Speeches by Johnson.

“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 …”

“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 supplie…”

“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…”

“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 onc…”

“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 ba…”

“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-ch…”

“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 manufacturin…”

“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.…”

“It might be helpful if I pass over to Angus Gray at this point because I came into this role in September, so I was not around when the original policy discussions were being held.”

“It certainly fits with the direction of the Government in terms of devolution and devolving down to local areas to make decisions. We have quite a patchwork of devolution at the moment, particularly in England, around where you are devolving to.”

“Discussions are very much with Dr Gail Allsopp and her team and are part of any policy decisions that are going to be made. But I cannot today tell you that we have made decisions on that.”

“It is right to say as well, isn’t it, that the guidance around Connect to Work, the new proposal, went out in November 2024?”

“Was it May 2025 when the first—”

“First of all, I think the “Keep Britain Working” report is a really good piece of work, and I pay tribute to Sir Charlie Mayfield for what he has done. He did it very speedily, I think. You are right, there is a long period of time. However, I know Sir Charlie is anxious to see results. The fact that we are going to ha…”

“Of course, we are bound by the fact that we have a spending review period. That is why the funding is as it is. The intention is—I think, Angus, you would say this—that the five years is what we are looking at but the funding is allocated on a three-year basis just because that is the way Government operates.”

“We keep under review all policy initiatives. We look constantly at what we can do. I cannot give you an answer on that today, but all I can say is we review, we look. I have constant discussions with the Minister for Social Security and Disability about what more we can do as a Government.”

“It is fair to say that this is the first time the DWP has done it this way and it has been a learning process, it seems to me.”

“You will appreciate that that is not in my gift as the Minister for Employment.”

“You are right, there are a lot of large businesses in the Vanguards, but I think the mayoral and combined authorities are working very much with the small businesses in their localities for exactly the reason you have recognised, that if you do lose one person and you are just a group of five working together, that can…”

“I take your point about additional costs on business, but what I also know when I talk to businesses is if they have an employee who they have invested in, who is doing a good job for them, and then for whatever reason they have a health issue, a health problem, and they might have to have time away from the workplace,…”