Oral Answers to Questions — Work and Pensions – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 9 October 2017.
Alex Burghart
Conservative, Brentwood and Ongar
12:00,
9 October 2017
What progress is being made on the Health and Work programme.
Penny Mordaunt
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions
I am pleased to announce to the House that six contracts between the Department and the successful suppliers to the Health and Work Programme were signed on
Alex Burghart
Conservative, Brentwood and Ongar
It is clear that the Health and Work programme presents an opportunity to bring a lot more disabled people into work. Will the Minister tell the House what requirements are being put on contract providers?
Penny Mordaunt
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions
The key to the programme is that participants will receive much more personalised and tailored support. We need to provide bespoke things to individuals who have complex needs if we want them to be successful. We will be looking for providers to forge links with employers, nationally and locally, but also with health and social care and other local services.
Marsha de Cordova
Shadow Minister (Work and Pensions) (Disabled People)
The Government have backtracked on their commitment to halve the disability employment gap, and the funding for the Work and Health programme will be as little as £130 million a year, which is a fraction of what was set aside for the Work programme. Given the recent report from the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities, which condemned the Government’s progress, can the Minister advise when they will finally publish their response to the “Work, health and disability” green paper? Will the Government respond to the UN’s concerns and include high-quality, impairment-specific support, which disabled people have been calling for?
Penny Mordaunt
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions
May I start by welcoming the hon. Lady to her post?
Despite the weeks of the General Election, we are still going to meet our original timetable to publish the health and work road map, which will set out in detail not just the Health and Work programme, which is only one small part of what we are planning, but a full comprehensive package to deliver personalised, tailored support for disabled people, support for employers, healthcare reforms and welfare reforms.
The Office for Disability Issues is looking at the UN report; we volunteered to put ourselves through this process, and there is more we can do to lever in some of the things in that report to help achieve some of our ambitions, particularly on accessibility.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
A Green Paper is a tentative report of British government proposals without any commitment to action. Green papers may result in the production of a white paper.
From wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_paper
In a general election, each constituency chooses an MP to represent it by process of election. The party who wins the most seats in parliament is in power, with its leader becoming Prime Minister and its Ministers/Shadow Ministers making up the new Cabinet. If no party has a majority, this is known as a hung Parliament. The next general election will take place on or before 3rd June 2010.
