for about 55,000 people over the three years. Companies have already shown an interest in taking on such employees, including E.ON, JD Sports, Tesco and Tui, and we are grateful for the offers that they are making. We Labour Members have tackled these challenges before, under the last Labour Government, through the new deal for young people, and we will do it again now.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  I will give way to my near neighbour.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  I am just going to complete the Conservatives’ record, because I think it would be beneficial for us all to hear it. When the Conservatives were chucked out, the youth unemployment rate stood at 13%, compared with just over 9% two years earlier, and the number of young people economically inactive due to long-term sickness had more than doubled in five years to over a quarter of a million on the Conservatives’ watch. They also failed to support young people in the face of the changing retail sector, for example. Many young people start their careers in that sector—I certainly started with a Saturday job—but retail job opportunities have fallen since 2017 as new technology changes how people shop and how shops employ people. The Conservatives took no action on that, so their legacy for young people looks pretty dismal from virtually every angle.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to end and insert: “welcomes the Government’s commitment to invest in young people’s futures; notes that the UK has the second highest youth employment rate in the G7; recognises that the Government announced more than £1.5 billion of investment over the next three years, consisting of £820 million of funding for the Youth Guarantee to support young people to earn or learn, and £725 million for the Growth and Skills Levy; further welcomes that the expanded Youth Guarantee will reach almost 900,000 young people, including through Youth Hubs in every area in Great Britain and a new Youth Guarantee Gateway; further notes that this investment will also create around 300,000 more opportunities to gain workplace experience and training; and further recognises that, as part of the Youth Guarantee, the Government is breaking the cycle of unemployment by guaranteeing paid work to around 55,000 young people aged 18 to 21 who have been on Universal Credit and looking for work for 18 months.” In the north, we would say that the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) has some brass neck to make the speech she has just delivered. As an MP who has been in the House for some time, it might be helpful to us all if I remind the hon. Lady about her party’s record over the past 14 years. Her party fumbled the handling of the pandemic, setting back a whole generation of kids. It failed to deal with the growing mental health crisis among young people, left school buildings to crumble, and decimated youth centres. Let us just look at the facts about youth employment specifically. Under the last Conservative Government, the number of young people not in education, employment or training grew by 45% in just three years. Scarily, that left almost 1 million young people—one in eight—on the sidelines when the Conservatives were chucked out of office.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is exactly right. That is the kind of initiative that will help deliver for these young people who are out of work, particularly with health problems, health conditions and disabilities. I think all of us in the House would recognise how disheartening it can be for young people who are looking for work who cannot find that opportunity. They may not have the confidence or knowledge to apply for the jobs that are out there. Let us put ourselves in the shoes of an 18-year-old who has perhaps lost their way a little bit and does not have the confidence; it can be difficult for them to go into a jobcentre to find out what opportunities are available. That is why, as part of the youth guarantee, we are expanding the DWP youth hubs located in places such as football clubs and other sports facilities to more than 350 areas across Great Britain. I accept that youth hubs were part of the previous Government’s plans to deal with youth unemployment, but they were small in number. We are expanding them to 350. Youth hubs are helping people such as Erin, a young woman who was unemployed for two years and struggling with her motivation. After visiting a youth hub based at Crystal Palace football club, she was able to complete a work placement before being offered a permanent job. That came off the back of joining a hospitality programme, which gave her valuable experience and confidence. It goes to show what young people can achieve when they are motivated, confident and have that self-belief. That is why the expansion of youth hubs forms just one part of our wider youth guarantee, which is designed to make sure that no young person is left behind.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  I will make some progress, because many Back Benchers want to speak. The skills White Paper sets out our plan to build a more specialised and more efficient higher education sector that will better meet the needs of the economy. The graduate economic inactivity rate is now at its lowest on record, and we want to build on that. We recognise the need for modern technical skills, and not just the old academic subjects. I saw that for myself at the Ron Dearing university technical college in Hull only last week—young people honing their skills and getting a brilliant education. No matter what path young people choose, we want them to have the skills to succeed. Skills are vital in the world of work today, but more than a quarter of all vacancies are skills shortage vacancies. That is why, last year, the Prime Minister set out our bold ambition for two thirds of young people to enter higher-level education or training. We have added adult skills to the Department for Work and Pension’s brief, to help us join up employment support and skills more closely, so that young people have genuine pathways into good jobs. We are significantly expanding sector-based work academy programmes—SWAPs—in England and Scotland; there will be more than 145,000 additional places over the next three years. Just today, our colleagues at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology announced a new package to give people the skills that will enable them to seize the opportunities that artificial intelligence will bring. That includes an expansion of free AI foundation training for all workers, to upskill 10 million people by 2030. All this is about opening up opportunities for young people. However, we want to make sure that no stone is left unturned. Last month, the Government unveiled our national youth strategy, which is backed by £500 million. It will rebuild the youth services that the Conservative party decimated, and help more young people transition into adulthood. The Secretary of State has commissioned Alan Milburn to complete a wide-ranging investigation into the causes of youth inactivity, and to come up with policy solutions across the piece. As a former Health Secretary, he is well placed to give particular focus to the role of health in all this. That is needed, because over a quarter of young people not in employment, education or training now cite long-term sickness or disability as a barrier—more than double the figure in 2013-14. Too many people are shut out of the labour market by disability or ill health. This has worsened, especially since covid, so we are rolling out a £1 billion Pathways to Work offer, which brings together programmes such as Connect to Work, which my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Jim Dickson) referred to and which I have seen in action in Lewisham, where I met a neurodiverse young man who told me that the personalised support that he was receiving from the team was helping him to stay in work; and WorkWell, which is providing really impressive integrated work and health support that I recently had a chance to see in Cambridge. Pathways to Work will ultimately guarantee access to work, health and skills support for disabled people and those with long-term health conditions who are claiming out-of-work benefits. We already have 1,000 Pathways to Work advisers on hand to provide better one-to-one support. We know that prevention is better than cure, so we want to avoid people falling out of work due to ill health wherever possible, and employers have a unique role to play.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  I will come on to talk a little about some of the accusations levelled at the Government in relation to national insurance contributions, so I shall deal with that point later in my speech, if I may. The youth hubs will offer a helping hand, whether with writing a CV or with obtaining a work placement to include on a CV. We have announced that over the next three years, we will invest £820 million to support almost 900,000 young people who are on universal credit and looking for work. There will be new dedicated work support sessions, followed by intensive, tailored assistance to help those young people secure the right job, training or learning opportunity. We are backing that up by funding about 300,000 more opportunities for people to gain work experience and training in sectors such as construction and hospitality.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman, who is a close neighbour in East Yorkshire, says that I am being partial and only giving part of the picture. I think I have been setting out a very full explanation of what the Conservatives delivered for young people over 14 years. To expand on that point a little, the Conservatives are now talking about the need to increase apprenticeships, for example. On their watch, there was a collapse in youth apprenticeships—starts were down by almost 40% under the Conservative Government over the past decade, leaving this Labour Government to reverse that decline. They have also been critical of the welfare system for trapping people out of work; they seem to have forgotten that they presided over it for 14 years. The Conservatives introduced that system, and it has now been left to us to address the disincentive to work that they built into it. We started to deal with that task through the Universal Credit Act last year.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Youth Unemployment · Hansard source

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  No, I will make some progress. Put simply, the Conservatives cut off opportunity for young people. They wrote them off, and then they blamed young people for the position they were in. On the Government Benches, we know that young people are this country’s future and that their success is Britain’s success. We are not prepared to sit on our hands and let all that talent and potential go unused. That is not good enough for those young people, and it is not good enough for this country, which needs the contribution they can offer more than ever and not just now, but for the next 40 years.

• 26 Jan 2026 · Support into Work: Health Conditions · Hansard source

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  Good work is generally good for health and wellbeing, so we want everyone to get work and get on in work. Through our Pathways to Work guarantee, which is will be backed by £1 billion a year of new funding by the end of the decade, and our Connect to Work supported employment programme, more disabled people and people with health conditions will be supported to enter and stay in work.

• 26 Jan 2026 · Support into Work: Health Conditions · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to my hon. Friend for talking about the WorkWell pilot. When I attended a recent WorkWell session in Cambridge, I was really impressed. Following the success of the pilots, which have so far supported more than 25,000 people, WorkWell will expand across all of England, backed up by a £259 million investment over three years, and could support up to 250,000 people into work. Participants receive proactive early support based on their health-related barriers to employment, such as mental health issues, musculoskeletal problems and other long-term health issues.