Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many children under three years are receiving the DLA care component under special rules in England.
Answered by Chloe Smith
Quarterly statistics for the number and age of children in receipt of the highest rate care award of Disability Living Allowance, with a main disabling condition recorded as Terminally ill, are published on Stat-Xplore here:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk
Guidance for users is available at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of whether there has been a change in the average time taken to process Access to Work payments in the most recent period for which figures are available.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
I refer to my response to PQN/21-22/2021/7311921-
Access to Work aim for customers to be paid within 10 days of receipt of claims and all supporting evidence.
Following postal delays during July and August, we are seeing payment clearance times returning to normal levels.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the time taken for beneficiaries to receive their Access to Work payments.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
Access to Work aim for customers to be paid within 10 days of receipt of claims and all supporting evidence. During July and August postal delays held up payment claims being received into DWP.
We have introduced scanning of all claims on day of receipt improving payment times, and Access to Work are also developing a digital claim portal which will allow customers to submit their claim online and upload any supporting information. We expect to start testing this with some customers in December 2021.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average length of time is for beneficiaries to receive Access to Work Payments in each of the last (a) 12 months and (b) five years; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The average length of time for beneficiaries to receive Access to Work Payments in each of the last (a) 12 months and (b) five years is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
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 currently eligible to claim carers allowance.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
Information on the number of people that (a) have an underlying entitlement to Carer’s Allowance and (b) receiving a payment for Carer’s Allowance by Parliamentary constituency is published and available at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk
Guidance for users is available at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people currently receive carers allowance.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
As of November 2020, there were 937,000 people claiming Carer’s Allowance.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
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 who would be eligible to claim carers allowance if the hours of care requirement are reduced from 35 hours to (a) 30 hours, (b) 25 hours and (c) 20 hours.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The threshold of providing at least 35 hours care a week has been in place since Carer’s Allowance (CA) was first introduced in 1976, and has been maintained by successive Governments as a reasonable point at which many carers would find it difficult to combine their caring responsibilities with a full-time job.
The Government has not made any estimates of how many additional people would become entitled to CA if the number of hours of care required to be provided were reduced.
There is support for those caring for less than 35 hours a week in the benefit system - including Carer’s Credits and changes to jobsearch requirements in Universal Credit which can be tailored to reflect caring responsibilities. (Carer’s Credits can be awarded to those providing care for over 20 hours a week, helping carers maintain their National Insurance records, thereby protecting their State Pensions, regardless of whether or not they are also working.)
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will review the spare room subsidy policy to ensure that people who are unable to work as a result of illness are not obliged to pay that charge.
Answered by Will Quince
The ‘Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy’ policy has helped to encourage mobility within the social rented sector, strengthen work-incentives and make better use of available social housing.
There are no plans to amend the policy which already allows for the provision of an additional bedroom for disabled people and carers, foster carers, parents who adopt, parents of service personnel, and people who have suffered a recent bereavement. Additionally, those in receipt of pension age housing benefit are exempt.
If a claimants ability to mitigate any shortfall between their housing support and rent has changed, Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP’s) are available. DHPs can be paid to those in receipt of Housing Benefit or support with housing costs in Universal Credit who face a shortfall in meeting their rental housing costs. Since 2011 we have provided over £1 billion in DHP funding.
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people are (a) entitled to receive and (b) receiving carer's allowance, in the latest period for which data is available, by Parliamentary constituency.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
As of February 2020, there were around 1070 carers in the Kingston and Surbiton constituency that were receiving Carer’s Allowance and in 2019/20 we spent approximately £3.8 million on Carer’s Allowance there. A further 310 carers had a claim to an underlying entitlement to Carer’s Allowance.
Information on the number of people that (a) have an underlying entitlement to Carer’s Allowance and (b) receiving a payment for Carer’s Allowance by Parliamentary constituency is published and available at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk
Guidance for users is available at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html
The latest information on benefit expenditure by parliamentary constituency including Carer’s Allowance is also published and available at:
Asked by: Ed Davey (Liberal Democrat - Kingston and Surbiton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to tackle the household income inequality between different ethnic groups in the UK; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Will Quince
Our current focus is on supporting people financially during these unprecedented times. Our long-term ambition remains to build an economy that supports employment, ensuring opportunities for all to enter and progress in work where possible, whilst providing a strong welfare safety net for those that need it.
This approach is based on clear evidence about the importance of work in tackling poverty now and in the future. Working age adults in households where all adults are in work are six times less likely to be in absolute poverty (after housing costs) than adults in a household where nobody works.
We are also committed to levelling up skills and opportunities across the country. Using latest data from the Race Disparity Audit and DWP’s own analysis, we continue to help those under-represented in the labour market and are also investing £90m towards activities that address disparities in youth unemployment.