Written questions by Robertson.

How the National Jobs and Careers Service will complement the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025.

We are reforming Jobcentre Plus and creating a new service across Great Britain that will enable everyone to access support to find good, meaningful work, and support to help them to progress in work, including through an enhanced focus on skills and careers. Our new service will move away from the current one size fits all approach, recognising people are individuals with different support needs and will provide better tailored support. The new service will be universal and must work for everyone, including disabled people and those with health conditions. We are committed to working with users of the new service, and organisations representing their needs, throughout the design process to ensure the new service is inclusive, accessible, and works for everyone. We are taking a test and learn approach to develop and launch the new service. We will ensure the design of the new service supports the delivery of the Pathways to Work guaranteed support offer as we develop it. The new Jobs and Careers Service is part of the reforms outlined in the Get Britian Working White Paper, which in total, is backed by £240m for 2025/26. The reforms set out within this are on top of other areas of support we are already progressing including: Connect to Work funding which will, in 2026/27, support up to 100,000 disabled people, those with health conditions or those with complex barriers to employment.Deploying 1,000 work coaches in 2025/26 to specifically support around 65,000 disabled people and those with health conditions who are interested in moving into work.WorkWell pilot, which joins up health and work support in 15 areas in England and is helping up to 56,000 people with support to remain in and get into jobs.

How her Department plans to allocate the additional funding for supporting young people into work outlined in her Department's Green Paper entitled Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working, published on 18 March 2025.

In the Pathways to Work Green Paper we set out plans to invest £1 billion a year by the end of the decade in new employment, health and skills support – one of the biggest packages of new employment support for sick and disabled people ever – including new tailored support conversations for people on health and disability benefits to break down barriers and unlock work, and more intensive programmes of support with health and work.For 18–21-year-olds specifically we set out proposals at point 256 in the Pathways to Work Green Paper to: “[Delay] access to the UC health element [to 22, in order to] remove any potential disincentive to work during this time. Proceeding with this change would be on the basis that resources could be better spent on improving the quality and range of opportunities available to young people through the [Youth] guarantee, so they can sign up to work or training rather than long-term benefits.” Such a change could support the establishment of a distinct and active transition phase for young people, based on learning or earning for all.We are consulting on the design options for a work, health and skills support package. The government will actively engage with a diverse range of stakeholders, including young people with health conditions and disabilities. This consultation is now open and will close on 30th June.

With reference to the Get Britain Working White Paper, published on 26 November 2024, what progress her Department has made on the planned pilot of the National Jobs and Careers Service.

The Get Britain Working White Paper set out our vision to reform Jobcentre Plus and create a new service across Great Britain that will enable everyone to access support to find good, meaningful work, and support to help them to progress in work, including through an enhanced focus on skills and careers.We are taking a test and learn approach to develop the new service ensuring that we develop a service that is locally tailored and embedded, designed to meet the different needs of local labour markets, local people and local employers. We are in the early stages of designing the new service and more details will be shared in due course.