Good work is generally good for health and wellbeing, so we want everyone to get work and get on in work, whoever they are and wherever they live. We want people to avoid poverty, and for this to happen we must ensure that disabled people and people with health conditions have the opportunity to work and save for as long as they wish and are able to.

Disabled people and people with health conditions including the visually-impaired, are a diverse group so access to the right work and health support, in the right place, at the right time, is key. We therefore have a range of specialist initiatives to support individuals to stay in work and get back into work, including those that join up employment and health systems.

Measures include support from Work Coaches and Disability Employment Advisers in Jobcentres and Access to Work grants, as well as joining up health and employment support around the individual through Employment Advisors in NHS Talking Therapies, Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care and WorkWell.

We are committed to supporting disabled people, including those who are blind, get into and thrive in work. In Fylde, our Jobcentre teams work closely with the Local Authority as well as local employers and partners to offer a range of employment opportunities. Our Jobcentres have a range of support available, including Disability Employment Advisors who tailor their support to each customer’s needs and source appropriate provisions to enable customers to boost skills, link with employers or get support with their disability. An example is that the local team link customers with N-Vision (The Blackpool, Fylde & Wyre Society for the Blind), a charity that offers a wide range of support mechanisms for those with sight loss including social activities, residential and community care as well as training for organisations and businesses.

The Department also provides a range of support to help blind and partially sighted individuals access, retain, and thrive in employment. This includes referrals to financial assistance, workplace adaptations, and personalised guidance. Our teams support customers with Access to Work to ensure customers have reasonable adjustment, specialist equipment, support workers and more to ensure that customers have all the necessary tools to get into and maintain work.

It is also recognised that employers play an important role in addressing health and disability. To build on this, the Joint DWP and DHSC Work & Health Directorate (JWHD) is facilitating “Keep Britain Working”, an independent review of the role of UK employers in reducing health-related inactivity and to promote healthy and inclusive workplaces. The lead reviewer, Sir Charlie Mayfield, is expected to bring forward recommendations in Autumn 2025.

Additionally, the JWHD has developed a digital information service for employers, continues to oversee the Disability Confident Scheme, and continues to increase access to Occupational Health.

Backed by £240m investment, the Get Britain Working White Paper launched last November will drive forward approaches to tackling economic inactivity and work toward the long-term ambition of an 80% employment rate. We announced in the recent Pathways to Work Green Paper that we would establish a new guarantee of support for all disabled people and people with health conditions claiming out of work benefits who want help to get into or return to work, backed up by £1.9 billion of new funding by the end of the decade. This support is needed to break down barriers, unlock work and open up opportunity. It will get people off welfare and into work – which we know many believe they could do.

Tackling child poverty is at the heart of the Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and improve the life chances of every child, including those in Fylde constituency. The Child Poverty Taskforce is progressing work to publish the Child Poverty Strategy in autumn that will deliver fully funded measures to tackle the structural and root causes of child poverty.

The Strategy will look at levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience; and better local support especially in the early years. This will build on the reform plans underway across government and work underway in Devolved Governments.

As a significant downpayment ahead of strategy publication, we have already taken substantive action across major drivers of child poverty through the Spending Review 2025. This includes an expansion of Free School Meals that will lift 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of the parliament, establishing a long-term Crisis and Resilience Fund supported by £1bn a year (including Barnett impact), investing in local family support services, and extending the £3 bus fare cap.

These commitments come on top of the existing action we have taken which includes expanding free breakfast clubs, capping the number of branded school uniform items children are expected to wear, increasing the national minimum wage for those on the lowest incomes and supporting 700,000 of the poorest families by introducing a Fair Repayment Rate on Universal Credit deductions.

We are providing £742 million to extend the Household Support Fund until 31 March 2026 in England. This enables Local Authorities to continue to provide vulnerable households with immediate crisis support towards the cost of essentials, such as energy, water and food, and to develop their schemes to help prevent poverty locally and build local resilience.

Authorities have the discretion to design and deliver their own local schemes within the parameters of the guidance and grant determination that the Department for Work and Pensions have set out. This is because they have the experience and the relationships to determine how best to support those in their local areas. Authorities also have a wide range of data and sources of information at their disposal to identify and provide support to a broad cross section of vulnerable households.

Authorities must make sure that this support is clearly advertised and is inclusive and accessible. The scheme guidance states that every Authority must operate part of their scheme on an application basis to allow the opportunity for individuals struggling with the cost of essentials to ask for further support.

No estimate is available of the unemployment rate in Fylde since the Autumn Budget 2024. The latest estimates of unemployment, covers the period October 2023 – September 2024. This is available via ONS Nomisweb site: https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/default.asp

Guidance for users can be found at: https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/home/newuser.asp