Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Prevention of Future Deaths Reports have related to (a) universal credit and (b) other benefits in each of the last five years.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department has received 6 Prevention of Future Death (PFD) reports in the last five years to date. 1 report did not relate to a customer who was in receipt of benefits. The breakdown of the reports by year and the benefit claimed is provided in the table below:
Number of PFD reports received in the last 5 years | Universal Credit (UC) | Personal Independence Payment (PIP) | Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and PIP | Not in Receipt of Benefits |
2020 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
2021 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1* |
2022 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
2023 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
2024 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* This report related to Child Maintenance.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the Health and Safety Executive pursued prosecution of (a) public and (b) private sector employers for failure to abide by health and safety legislation during the Covid 19 pandemic.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Health and Safety at Work etc Act (HSWA) 1974 is the primary piece of legislation covering occupational health and safety in Great Britain. It sets out the general duties which employers have towards employees and members of the public, employees have to themselves and to each other and certain self-employed have towards themselves and others.
HSWA applies equally across all workplaces in all industry sectors and does not distinguish between either public or private sector duty-holders. As such, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) would not routinely differentiate or record this information.
The prosecution data below is for the time period of the 1st April 2020 and the 31st March 2022, this being the timeframe of the pandemic prior to HSE returning to business as usual. The figures are for all prosecutions taken under health and safety legislation which were published in the HSE Annual Report 2020/21 and 2021/22 respectively and are not Covid specific.
HSE pursued 206 prosecutions in 2020/21, with a 94% conviction rate, and 290 prosecutions in 2021/22, with a 96% conviction rate. A total of 496 prosecutions across the period referred to.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the Health and Safety Executive is investigating (a) public and (b) private sector employers for failure to abide by health and safety legislation during the Covid 19 pandemic.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Health and Safety at Work etc Act (HSWA) 1974 is the primary piece of legislation covering occupational health and safety in Great Britain. It sets out the general duties which employers have towards employees and members of the public, employees have to themselves and to each other and certain self-employed have towards themselves and others.
HSWA applies equally across all workplaces in all industry sectors and does not distinguish between either public or private sector duty-holders. As such, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) would not routinely differentiate or record this information.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether any (a) public and (b) private sector employer has been reported to the Health and Safety Executive for failure to abide by health and safety legislation during the Covid 19 pandemic.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Health and Safety at Work etc Act (HSWA) 1974 is the primary piece of legislation covering occupational health and safety in Great Britain. It sets out the general duties which employers have towards employees and members of the public, employees have to themselves and to each other and certain self-employed have towards themselves and others.
HSWA applies equally across all workplaces in all industry sectors and does not distinguish between either public or private sector duty-holders. As such, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) would not routinely differentiate or record this information.
Reports received by HSE are generally in the form of a ‘concern’. These can be in relation to any health and safety issue in the workplace and can be submitted via HSE’s online reporting portal.
Between the 1st April 2020 and the 31st March 2022, this being the timeframe of the pandemic prior to HSE returning to business as usual, HSE handled over 70,000 concerns about health and safety in the workplace.
However, not all of these concerns were in relation to a failure to abide by health and safety legislation, some were requests for general health and safety advice, support, and guidance. This data has been published in the HSE Annual Report 2020/21 and 2021/22 respectively and is not Covid specific.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent estimate he has made of levels of in-work poverty in Poplar and Limehouse constituency.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Statistics are not available at the constituency level.
National Statistics on the number and percentage of people in “in-work poverty”, including regional-level data, is published annually in the “Households Below Average Income” publication. This can be found here.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment his Department has made of the number of children living in poverty in Poplar and Limehouse constituency.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The latest available data showing the number and proportion of children in absolute and relative poverty before housing costs by parliamentary constituency can be found in the children in low-income families local area statistics. Absolute poverty after housing costs is the government’s preferred measure as the poverty line is fixed in real terms so is not affected by overall median income.
Households Below Average Income (HBAI) provides estimates of children in low-income families only at national and regional levels but can’t provide estimates by parliamentary constituency due to the sample size of the survey at that level.
Children in Low Income Families (CiLIF) is constructed using administrative data and calibrated to the HBAI regional estimates for consistency at that level. This use of administrative data provides more granular local area information not available from HBAI alone.
More background information on CiLIF and the methodology can be found here.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment his Department has made of the level of (a) absolute, (b) relative, (c) fuel and (d) food poverty in Poplar and Limehouse constituency.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
National statistics on the number and percentage of people in poverty, including regional-level data, is published annually in the “Households Below Average Income” publication. This can be found here. Statistics are not available at the constituency level.
National statistics on food security and food bank use, including regional-level data, for 2021/22 are available here. Statistics are not available at the constituency level.
The latest statistics for the number of households in fuel poverty in parliamentary constituencies in England, can be found in the published sub-regional fuel poverty Official Statistics, in Table 4 here.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment their Department has made of the potential effect of the merger between Three and Vodafone on their Department's contracts with Vodafone.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department has assessed whether the merger constitutes a risk to service and whether the contract documentation needs to be updated. We are also awaiting advice from Cabinet Office regarding any wider significance to the merger. We are content no further action is required pending the Cabinet Office advice.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the call by Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) women for fair and adequate compensation; and what steps she plans to take in response to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman report on the communication of changes to state pension age.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
It would not be appropriate to comment on the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s report whilst the investigation is ongoing; and section 7(2) of the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967 states that Ombudsman investigations “shall be conducted in private”.
This a multi staged process and the report published on 20 July 2021 concluded stage-one of the investigation.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of mandatory reconsiderations made in favour of claimants were made on the basis of no additional evidence supplied by the claimant, beyond the completion of a mandatory reconsideration request form for claimants (a) nationally and (b) in Poplar and Limehouse constituency.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The information requested is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.