Asked by: Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he plans to implement a helpline number for hon. Members' constituency offices for casework inquiries relating to Universal Credit.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer provided to Question 6374 on 5 September 2017 by the then Minister of State for Employment, Damian Hinds.
Asked by: Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln)
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 the effect of the changes made to the Widowed Parent's Allowance on the long-term financial security of widowed spouses.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Current recipients of Widowed Parent’s Allowance will continue to receive that benefit for the natural lifetime of their award. There will be no change in payments of Widowed Parent’s Allowance to these claimants.
Bereavement Support Payment (BSP) replaced Widowed Parent’s Allowance for those whose spouse or civil partner died on or after 6 April 2017.
BSP is designed to provide targeted support to help with the immediate costs of bereavement without affecting access to financial help towards everyday living costs.
It is for this reason that BSP is paid in addition to income related benefits, is not taxable and is not taken into account when calculating income for the benefit cap. These measures protect the financial security of the least well off families and ensure that they are not disadvantaged by the reform.
Asked by: Karen Lee (Labour - Lincoln)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the effect of the reduction in funding for Lincoln’s Citizens Advice on the provision of advice to claimants of Universal Credit in Lincoln.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The Department does not directly fund Lincoln’s Citizens Advice to provide Universal Support.
For 2017/18, we estimated the City of Lincoln Council’s funding to help them provide Universal Support to Universal Credit claimants to be £4,107, and for 2018/19 we are increasing this funding to £11,131 to reflect that the City of Lincoln went live with Universal Credit full service on 7 March 2018.
The City of Lincoln Council has full discretion as to whether they provide this Universal Support themselves or contract out to another organisation, such as Citizens Advice.
Any such sub-contraction is a matter between the council and the sub-contractor.