Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
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 have been affected by the underpayment of benefits after transitioning from incapacity benefit to employment and support allowance in Pontypridd constituency.
Answered by Chloe Smith
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 19th January to question number 104377.
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether any social events took place between three or more people within her Departmental buildings between (a) 5 November 2020 and 1 December 2020 and (b) 16 December 2020 and 22 February 2021.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
This information is not collected. At the time, staff were expected to work from home and undertake meetings remotely, wherever possible.
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
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 whose universal credit payments have incurred errors in (a) Wales, (b) England and (c) the UK, in each year since 2015.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department is committed to ensuring we are paying the right people the right amount of Universal Credit.
We published our annual ‘Fraud and error in the benefit system: financial year 2019 to 2020 estimates’ report in May 2020, and this includes information and data across benefit types, including Universal Credit. It can be accessed online using the following link:
Data for previous financial years is also available via.gov.uk; however, changes in recording methodology mean that comparisons cannot be made with years prior to 2018/19.
The vast majority of benefit expenditure is paid correctly, with front line staff working hard to prevent overpayments from occurring. We are constantly improving our processes and continue to invest in the use of data and analytics to identify fraud and error.
Once rolled out, DWP expects the high-level design of Universal Credit to lead to around £1bn in benefit savings each year from reduced fraud and error.
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people claimed personal independence payments on the basis of a degenerative neurological condition in (a) Wales and (b) Pontypridd constituency in each year since 2010.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The information you requested is not held by the Department. In the application process, claimants’ main disabling condition is only recorded for collation by the Department at assessment. It is not recorded at the point of application. The Department does not therefore hold data on the number of applicants to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) with particular conditions. Only those who have a disability assessment determination decision will have a main disabling condition recorded for them.
We do collect data on the main disability condition for those who have had a PIP clearance. The latest available data on PIP registrations and clearances split by geographical area (including region and parliamentary constituency), main disability, and by type of clearance (i.e. whether the claim was awarded, disallowed or withdrawn) for both new claims and reassessed claims, can be found at https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html.
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average clearance time frame was for her Department to process a new personal independence payment claim in the period from March 2020 to August 2020; and what that average time taken was in that same period in 2019; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The latest available data on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) clearance times covers claims cleared up to the end of July 2020. Therefore, the average clearance times are calculated from March 2020 to July 2020, and March 2019 to July 2019 respectively for comparison.
The median end to end clearance time for PIP New Claims in Great Britain for Normal Rules claimants was 21 weeks for claims cleared from March 2020 to July 2020, and was 15 weeks for claims cleared from March 2019 to July 2019.
[In Wales, the median end to end clearance time for PIP New Claims for Normal Rules claimants was 14 weeks for claims cleared from March 2020 – July 2020 and was 16 weeks for claims cleared from March 2019 – July 2019.]
Changes in the average end to end clearance time across from March 2020 to July 2020 reflect disruption due to COVID-19, including the development, testing and successful rollout of a new telephony assessment model to enable claims to be progressed robustly in the absence of face-to-face assessments to ensure we were not putting vulnerable people and our staff at risk.
Notes
Source: PIP ADS
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many universal credit applications her Department has received from claimants citing that a third or subsequent child was conceived as a result of rape in each year since 2015; and how many of those applications were received in (a) each UK region and nation and (b) the Pontypridd constituency in each of those years.
Answered by Will Quince
The policy to provide support for a maximum of two children was implemented in 2017. Statistics related to the policy, by nation, was published in July 2020 and can be accessed at:
The table below provides data on the Number of Households Exempt from the policy to provide support for a maximum of two children due to Non-Consensual Conception, at April 2019 and April 2020.
Apr-20 | Apr-19 | |
East Midlands | 20 | 10 |
East of England | 30 | 10 |
London | 50 | 10 |
North East | 10 | 10 |
North West | 50 | 10 |
South East | 40 | 10 |
South West | 20 | 10 |
West Midlands | 50 | 20 |
Yorkshire and The Humber | 30 | 10 |
Scotland | 30 | 10 |
Wales | 20 | 0 |
TOTAL (GB) | 360 | 90 |
Notes:
Due to Statistical disclosure controls data is not available for 2018 or at constituency level, to avoid the release of confidential data.
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many universal credit applications her Department has (a) received from claimants citing that a third or subsequent child was conceived as a result of rape and (b) rejected as a result of a third or subsequent child being born after 5 April 2017.
Answered by Will Quince
Statistics related to the policy to provide support for a maximum of two children was published in July 2020 and can be accessed at
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's oral statement of 8 July 2020, Official Report, column 973, on Economic Update, when employers will be able to apply to employ a young person through the Kickstart Scheme.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Kickstart scheme was opened to employers to apply on 2 September 2020.
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether new employers will be able to employ young people using the Kickstart scheme when that scheme is launched.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
We welcome applications to set up Kickstart roles from employers from public, private and voluntary sectors, of all sizes and from both established and new enterprises. All employers applying to the scheme will be subject to checks to verify that they are legitimate organisations and can appropriately support any Kickstart participant taking a role with them.