The Bishop of Leicester received the following written answers on 3rd February 2026:
The Lord Bishop of Leicester asked His Majesty’s Government for how long they will remove the right to claim benefits from 18-to-21-year-olds on Universal Credit who do not accept the offer of a work placement through the Youth Guarantee scheme.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab, DWP): The Youth Guarantee is part of a new social contract with young people – opportunity matched by responsibility. Young people who can work will be expected to engage with the support offered. If the support is declined without good reasons, existing benefit sanction rules will apply. The Jobs Guarantee is no exception and the full conditionality regime will apply.
The Lord Bishop of Leicester asked His Majesty’s Government whether the 18-to-21-year-olds on Universal Credit who are offered a work placement through the Youth Guarantee scheme will have a choice over the sector, location, or type of role.
Baroness Smith of Malvern: The Youth Guarantee is backed by an £820 million investment over the next three years to reach almost 900,000 young people. This includes Youth Hubs in every area in Great Britain and a new Youth Guarantee Gateway, offering a dedicated session and follow-up support to 16-24-year-olds on Universal Credit to get them into employment or training. This investment will also create around 300,000 more opportunities to gain workplace experience and training. In addition, it will provide guaranteed jobs to around 55,000 young people aged 18-21.
With over 350,000 opportunities, there will be flexibility for young people to find roles in different sectors, locations, and professions. To achieve this, we will work with national and local employers and training providers to create a range of high-quality job and training opportunities.
The Lord Bishop of Leicester asked His Majesty’s Government how the rate of benefit sanctions varied by (1) region, and (2) ethnicity, in the past 12 months.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab, DWP): The Department regularly publishes monthly Universal Credit sanction rate statistics for Great Britain as part of the benefit sanction statistics(opens in a new tab). The latest statistics to August 2025 are available in table 2.1 of the latest benefit sanction statistics tables(opens in a new tab), with sanction rates by ethnic group provided in table 7.6.
The UC Sanction Rates(opens in a new tab) dataset on Stat-Xplore(opens in a new tab) can be used to produce the same information in table 2.1 for lower-level geographical breakdowns, such as region.
Monthly sanction rates by region, extracted from Stat-Xplore, and by ethnic group, from table 7.6 of the published tables, for September 2024 to August 2025 are provided in the attached spreadsheet.
The Church of England in Parliament 
You must be logged in to post a comment.