Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 19 June 2019 to Question 260559 on universal credit, what assessment she has made of the average length of time taken to repay in full advance payments made under universal credit.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The Department encourages all Universal Credit claimants to actively consider how best to manage their personal budget, with additional advice and support available from work coaches and case managers. When an advance payment is appropriate, claimants decide what percentage of their expected monthly award to apply for and over what period to repay it, up to a maximum of 12 monthly instalments.
Claimants have the ability to make the decision for themselves on the time period for repayment. Most claimants (around 85%) choose to repay their advance over a 12-month period, with others repaying in a shorter timeframe.
The Department has taken a number of steps to ensure that advances meet the needs of claimants and that recovery arrangements are personalised and reasonable. From October 2019 we are reducing the maximum rate of deductions to 30 per cent and from October 2021 we are increasing the maximum recovery period for advances from 12 to 16 months.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the number of people aged over 75 in receipt of pension credit.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Latest published information shows that at end of November 2018, there were 943,954 Pension Credit claimants aged 75 and over
Source: DWP Stat-Xplore
This information is published and available at Stat-Xplore:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk
Guidance for users is available at:
https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many universal credit overpayments her Department has made in the Vale of Clwyd in each of the last five years, and what the cause for overpayment was in each such case.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The specific breakdown requested is not available. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has no business need for a breakdown of this type and therefore our systems do not have this functionality.
DWP is committed to preventing overpayments from occurring.
The Department ensures that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect claimants who have deductions from their benefit to repay overpayments. There are maximum rates of deduction that are set out in legislation, and if a claimant is struggling they can contact the Department’s Debt Management Team to discuss lowering their repayment rate.
DWP is constantly improving its data and analytical tools to detect and prevent issues as early as possible. DWP works to ensure claimants are aware of their obligation to report any changes in their circumstances. We are constantly reviewing our approach to make sure it is as effective as possible.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 11 June to Question 257471 on Department for Work and Pensions: Metro Newspaper, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of an advertorial campaign to (a) promote awareness of pension credit eligibility and (b) encourage the take-up of pension credit.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
We already use a variety of different channels to communicate information about Pension Credit to potential customers including GOV.UK, the online Pension Credit calculator and the Pension Credit toolkit, which is an on-line tool for agencies and welfare rights organisations to use in order to encourage Pension Credit take-up.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she publish a list of each consultation event or meeting her Department held during the process to develop the revised guidance notes for the DS1500 with the (a) dates on which those events or meetings took place and (b) names of the organisations or professional bodies represented at those events or meetings.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department held two events, in December 2018 and January 2019. As well as a number of clinicians who attended in an individual capacity, organisations present were Marie Curie, the Motor Neurone Disease Association, Macmillan Cancer Support, and the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 11 June 2019 on Social Security Benefits: Medical Examinations, what the timetable is for the conclusion of the negotiations to extend the Health and Disability Assessment Service contract; and whether she plans to place in the Library a copy of those contract terms once those negotiations have been concluded.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The negotiations to extend the Health and Disability Assessment Service contract will conclude with the signature of the contract to support the extension. On current timescales my Department expects this to be by the end of July 2019. There are currently no plans to publish a redacted version of the contract which supports this extension in the House of Commons library.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of child poverty (a) before and (b) after housing costs have been taken into account in each local authority in Wales in each year for which data is available.
Answered by Will Quince
National statistics on the number of people in relative and absolute low income are set out in the annual "Households Below Average Income" publication. The number and proportion of children in low income is not available at local authority or constituency level in this publication because the survey sample sizes are too small to support the production of robust estimates at this geography.
3-year estimates for the proportion of children in before and after housing cost low income in the Wales region are available using the link below, in the file “children-hbai-timeseries-1994-95-2017-18-tables.ods”.
Table 4.16ts shows child relative low income estimates and table 4.22ts shows child absolute low income estimates.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the effect of housing costs on the level of child poverty; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department looks at rates of child poverty both before and after housing costs. Absolute child poverty after housing costs has reduced from 28% in 2009/10 to 26% in 2017/18. However, this is higher than the absolute child poverty rate before housing costs which was 18% in 2017/18, suggesting that housing costs have an effect on rates of children in low income households.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to her Written Statement of 5 March 2019, HC WS1376, if she will place in the Library a copy of the contract terms for the extension of the Health and Disability Assessment Service.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The negotiations to extend the Health and Disability Assessment Service contract for 17 months until 31 July 2021 are still to be concluded. There are currently no plans to publish a redacted version of the contract which supports this extension in the House of Commons library.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of personal independence payment and employment and support allowance decisions made by (a) ATOS, and (b) Maximus were overturned on appeal in each year for which data is available.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Assessment Providers do not make the benefit decisions which are appealed to Her Majesty's Court and Tribunal Service (HMCTS). They provide assessment reports to the department’s decision makers who use that as evidence to make the actual benefit decision. It is that decision which is appealed.
PIP assessments are delivered by IAS (formally known as Atos) and Capita. Information on the proportion of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) decisions following an IAS assessment that are overturned on appeal is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
ESA Work Capability Assessments (WCA) are delivered by the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments (CHDA), operated by Maximus. CHDA began delivering WCAs from March 2015. Experimental statistics on the number of ESA (WCA) completed and the number where the decision was overturned on appeal by period of claim start are available in Table 17 of the publication “ESA: outcomes of Work Capability Assessments including mandatory reconsiderations and appeals: March 2019”, available here: