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Written Question
Personal Independence Payment: Standards
Tuesday 31st May 2022

Asked by: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has performance standards for clearance times for Personal Independence Payments.

Answered by Chloe Smith

There is no target for the completion of a claim to PIP through to the first payment. However, we are committed to ensuring that people can access financial support through Personal Independence Payment (PIP) in a timely manner. We always aim to make an award decision as quickly as possible, taking into account the need to review all the available evidence, including that from the claimant, any supporting evidence supplied and the advice from an assessment.


Written Question
Personal Independence Payment: Standards
Wednesday 25th May 2022

Asked by: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what criteria her Department uses to assess performance standards for average clearance times for new claims made under normal rules for Personal Independence Payments.

Answered by Chloe Smith

There is no target for the completion of a claim to PIP through to the first payment. However, we are committed to ensuring that people can access financial support through Personal Independence Payment (PIP) in a timely manner. We always aim to make an award decision as quickly as possible, taking into account the need to review all the available evidence, including that from the claimant, any supporting evidence supplied and the advice from an assessment.


Written Question
Personal Independence Payment: Standards
Wednesday 25th May 2022

Asked by: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what targets his Department has set for standard waiting times for new claimants of PIP to receive their first payment.

Answered by Chloe Smith

There is no target for the completion of a claim to PIP through to the first payment. However, we are committed to ensuring that people can access financial support through Personal Independence Payment (PIP) in a timely manner. We always aim to make an award decision as quickly as possible, taking into account the need to review all the available evidence, including that from the claimant, any supporting evidence supplied and the advice from an assessment.


Written Question
Job Entry Targeted Support: Scottish Borders
Tuesday 20th July 2021

Asked by: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent progress her Department has made on the roll-out of the Job Entry Targeted Support scheme in the Scottish Borders.

Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

We do not hold data confirming the number of Job Entry Targeted Support (JETS) in Scotland starts for the Scottish Borders area. However, so far 6,000 people have started the programme and are being supported to find work across Scotland.

JETS in Scotland successfully went live 25 January 21, delivering a service across Scotland including the Scottish Borders, to support those unemployed more than 13 weeks, primarily impacted by COVID-19, back into employment.


Written Question
Universal Credit
Wednesday 28th April 2021

Asked by: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people will benefit from the £20 uplift in universal credit; and what the value of that uplift is in monetary terms in (a) the Scottish Borders and (b) Scotland.

Answered by Will Quince

The Department for Work and Pensions estimates the six month extension to the Universal Credit £20 uplift will cost around £2.2bn in GB, which can be found here: https://obr.uk/efo/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-march-2021/. The available information on the number of people with Universal Credit in payment, by geography, is published and can be found at: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/. Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html.


Written Question
Jobcentres: Galashiels
Friday 5th March 2021

Asked by: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what support she is providing to Galashiels Job Centre to further assist the unemployed.

Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Through our Plan for Jobs, the department is providing broad ranging support for all jobseekers. Currently, support includes the Kickstart scheme, Job Finding Support, Sector Based Work Academy Programmes and Job Entry Targeted Support in Scotland.

In addition, the government is investing an additional £150 million into the Flexible Support Fund, which will increase the capacity of the Rapid Response Service, supporting people through redundancy and providing additional local support to claimants by removing barriers to work such as travel expenses for attending interviews and child care.

Our Jobcentre Work Coaches provide support on finding a job, help with retraining or skills advice, CV, job applications and access to the new vacancies we record every day, as well as signposting to our Jobhelp website. We are increasing the number of Work Coaches in Jobcentre Plus by 13,500 by March 2021. With 17 new Work Coaches joining the team at Galashiels Jobcentre in January.

The Galashiels Jobcentre team are working closely with Scottish Borders College to identify and deliver suitable provision for local residents, and have also partnered with employers in the area to deliver Mentoring Circles and Sector-based Work Academy Programmes.


Written Question
Kickstart Scheme: Scottish Borders
Tuesday 16th February 2021

Asked by: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many new job placements have been created in the Scottish Borders as part of the Kickstart Scheme.

Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

I refer my Right Honourable friend to PQ 145013


Written Question
Kickstart Scheme
Thursday 3rd December 2020

Asked by: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress has been made on rolling out the Kickstart Scheme; and what discussions he has with the devolved Administrations on that scheme.

Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

As of 20/11/2020, the DWP’s Kickstart scheme has received 4’783 total applications, 1’752 of these being from prospective gateway organisations (this includes bids made across a number of application forms from some organisations each containing different Kickstart placements). So far, applications from Gateways and employers covering 23’934 vacancies have been approved.

Officials meet colleagues in the devolved administrations regularly to discuss Kickstart and to ensure that the benefits of the scheme can be maximised and can complement existing and planned local provision for young people.


Written Question
Social Security Benefits: Scotland
Monday 18th May 2020

Asked by: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress has been made on devolving social security benefits to the Scottish Government; and what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the covid-19 outbreak on the progress of that devolution.

Answered by Justin Tomlinson

The Scottish Government has replaced Sure Start Maternity Grants and Funeral Expenses Payments with Scottish provision. It has also introduced a Supplement to Carer’s Allowance, and the Young Carer Grant which are completely new in Scotland. In addition, its contracted employment programme, Fair Start Scotland, has been in place since April 2018 and followed a year of transitional services, Work First Scotland and Work Able Scotland, in 2017. These measures have been introduced with the support of the UK Government, and the two Governments continue to work closely together on further new benefits such as the Scottish Child Payment and Winter Heating Assistance for the parents of disabled children, which have interdependencies with the reserved social security system.

On 1 April 2020, executive competence for extra-needs disability benefits and for industrial injuries provision transferred to the Scottish Government. The Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People made a statement to the Scottish Parliament on the same day, announcing that, due to the impact of coronavirus pandemic on capacity in the health and social care sectors in particular, the Scottish Government had decided to delay the introduction of replacement benefits for Attendance Allowance, Carer’s Allowance, Disability Living Allowance, Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit and Personal Independence Payment. We continue to work closely with the Scottish Government on its revised timescales for replacing these benefits, and on its plans for the replacement of Cold Weather Payments and Winter Fuel Payments. The Scottish Government has asked DWP to maintain the existing caseload of claims to Severe Disablement Allowance on its behalf, and an Agency Agreement is in place for this which will be reviewed after five years.

Until the new Scottish benefits are introduced, DWP has agreed to continue to provide the existing benefits to people in Scotland under Agency Agreements on behalf of the Scottish Government, in the same way as they are provided to people in England and Wales. Both Governments’ priority remains the safe and secure transfer to the new Scottish benefits.


Written Question
State Retirement Pensions: Females
Friday 6th September 2019

Asked by: John Lamont (Conservative - Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has any plans to (a) change the rules on the state pension age for women and (b) compensate those affected by the change in rules.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

Successive Governments have made necessary decisions to equalise and increase the State Pension age. State Pension age reform has focused on maintaining the right balance between sustainability of State Pension, equality and fairness between generations in the face of demographic change.

Even after equalising women’s State Pension age with men’s, women will spend more than 2 years longer on average in receipt of their state pension because of their longer life expectancy. If we had not equalised State Pension age, women would be expected to spend on average over 40 per cent of their adult lives in retirement.

During the passage of the Pensions Act 2011, the Government listened to the concerns of those affected and this is why we introduced a concession worth over £1 billion in order to limit the impact on those women who would be most affected by the changes. This concession reduced the proposed increase in State Pension age for over 450,000 men and women, and means that no woman will see her pension age change by more than 18 months, relative to the 1995 Act timetable.

For people who simply can’t work, our welfare system will continue to provide a strong safety net, as it does for people of all ages now. Any women experiencing hardship, including problems such as unemployment, disability, and coping with caring responsibilities, can already claim support from the welfare system. The Government is committed to supporting the vulnerable and spends over £50 billion a year on benefits to support disabled people and people with health conditions. The new State Pension is more generous for many women. Over three million women stand to gain an average of £550 extra per year by 2030 as a result of recent State Pension reforms.