Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Freud on 20 October (HL2620), how much they expect to save in particular in housing benefit payments from the reductions in social rent levied by housing associations.
Answered by Lord Freud
Estimates of the total benefit savings due to the reductions in social rent announced in the 2015 Summer Budget were presented in the associated policy costing publication.
The table below shows the amount of the total benefit savings which relates to housing association tenancies. This includes both Housing Benefit and Universal Credit.
Estimated reduction in benefit payments to housing association tenants, £millions, cash terms
| 2016/17 | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | |
| Benefit savings relating to Housing Associations | 145 | 425 | 790 | 1190 | 1305 |
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much they expect to save in housing benefit payments as the result of requiring local authorities to reduce the rents of council housing.
Answered by Lord Freud
Estimates of the total benefit savings due to the reductions in social rent announced in the 2015 Summer Budget were presented in the associated policy costings publication.
The rent reduction will apply to both council housing and housing associations, and the estimated savings include Housing Benefit and Universal Credit.
The table below shows the amount of the total benefit savings which relates to Local Authority tenancies. This includes both Housing Benefit and Universal Credit.
Estimated reduction in benefit payments to Local Authority tenants, £millions, cash terms
2016/17 | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | |
Benefit savings relating to Local Authority tenancies | 95 | 260 | 460 | 670 | 690 |
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government in how many localities, and at what cost, they have contracted with bus companies or public transport bodies to display advertisements on buses calling on people who know "benefit cheats" to inform the Department for Work and Pensions.
Answered by Lord Freud
Advertising on buses was targeted in 25 local authority areas at a cost of £219,786.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to amend the relevant regulations to include specific disregards for payments to compensate sufferers of abuse in the Magdalene laundries and other institutions for the purposes of calculating benefits along the lines of those established for the McFarlane (Special Payments) Trusts, MFET Limited, the Skipton Fund and the Caxton Foundation; and if not, why not.
Answered by Lord Freud
The Government has sympathy for the women who suffered by their admission to and work in the Magdalen institutions. However, payments made under the Republic of Ireland’s ex gratia scheme do not meet GB legal criteria to be treated as personal injury payments. The payments are not being made ‘in consequence of any personal injury’, but are made in consequence of being admitted to a laundry, regardless of the effects. The amount each woman will receive is dependent on the length of time spent in the laundries and not on the specific effect that it has had on their health. They are also being made as part of a broader process of restorative justice by the Republic of Ireland Government.
The Government has no plans to amend GB income-related benefit legislation to include specific disregards along the lines of the schemes mentioned. There is already provision in the benefit system to disregard payments made in respect of personal injury to avoid the need to disregard specific payments on an ad hoc basis. To amend legislation as new compensation schemes are introduced would add complexity to the benefit system and its administration.
There is already provision in legislation to disregard some elements of the ex gratia payments. For example, Pension Credit – the income-related benefit most likely to be claimed - has no capital cut off limit. Where compensation in excess of the €50,000 lump sum maximum ex gratia award is payable as weekly payments, these will be disregarded under current Pension Credit and pension age Housing Benefit legislation.
We understand that as of 6 August 2014 there had been a total number of approximately 760 applications to the scheme, around 160 of which were from UK residents. However, neither information regarding the number of UK applicants who are also in receipt of Pension Credit or other benefits, nor the amount of any ex gratia payments made is available. We are therefore unable to estimate the potential cost of a disregard.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their estimate of the number of potential applicants for United Kingdom benefits who have received compensation for abuse in the Magdalene laundries and other institutions under the scheme established by the government of the Republic of Ireland; and what is their estimate of the cost which would arise from a disregard being applied to such applications.
Answered by Lord Freud
The Government has sympathy for the women who suffered by their admission to and work in the Magdalen institutions. However, payments made under the Republic of Ireland’s ex gratia scheme do not meet GB legal criteria to be treated as personal injury payments. The payments are not being made ‘in consequence of any personal injury’, but are made in consequence of being admitted to a laundry, regardless of the effects. The amount each woman will receive is dependent on the length of time spent in the laundries and not on the specific effect that it has had on their health. They are also being made as part of a broader process of restorative justice by the Republic of Ireland Government.
The Government has no plans to amend GB income-related benefit legislation to include specific disregards along the lines of the schemes mentioned. There is already provision in the benefit system to disregard payments made in respect of personal injury to avoid the need to disregard specific payments on an ad hoc basis. To amend legislation as new compensation schemes are introduced would add complexity to the benefit system and its administration.
There is already provision in legislation to disregard some elements of the ex gratia payments. For example, Pension Credit – the income-related benefit most likely to be claimed - has no capital cut off limit. Where compensation in excess of the €50,000 lump sum maximum ex gratia award is payable as weekly payments, these will be disregarded under current Pension Credit and pension age Housing Benefit legislation.
We understand that as of 6 August 2014 there had been a total number of approximately 760 applications to the scheme, around 160 of which were from UK residents. However, neither information regarding the number of UK applicants who are also in receipt of Pension Credit or other benefits, nor the amount of any ex gratia payments made is available. We are therefore unable to estimate the potential cost of a disregard.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the position of the government of the Republic of Ireland in respect of disregarding monies paid under its scheme to compensate sufferers of abuse in the Magdalene laundries and other institutions for the purposes of calculating benefits, why such payments are not disregarded, as a consequence of being made in response to a personal injury, in relation to benefits otherwise payable to such sufferers resident in the United Kingdom.
Answered by Lord Freud
The Government has sympathy for the women who suffered by their admission to and work in the Magdalen institutions. However, payments made under the Republic of Ireland’s ex gratia scheme do not meet GB legal criteria to be treated as personal injury payments. The payments are not being made ‘in consequence of any personal injury’, but are made in consequence of being admitted to a laundry, regardless of the effects. The amount each woman will receive is dependent on the length of time spent in the laundries and not on the specific effect that it has had on their health. They are also being made as part of a broader process of restorative justice by the Republic of Ireland Government.
The Government has no plans to amend GB income-related benefit legislation to include specific disregards along the lines of the schemes mentioned. There is already provision in the benefit system to disregard payments made in respect of personal injury to avoid the need to disregard specific payments on an ad hoc basis. To amend legislation as new compensation schemes are introduced would add complexity to the benefit system and its administration.
There is already provision in legislation to disregard some elements of the ex gratia payments. For example, Pension Credit – the income-related benefit most likely to be claimed - has no capital cut off limit. Where compensation in excess of the €50,000 lump sum maximum ex gratia award is payable as weekly payments, these will be disregarded under current Pension Credit and pension age Housing Benefit legislation.
We understand that as of 6 August 2014 there had been a total number of approximately 760 applications to the scheme, around 160 of which were from UK residents. However, neither information regarding the number of UK applicants who are also in receipt of Pension Credit or other benefits, nor the amount of any ex gratia payments made is available. We are therefore unable to estimate the potential cost of a disregard.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the steps they are taking to reduce the cost of benefit fraud, what they propose to do, and how much they plan to spend, to reduce underpayments to claimants due to mistakes by officials or claimants.
Answered by Lord Freud
The Department takes both under and overpayments seriously and has in place a number of initiatives to address the errors that cause them. These activities address fraud as well as error, and both under and overpayments. It is therefore not possible to separate out the cost of activities focused exclusively on underpayments as a result of error.
Universal Credit will make the welfare system simpler by replacing six benefits and credits with a single monthly payment. This simplification is expected to lead to a reduction in fraud and error due to the fact that information about claimants will be held in one place and updated more frequently and easily.
For claimants that have income taxed under PAYE, Universal Credit will be linked to HMRC’s Real Time Information system, which will provide an automatic monthly update of their income thus reducing the potential for both error and fraud.
The Department has invested in compliance activity, so that case correctness is maintained and fraud and error entering the system are detected and resolved quickly. Across all delivery arms there is a focus on accuracy and quality, including a continuous quality checking regime to review claims and check processing accuracy.
We constantly review claims by checking them against data coming into our systems, in order to highlight potential anomalies. We do this by using business rules which focus on potential error to identify both under and overpayments.
The Department is taking steps to encourage claimants to ensure that the information provided to us is accurate and up-to-date. This includes a fraud and error communications campaign about driving behaviour change and emphasising that claimants must report any change of circumstances.