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An increase in the State Pension rate and extra financial support for disabled people in the workplace are among a number of welfare reforms that have come into effect from April 2018.

1 April

Access to Work grants

Delivering on the government’s commitment to support disabled people into work, Access to Work grants have increased by over £15,000 so people can now claim up to £57,200 a year. Access to Work can cover workplace adaptations, assistive technology, transport and interpreters and is one of the ways the government is helping disabled people to enter and thrive in employment.

The increase ensures that more disabled people, particularly from the deaf community, are able to benefit from the grant and achieve their career aspirations.

2 April

Funeral Expenses Payment

For people on qualifying benefits, Funeral Expenses Payments contribute towards the cost of arranging a funeral. From 2 April, it has been made simpler for people to claim a Funeral Expenses Payment. Changes include extending the period in which a claim can be made and allowing recipients to receive contributions from friends and family without them being deducted from the payment.

6 April

Sure Start Maternity Grants

Sure Start Maternity Grants are a one-off payment of £500 for people on certain income-related benefits to help with costs when they have their first child, for example to buy baby equipment. Sure Start Maternity Grants are now available to kinship carers, foster carers and adoptive parents who then have their own first-born child.

Automatic enrolment into a workplace pension

To help workers to save for their future, the automatic enrolment pension contribution rates also increased from 2% to 5% on 6 April 2018.

Automatic enrolment was created to help people with their long-term pension savings and works by requiring employers to enrol all eligible staff into a workplace pension. An estimated 10 million people will be newly saving or saving more later this year and the increase in minimum contribution rates will build on this success.

Support for Mortgage Interest

People on certain benefits can get help towards the interest on their mortgage through Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI). To make the system fairer and ensure a safety net remains for the future, from 6 April this has been replaced with an interest-bearing loan that is only repayable after the property is sold if there is enough equity after the mortgage is paid off. The loan is optional and claimants who accept the loan will see no change in SMI payments.

9 April

Universal Credit work allowances

The amount which families with children and disabled people can earn before their Universal Credit is gradually reduced (work allowances) has been increased by 3%, helping families keep more of what they earn.

State Pension

The State Pension has also increased from 9 April, in line with the ‘triple lock’. The full basic State Pension was put up by 3% to £125.95 a week. This means that the government will have raised the full basic State Pension by £1,450 a year since 2010. The full rate of the new State Pension also increased by 3%, to £164.35 a week.

Other changes from April

Housing costs and Universal Credit

People in receipt of Housing Benefit will receive an extra 2 weeks’ support with their rent when they move onto Universal Credit.

In addition, new Universal Credit claimants will be able to claim Housing Benefit for support with their temporary accommodation costs. This will enable local councils to recoup more money they spend on temporary accommodation directly from DWP, protecting more than £70 million in 2018 to 2019.

Disability and carers’ benefit rates

Benefits for the additional costs of disability and benefits for carers have been increased by 3% in line with prices. The main rates for most working-age benefits in addition to Child Benefit, and certain elements of Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, will remain the same.

National Living Wage

The National Living Wage increased by 4.4% to £7.83 an hour from 1 April, benefitting over a million workers.

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An FCO Spokesperson said:

The Foreign Secretary has this morning spoken to his French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian, about the horrific attack in Douma, Syria on Saturday and ahead of an emergency session of the United Nations later today, which was called for by the UK alongside allies.

Speaking to Le Drian, the Foreign Secretary underlined the urgent need to investigate what had happened in Douma and to ensure a strong and robust international response. They noted that international investigators mandated by the UN Security Council had found the Asad regime responsible for using poison gas in at least four separate attacks since 2014 and agreed that those responsible for this attack must be held to account.

They both condemned the use of chemical weapons by anyone anywhere and they agreed to work together to stand up for the Chemical Weapons Convention and to ensure that there was no impunity for those that use such barbaric weapons. They agreed that today’s meeting of the United Nations Security Council in New York would be an important next step in determining the international response and that a full range of options should be on the table.

Further information

• Follow the Foreign Secretary on Twitter @BorisJohnson and Facebook
• Follow the Foreign Office on Twitter @foreignoffice and Facebook
• Follow the Foreign Office on Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn

A spokesperson for the Official Receiver said:

More than 10,000 of Carillion’s pre-liquidation workforce have now found secure ongoing employment, following the transfer of 179 staff to new employers.

Regretably 23 employees whose positions are no longer required as Carillion’s business transfers to new suppliers will leave the business later this week.

I am continuing to talk with potential purchasers for Carillion’s remaining contracts and will keep staff, elected employee representatives and unions to keep them informed as these arrangements are confirmed.

Further information:

• In total, to date 10,125 jobs have been saved and 1,825 jobs have been made redundant through the liquidation
• This information does not include jobs attached to contracts where an intention to purchase has been entered into but has not yet formally occurred
• More than 5,000 employees are currently retained to enable Carillion to deliver the remaining services it is providing for public and private sector customers until decisions are taken to transfer or cease these contracts
• Further information about rights in redundancy is available on gov.uk

To be notified of future updates from the Official Receiver please register to receive an email alert.

International Trade Secretary, Dr Liam Fox will promote overseas investment into growing UK industries at meetings with some of the most successful businesses in Canada and the USA this week (Monday, 9 April to Friday, 13 April).

He will highlight the importance of building relationships with companies and businesses– not just governments and representatives – in a 5 day visit to North America.

During the visit, he is expected to meet the globe’s largest online retailer, Amazon, and banking software enterprise firm, Zafin, where he will promote modernising global trade rules around e-commerce.

The digital sector accounted for more than £32 billion of UK exports in services in 2015, a growth of almost 40% since 2010 and yet many of the relevant WTO rules around the digital economy have not been updated for 2 decades.

He will also meet entertainment company Warner Bros and visit Double Negative Studios which created the visual effects for box office hit, Blade Runner 2049.

The International Trade Secretary will highlight how inward investment in film and television production from US studios like Warner Bros, Disney and Universal was worth £2 billion to the UK economy in 2017. Britain’s creative industries are worth £92 billion in total, employ 2 million people, and are growing twice as fast as the rest of the economy.

In the USA, he will visit Starbucks and will meet representatives from Scottish whisky distillers, Balvenie as both companies continue to export across the globe. The USA remains the largest market outside of the EU – worth £2.3 billion last year and rising 3% from the previous year.

International Trade Secretary, Dr Liam Fox said:

In the USA and Canada this week, I’ll be showcasing the UK’s strong creative, tech and food sectors, making the case for greater investment and demand in UK products and expertise in both of these countries.

I will tell our global partners that more than one year on since the EU referendum, there are strong reasons for the UK to be optimistic – exports of goods and services have increased significantly over the year, with particular demand in the USA and Canada for machinery and vehicles.

It’s clear evidence that UK companies are succeeding on the world stage, and as an international economic department we are banging the drum for our world-class goods and services.

Latest trade figures released from the Office for National Statistics show UK exports of goods and services rose by 12.1 per cent to £622.1 billion as the trade deficit narrowed by £12.1 billion.

Non-EU countries continue to be the main destination for services exports making up 61.3% of all services exports and worth £171.4 billion to the UK economy.

Statistics from the Department for International Trade (DIT) also show that last year the UK attracted more foreign direct investment projects than ever before (year 2016 to 2017), with more than 2,200 projects recorded.

This investment meant that more than 75,000 new jobs were created, and 32,600 safeguarded, amounting to over 2,000 jobs per week across the country.

Working to promote the UK to great trading nation, DIT has set up 14 working groups across 21 countries to strike trade deals and strengthen commercial ties with key trading partners.

Commissioned by the Home Secretary and backed with £40m of Home Office funding, it marks a major shift in the government’s response to knife crime and gun crime.

It strikes a balance between prevention and robust law enforcement with a new £11m Early Intervention Youth Fund for community projects to help young people live lives free from violence.

The strategy identifies the changing drugs market – in particular the devastating impact of crack cocaine – as a key driver of the violence harming our communities and announces a range of powerful actions to tackle the issue of “county lines” and its implications for drugs, violence and exploitation of vulnerable people.

That includes £3.6m to establish a new National County Lines Coordination Centre.

The Home Secretary will launch the Serious Violence Strategy at an event in London today to an audience of community groups, public sector partners and industry representatives, including organisations and charities she has met in recent weeks.

She will also announce that she will lead a new Serious Violence Taskforce which will bring together the voluntary sector, local Government, police and other key sectors to ensure the strategy is delivered effectively.

In her speech she is expected to say:

This strategy represents a real step-change in the way we think about and respond to these personal tragedies, these gruesome violent crimes which dominate the front pages of our newspapers with seemingly depressing regularity.

A crucial part of our approach will be focusing on and investing more in prevention and early intervention.

We need to engage with our young people early and to provide the incentives and credible alternatives that will prevent them from being drawn into crime in the first place. This in my view is the best long-term solution.

Because what better way to stop knife crime than by stopping young people from picking up knives in the first place?

The strategy stresses the importance of early intervention to tackle the root causes of serious violence and steer young people away from crime in the first place, whilst ensuring the police continue to have the tools and support they need to tackle violent crime.

It states that about half the rise in robbery, knife and gun crime is due to improvements in police recording. For the remainder, drug-related cases seem to be an important driver. Between 2014-15 and 2016-17, homicides where either the victim or suspect were known to be involved in using or dealing illicit drugs increased from 50% to 57%.
Crack cocaine markets have strong links to serious violence and evidence suggests crack use is rising in England and Wales due to a mix of supply and demand factors.

The strategy sets out how drug-market violence may also be facilitated and spread by social media, with a small minority of people using social media to glamorise gang or drug-selling life, taunt rivals and normalise weapons-carrying.

The Home Secretary will go on to say:

We will take the comprehensive approach necessary to make sure that our sons and daughters are protected and our streets are safe.

As a government we will never stand by while acid is thrown or knives wielded.

I am clear that we must do whatever it takes to tackle this so that no parent has to bury their child.

In addition to the £40m of Home Office funding to deliver the strategy in the next two years, it references:

• The Home Office’s £13m Trusted Relationships Fund, through which the Home Office is providing £13 million over the next four years to pilot approaches which provide support to young people at risk of sexual exploitation, gang exploitation and peer abuse in England. The Fund will support work to help young people to build positive and trusted relationships with adults who are there to support them, which may help prevent not only their risk of abuse but also involvement in violent offences, for example through child criminal exploitation.
• The £40m Youth Investment Fund, launched in September 2017 by DCMS, DfE and the Big Lottery Fund to boost local ‘open access’ youth provision in six targeted disadvantaged areas in England. Over 300,000 young people are expected to benefit from increased access to a range of activities that help them develop their skills and build positive relationships. This will include young people affected by violence.
• £90m of “dormant accounts” money, which will support disadvantaged and disengaged young people with their transition to work;
• The Troubled Families Programme, which has £920m for local authorities to work with 400,000 families between 2015 and 2020.