Asked by: Baroness Burt of Solihull (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Children's Family Fund for England will cover the same expenses as those covered by the Social Fund Funeral Payment.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
The Government is committed to ensuring that all families who lose a child are given the support they need. That is why we have announced the establishment of a Children’s Funeral Fund for England, with the intention that no bereaved family will have to pay for the essential costs of burying or cremating their child. The detailed policy is under development and will be announced in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Burt of Solihull (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to publish further details on how the Children's Funeral Fund for England will operate; and if so, when.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
The Government is committed to ensuring that all families who lose a child are given the support they need. That is why we have announced the establishment of a Children’s Funeral Fund for England, with the intention that no bereaved family will have to pay for the essential costs of burying or cremating their child. The detailed policy is under development and will be announced in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Burt of Solihull (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, in the light of the recent report from the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation The Dependency Trap—are we fit to face the future?, what steps they are taking to reduce the rates of economic inactivity in the UK due to preventable chronic conditions among those aged over 50.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
The number of workers aged 50 and over currently in employment is at a record high of 10.1 million aged 50 plus in the UK: an increase of 1.4 million over the last 5 years and an increase of 2.2 million over the last 10 years
The Government has in place a comprehensive Fuller Working Lives strategy to support older workers to remain in and return to the labour market and tackle the barriers to doing so.
The Government has appointed the Business in The Community (BITC) Age at Work leadership team, as Business Champion for Older Workers; the BITC team of employers spearhead the Government’s Fuller Working Lives work. The Department has also expanded its network of Older Claimant Champions to all 34 Jobcentre Plus districts to work collaboratively with over 11,000 work coaches.
The Government understands the importance to individuals and the wider economy of preventing avoidable ill-health and enabling more disabled people and people with long-term health conditions to get into and stay in work. We continue to support and encourage employers to recruit and retain with confidence; to build our offer of personalised employment support and are exploring how to improve access to Occupational Health services.
From 2013 to 2017; the number of people with a long term health condition in work increased by nearly 600,000 to 7.4 million; with an employment rate of 62 per cent that is an increase of 4.3 percentage points in the same period.
The Government has also committed to seeing one million more disabled people in work over the next ten years. On 30 November 2017, we published ‘Improving Lives: The Future of Work, Health and Disability’, which sets out actions we are taking across three key settings; in the welfare system; in the workplace and in health services – with health professionals ready to talk about health barriers to work.
We are investing up to £115 million of programme funding to support the work and health agenda to enable investment in new models and the evidence of what works this includes:
o more than doubling the number of Employment Advisers in Improving Access to Psychological Therapies services;
o mental health trials; and
o the Work and Health Innovation Fund – which is funded by contributions from Department for Work and Pensions , Department for Health and social Care, and NHS England.
Background note:
Please note that Office for National Statistics did recently release some more recent employment estimates for people with disabilities and people with long-term health conditions. However, these are subject to health warnings while ONS complete their investigations into an apparent discontinuity in the figures. Therefore, we have advised that public statements should be based on estimates up to quarter 2 (April-June) 2017, the most period for which ONS have published estimates without health warnings.
Asked by: Baroness Burt of Solihull (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the recommendations in the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation's report The Dependency Trap—are we fit to face the future? that (1) a working partner should be allowed to contribute to a non-working partner's pension fund, and (2) couples should be able to contribute to a joint pension fund if they so wish.
Answered by Lord Bates
Individuals can make contributions of up £2,880 each year to a personal pension, self-invested personal pension, or stakeholder pension and receive basic rate income tax relief at, currently, 20% or £720 on their contribution. Those contributions can be funded by a working partner.
Regarding the proposal of a joint pension, since 1990, the UK's income tax system has been based on the principle of independent taxation. This provides that each individual is taxed on their personal income and has their own tax-free personal allowance, and their own set of tax thresholds. This fundamental principle provides everyone with absolute confidentiality for their personal tax affairs. For this reason, the Government is not currently considering changing this policy. A joint pension fund would not be consistent with the system of independent taxation.
Asked by: Baroness Burt of Solihull (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how the number of women in receipt of working age disability benefits has been affected by the rise in state pension age from 60 to 65 between 2010 and 2018.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
I refer the noble Baroness to the answer I gave her on 23 February 2018 to question number HL5600.
The number of women in receipt of the main working age disability benefits, Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and Personal Independence Payment (PIP), has not been affected by the rise in state pension age.
New claims for DLA are currently only available for children under the age of 16 since the introduction of PIP on 8 April 2013. However, before the introduction of PIP, DLA had an upper age limit for making a new claim set at the day before a claimant’s 65th birthday. This is also the upper age limit to make a new claim for PIP and will rise in line with increases in state pension age.
Asked by: Baroness Burt of Solihull (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what percentage increase of people on working age disability benefits they anticipate following the introduction of planned increases to the state pension age from age 65 to 66, and 67 to 68.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
The latest Fiscal Sustainability Report, contains estimates of the increase in State Pension Age.
The table below shows the estimated number of people aged 66 and over on disability benefits as a proportion of the caseload aged under 66. Disability Benefits include Personal Independence Payment, Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance.
| Proportion |
2018/19 | 0.0% |
2019/20 | 0.0% |
2020/21 | 0.0% |
2021/22 | 0.0% |
2022/23 | 0.0% |
2023/24 | 0.0% |
2024/25 | 0.0% |
2025/26 | 0.0% |
2026/27 | 1.0% |
2027/28 | 3.2% |
2028/29 | 4.4% |
2029/30 | 4.5% |
2030/31 | 4.6% |
2031/32 | 4.7% |
2032/33 | 4.6% |
2033/34 | 4.6% |
2034/35 | 4.6% |
2035/36 | 4.6% |
2036/37 | 4.5% |
2037/38 | 4.6% |
2038/39 | 4.4% |
2039/40 | 4.2% |
2040/41 | 4.1% |
2041/42 | 4.0% |
2042/43 | 3.9% |
2043/44 | 3.8% |
2044/45 | 4.8% |
2045/46 | 7.0% |
2046/47 | 8.5% |
2047/48 | 8.7% |
2048/49 | 8.6% |
2049/50 | 8.6% |
2050/51 | 8.6% |
Asked by: Baroness Burt of Solihull (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to tackle the gender gap in pensions, as highlighted in a recent report from the Centre for Study of Financial Innovation, The Dependency Trap—are we fit enough to face the future?.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
The report by the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation raises issues concerning differences in earnings between genders that cannot be tackled by the pensions system alone. The Government remains committed to minimising the gender pay gap.
On pension saving, through automatic enrolment into workplace pensions we are helping those who were historically disadvantaged in terms of occupational pension provision – often women and lower earners – to build up their retirement savings. Since the introduction of automatic enrolment the proportion of women employed full-time in the private sector without a workplace pension has decreased from 65 per cent in 2012 to 31 per cent in 2016. It is also equalising workplace pension participation among eligible men and women. In 2016, 73 per cent of eligible men and women in the private sector were saving into a workplace pension compared with 43 per cent and 40 per cent of eligible men and women respectively in the private sector in 2012.
Our aim is to continue to increase the levels of retirement saving amongst all groups. The 2017 review of automatic enrolment sets out our ambition for strengthening the framework of workplace pension saving for lower paid workers (many of whom are women working part-time). Over the coming year we will work to build a renewed consensus to deliver the detailed design and implementation of our proposals.
Asked by: Baroness Burt of Solihull (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress has been made in reducing rates of economic inactivity due to disability caused by preventable chronic conditions among those aged over 50.
Answered by Lord Young of Cookham
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply and I will place a copy of their letter in the Library of the House.
Asked by: Baroness Burt of Solihull (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people are in receipt of working age disability benefits; and what is their estimate of the number of people who will be in receipt of such benefits following the introduction of planned increases to the state pension age from 65 to (1) 66, (2) 67, and (3) 68.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
Providing the complete information requested would exceed the word limit for responses to written parliamentary questions. However, the information requested can be found in the latest Fiscal Sustainability Report. I will place a copy of this report in the House Library.
Asked by: Baroness Burt of Solihull (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the proposal in the Cridland review, published in March 2017, that couples should be able to combine their pension savings.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
John Cridland raised an option related to married couples that appears to work well in Switzerland. However, the report recognised the UK system is different, and there are different challenges, including different delivery challenges. Within an individualised UK tax system, subject to tax rules, households can plan for retirement by making voluntary payments into a personal pension.
Automatic enrolment is part of a wider set of pension reforms designed to ensure that the UK has a pension system that enables individuals, with the help of their employers, to save towards achieving the lifestyle to which they aspire to in retirement. It has been a great success to date with over 9 million employees automatically enrolled into a workplace pension by nearly 1 million employers. It has already reversed the decline in private pension saving seen in the decade prior to its introduction. Additionally, we have seen positive progress for other under-represented groups in pension saving, and a correlated increase in women’s participation since its introduction. The proportion of women employed full-time in the private sector who did not have a workplace pension has decreased from 65 per cent in 2012 to 31 per cent in 2016.
However, we cannot be complacent which is why the Government has set out its vision going forwards to build on the success to date.