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 …”

“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…”

“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.…”

“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…”

“I think it is valuable. When I was looking at the figures, 19,000 employers have signed up to this. I think it is good. I recognise exactly what you say, but I think it is something we ought to work on making even better. I do not think it should be scrapped as some people have called for.”

“I think they are reasonable criticisms, actually. Some reforms to Disability Confident have already been put in place, which are useful and helpful. One of the things I was struck by was making sure that the voice of disabled people is in there, and I am not sure it is at the moment. One of the aims of the reforms that…”

“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…”

“I was talking to the Minister for Social Security and Disability yesterday about this, and he said it will be soon.”

“Was it May 2025 when the first—”

“I do not think I can really say. I think it would be better if I wrote to you.”

“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.”

“Again, my understanding is that that may be linked to this policy and guidance being applied more consistently across the piece. What I am told is that there is quite a lot of discretion around the way that Access to Work had been applied by individual caseworkers. The idea was to try to provide that consistency. So it…”

“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?”

“I think we all recognise that Access to Work is demand led and there has been this huge increase over the last few years. As I was just saying, in the “Pathways to Work” Green Paper it was set out that there was going to be a consultation around Access to Work and how we need to change it. The collaboration committee h…”

“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.”

“As Lorraine says, I think there is confusion for employers what “reasonable adjustments” means, so I take that. I would probably have to speak to my colleague, the Minister for Social Security and Disability, who leads on Access to Work. I am very happy to write to the Committee to respond to your particular question.”

“There has been a consultation around Access to Work. I don’t want to stray too much into that either if there is going to be another question. A collaboration committee was set up to look at Access to Work. We recognise that there needs to be reform of Access to Work, but I have not been involved in that so I cannot re…”

“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.”

“Lorraine, do you want to answer that?”