Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of any lessons to be learnt for improving the environmental, social, economic and cultural well-being of people in all regions of the UK from the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 relates to devolved matters therefore it is for the Welsh Government to consider any lessons learnt in respect of Wales.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to reinstate the deferred pensions of those women born in the 1950s who were meant to receive their pensions aged 60; and what assessment they have made of whether those women were given sufficient notice of the deferment.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
Successive governments of different political persuasions have taken the same approach to increased life expectancy and equality between 1995–2019. The Government has no plans to revisit the policy on women’s State Pension age as brought forward by the 1995 pensions Act or the 2011 Pensions Act, and does not intend to make further concessions. The changes in the 2011 Act occurred following a public Call for Evidence and extensive debates in Parliament. A concession limiting the increase in State Pension age under the 2011 Act in any individual case to 18 months, relative to the 1995 Act timetable, has already been made during the passage Act (at the cost of £1.1 billion).
In the years after the 1995 legislation (1995 to 2011) this equalisation was frequently reported in the media and debated at length in parliament. People were notified with leaflets, an extensive advertising campaign was carried out, and later individual letters were posted out.
Evidence submitted to the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee ‘Communication of state pension age changes’ in 2016 noted that there were more than 600 mentions of State Pension age equalisation in the national broadsheet and tabloid press between 1993 and 2006, an average of just under one per week between 1993 and 2006. There were 54 mentions in the press in 1995, the year in which equalisation was legislated for. This was a significant event to change the age at which women received their State Pension that had existed since 1940. This was news worthy, particularly to those that it affected. Further media coverage occurred around the Pension Acts 2007, 2011 and 2014.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to support lone-parent families living in poverty; and in particular, to tackle (1) high housing costs, (2) low-paid work, and (3) cuts to benefits and tax credits.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
There is clear evidence that work offers the best opportunity for families to move out of poverty and towards financial independence. Children of lone parent workless families are around 4 times more likely to be in poverty than those where their parent works full time. There are now over 1.2 million lone parents in work and this Government has introduced a number of changes to help lone parents address the challenges they face. Working parents on Universal Credit can have up to 85% of their childcare costs reimbursed – worth up to £1,108 per month for someone with two or more children. We have also introduced additional flexibility on support for up front childcare costs, increased work allowances and doubled free childcare available to working parents of 3 and 4 year olds to 30 hours per week. People on Universal Credit who earn above £542 a month are exempt from the benefit cap, and lone parents need to work just 16 hours a week to be eligible for Working Tax Credits and be exempt from the benefit cap.
This Government has introduced the National Living Wage which will increase again to £8.21 from April 2019. This is expected to benefit up to 2.4m people with the rise this April increasing a full-time worker’s annual pay by over £2,750 since its introduction. Our tax changes will make basic rate tax payers £1,075 better off in 2018-19 than in 2010-11. And we have provided around £1billion in Discretionary Housing Payment funding since 2011, enabling local authorities to protect the most vulnerable claimants
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of people who are yet to be moved to Universal Credit as part of the natural migration process; and what support will be available for vulnerable claimants, including those who have disabilities, during this process.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
We are unable to forecast the number of people who are yet to naturally migrate to Universal Credit. This is because Natural Migration claimants are those who have had a relevant change of circumstances that would cause a new claim to be made to a different legacy benefit, but they cannot make such a claim to legacy benefits because these have been replaced by UC.
We take seriously the need to support vulnerable claimants moving to Universal Credit. Work Coaches provide continuous support for all claimants, including vulnerable claimants throughout their journey.
Additionally we have introduced a number of measures to assist claimants during the transition to Universal Credit including: the removal of waiting days; the UC Transitional Housing payment; Universal Support; 100 per cent advances and a longer repayment period.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made, or intend to make, of the report of the Resolution Foundation, Living Standards Audit 2018, published on 24 July, and its conclusion that the proportion of children in poverty has risen by 21 per cent in the five years to 2016, rather than their estimate of 11 per cent.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
Benefit under-reporting in household surveys is a well-known, long standing issue. To date it has not been possible to accurately resolve this. The Resolution Foundation’s report published on 24 July attempts to correct this issue. However, they do not have accurate information on which households are under-reporting. Consequently, they use a series of assumptions to select a number of households in the survey, allocating them additional income from benefits. This means the conclusions in the report will be sensitive to the households selected; different assumptions will give different results.
DWP is currently working towards a more accurate solution to correct this issue, whereby survey records are combined with administrative data to improve the quality of the survey data. Making this correction is likely to reduce the number of individuals classed as being in low income.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made, or intend to make, of the effects of delayed benefit payments on the creditworthiness of benefit recipients who fall into arrears as a result of such delays.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
An assessment has not been made.
The latest Universal Credit data shows that around 80 per cent of new claims are paid in full and on time. In many cases, where full payment is not made on time by the end of the first assessment period, this is as a result of unresolved issues: claimants have not signed their Claimant Commitment or passed identity checks, and the others have outstanding verification issues, such as for housing and self-employed earnings. Whilst their verification is ongoing, many of these claimants receive a part payment for those elements of the claim that have been resolved.
Advances are available to provide financial support until the first payment and these can now be repaid over a course of 12 months and can consist of up to 100 per cent of the indicative monthly award. We have also abolished waiting days and now provide 2 weeks of housing support to claimants moving to Universal Credit from Housing Benefit.
Asked by: Lord Bird (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans, if any, they have to adopt an all-of-government approach to preventing the root causes of poverty.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
This Government believes that works provides people with the best opportunity for getting out of poverty and into self-reliance. This is why it is committed to collective action that tackles the root causes of poverty and disadvantage through a range of policies that encourage people to move into and progress in work including Universal Credit, the National Living Wage, tax changes, and up to 30 hours of free childcare a week. There are around 880,000 fewer adults and almost 600,000 fewer children in workless households compared with 2010.
‘Improving Lives: Helping Workless Families’, published on 4 April, set out a framework for improving outcomes for children in workless households including nine cross-departmental indicators to track progress across a number of departments in tackling the disadvantages that can affect families and their children. The Department for Work and Pensions continues to work with a range of external stakeholders and with other Departments to take forward the policies set out in the paper and is also committed to pushing annual updates against all nine indicators.
The Department is also represented at a ministerial level at a number of groups and forums which focus on supporting those who are most disadvantaged, whether or not they have children, including Inter Ministerial Groups on Rough Sleeping and Homelessness Reduction Taskforce, Serious Violence Strategy, Violence against Women and Girls, Race Disparity, Safe and Integrated Communities, the Reducing Reoffending Board and the Drugs Strategy Board. It also co-chairs the Financial Inclusion Policy Forum with the Economic Secretary to the Treasury.