Minister of State (Minister for Work and Welfare)
Responsibilities
Responsibilities include:
- labour market and in work progression
- overall management and delivery of Universal Credit
- Jobcentre Plus
- in work conditionality and sanctions
- Youth Offer
- legacy benefits
- poverty and Cost of Living
- support for disadvantaged groups
- international
- methods of payment, including Post Office Card Accounts
Current role holder
Victoria Prentis MP
Victoria Prentis was appointed Minister of State at the Department for Work and Pensions on 7 September 2022.
Victoria was previously Minister of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 16 September 2021 to 7 September 2022.
Before that, she was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from 14 February 2020 to 15 September 2021.
She was elected as the Conservative MP for Banbury in May 2015.
Political career
Victoria served on the Justice Select Committee from 2015 to 2019, the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments from 2015 to 2017, and as a lay member on the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art from 2019.
Victoria also served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Attorney General from 2019 to 2020, to the Leader of the House of Commons from 2017 to 2019, and to Junior Ministers at the Department for Transport from 2016 to 2017.
Career outside politics
For seventeen years Victoria was a lawyer for the Treasury Solicitors’ Department and headed up the government’s Justice and Security team. Her responsibilities included providing advice on military, prisons and national security matters and representing the government in court.