Emily Thornberry – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-12-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to his Department’s report, Universal Credit Extended Gateway Evaluation, published on 6 December 2015, what assessment he has made of the reasons for the report’s finding on page 39, that participants in the study who were claiming universal credit were more flexible regarding the type of work they would consider at the outset than people claiming jobseeker’s allowance.

Priti Patel

The research finding that Universal Credit claimants appeared to be more flexible regarding the type of work they would consider is broadly consistent with other findings from the same research report that indicate that UC claimants are more engaged with the labour market than their JSA counterparts. UC claimants are spending longer on job search per week, and Universal Credit appears to be driving more active labour market behaviour, resulting in better labour market outcomes.

The key finding from another recently published report entitled, ‘Estimating the Early Labour Market Impacts of Universal Credit’, is that UC has a substantial impact on the chances of people moving into work after they make a new claim. UC claimants were 8 percentage points more likely to get a job within 270 days of claiming than equivalent new claims to JSA made at the same time in similar areas by similar individuals.