Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
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 (a) effectiveness of the Child Maintenance Service and (b) level of consistency that service provides to both parties.
Answered by Guy Opperman
As of June 2020, 741,200 children are covered by Child Maintenance Service arrangements; the majority of cases use Direct Pay, where parents arrange maintenance payments between themselves.
During the quarter ending June 2020, £238.4 million in child maintenance was paid through the Collect & Pay service, or due to be paid through Direct Pay.
When measuring the effectiveness of the Child Maintenance Service, the Service collects data on the rate of compliance of paying parents using the Collect & Pay service. The most recent quarterly statistics show that 74 per cent of all paying parents due to pay through the Collect & Pay Service cleared some of their child maintenance.
At the end of June 2020, 41,800 Paying Parents on the Collect & Pay service had a Deduction from Earnings Order / Request in force. £27.1m was collected from these Paying Parents during the quarter. In the quarter ending June 2020, £2.6m was deducted directly from Paying Parents’ bank accounts.
These figures are published quarterly as part of the Child Maintenance Service experimental statistics, which can be found here:
The Child Maintenance Service offers an accessible, impartial and secure service for all clients. The Department and Ministers continue to meet stakeholders regularly, and maintain an open dialogue on how to improve the service.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment she has made of the effect of recording covid-19 as the sole cause of death on the death certificates of former coal miners with industrial lung conditions on the (a) pensions and (b) entitlements of the wives of those former miners.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
Under the terms of the Coal Industry Pneumoconiosis Compensation Scheme (CIPCS), formerly the Coal Workers Pneumoconiosis Compensation Scheme, there is provision for posthumous claims to be made.
In instances in which an individual was not assessed for Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB) during life, or a retrospective request either is not possible or successful, a claim can be made under CIPCS, if pneumoconiosis appears on the Death Certificate.
IIDB which is usually claimed by employees who become disabled as a result of a prescribed disease or accident caused by their employment, can be claimed posthumously, by the dependants of anyone who dies whilst suffering from a prescribed disease, provided they do so within one year of the issue of the deceased’s death certificate.
Any evidence a family can provide that confirms or suggests that the deceased was suffering from a prescribed disease prior to their death would be considered as part of a posthumous claim. This includes claimants who may have died as a result of COVID-19, and no mention of the prescribed disease was on their death certificate.
For an award to be made, the death does not need to be in respect of the prescribed disease but may be from any cause, including for example where COVID-19 was a contributory factor. Payments to dependants usually equate to up to 3 months’ worth of benefit, but may sometimes be higher.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
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 effectiveness of aligning the timescales for payment of universal credit and direct payments to landlords to ensure that tenants are not falsely shown to be in arrears.
Answered by Will Quince
Alternative Payment Arrangements (APAs), such as a Managed Payment to Landlord (MPtL), are available to enable the housing costs element to be paid directly to the landlord if the tenant is likely to have difficulty in managing their rent payments or is in rent arrears. APAs will only be considered where a lack of financial capability poses a risk to the claimant, or their family, and the decision to implement one is assessed on a case by case basis.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in Mansfield constituency received cold weather payments in each of the last two winter periods.
Answered by Will Quince
The Cold Weather Payment scheme is administered at weather station level rather than any other standard GB geography such as constituency level. The coverage area for each weather station is determined by the Met Office which assesses the most appropriate weather station for each postcode area. Cold weather payments are triggered when the average temperature recorded at the weather station has been recorded as, or is forecast to be, 0oC or below over seven consecutive days, during the Cold Weather season (November to March).
The constituency of Mansfield covers all or part of the following postcode areas: NG17-21.
The above postcode areas are covered by the weather station Nottingham Watnall. Qualifying individuals living in this area will have received a payment in respect of a seven-day period of Cold Weather, as shown in Table 1.
Table 1 Estimated number of Cold Weather Payment recipients | ||
Weather station | 2017/18 | 2018/19 |
Nottingham Watnall | 168,000 | 0 |
Nottingham Watnall weather station covers the following postcode areas, in Table 2, which include constituencies other than Mansfield. We estimate that 168,000 payments, to 168,000 recipients, were made in this area as a whole, in respect of one trigger in 2017/18. We are not able to break this figure down to a lower level. There were no cold weather triggers in Nottingham Watnall in 2018/19.
Table 2 Postcode sectors mapped to Weather Stations | |
Weather station | Postcode Sectors Covered |
Nottingham Watnall | CV13, DE1-3, DE5-7, DE11-15, DE21-24, DE55-56, DE65, DE72-75, LE1-9, LE11-14, LE16-19, LE65, LE67, NG1-22, NG25, NG31-34. |
Notes
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/social-fund-cold-weather-payments
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of trends in the level of youth employment in Nottinghamshire since 2010.
Answered by Lord Sharma
There were 64,800 people aged 16-24 in employment across Nottingham and Nottinghamshire in 2010, and 71,000 in 2018.
The number of young people claiming unemployment-related benefits across Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Local Authorities has fallen by 65.8% in the last six years and stands at 3,696 as at February 2019.
And, the overall level of employment across the East Midlands is now 2.343 million, an increase of just under a quarter of a million since 2010.
Across the UK, around 6.0 million (86.4%) 16-24 year olds are in full-time education (FTE) or work.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants awarded personal independence payment under the special rules for terminal illness made an advanced new claim towards the end of their existing award in each of the last five years; and how many of those claimants had motor neurone disease.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if her Department will publish the recent advice given by the Deputy Chief Medical Officer on the definition of a terminal illness for the purpose of claiming benefits; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The previous Deputy Chief Medical Officer carried out an informal meeting with a selection of specialist clinicians to discuss their views on the current Special Rules for Terminal Illness process. Being an informal meeting no formal report was produced.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to ensure that construction companies of all sizes provide at least one employee with occupational health awareness training.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
All employers, including construction companies, are already required through existing legislation to ensure employees have appropriate occupational health related training. Employers have a general duty to provide, so far as is reasonably practicable, appropriate information, instruction and training as necessary to ensure the health of their employees. This training must be relevant, proportionate and effective so that employees are aware of the health hazards they face and the measures in place to control the risks arising from them.
This training can be undertaken in several ways, including via an existing national construction industry training framework. The Health and Safety Executive provides further information on training to assist employers in complying with their legal duties: http://www.hse.gov.uk/managing/delivering/do/organising/training.htm.