Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the Health and Safety Executive plans to publish guidance on the use of drones to spray bracken.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) does not plan to publish guidance on the use of drones to spray bracken with pesticides.
HSE already accepts requests to permit the application of pesticides by drones and information is provided on HSE’s website, with potential applicants advised to contact HSE directly.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment they have made of the impact of the UK's departure from the EU on their ability to deliver successful policy outcomes.
Answered by Guy Opperman
As a result of the UK’s exit from the European Union, the Department established an EU Exit programme team to help successfully implement and deliver policy change. By leaving the European Union the Department was able to deliver on the key manifesto commitment on access to benefits, namely ensuring that EEA citizens arriving in the UK from 1 January 2021 under the new points-based immigration system will have access to benefits on the same terms as non-EEA migrants. In addition, we have been able to implement new social security agreements.
As well as being able to deliver successful policy outcomes, we continue to attend and input in to key European Union social security coordination forums, such as the Administrative Commission. We also co-chair the new Specialised Committee on Social Security Coordination.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans her Department has to increase financial support for single-parent families.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
Under Universal Credit, working families can claim back up to 85% of their registered childcare costs each month. This can be claimed up to a month before starting a job.
In the Autumn Budget 2017, the Department introduced a range of measures to support claimants and ensure no one has to experience hardship within the initial assessment period. These include making advances more generous, removing the 7 waiting days, providing an additional transitional payment of 2 weeks of Housing Benefit and changing how claimants in temporary accommodation receive support for their housing costs
We recently announced that parents may be eligible to receive a Flexible Support Fund Award or a budgeting advance to enable them to take up a job offer or increase their working hours.
We are also piloting a more flexible approach to claimants reporting childcare costs, which will allow people to be reimbursed for childcare even if they aren’t able to provide immediate evidence. Once the pilots have concluded, we will consider whether to roll out this approach further.
Additionally, there will be a £1000 increase in work allowances from April 2019, which will provide a £630 boost for households with children, and for people with disabilities.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to ensure the effective roll-out of universal credit in North Herefordshire constituency.
Answered by Lord Sharma
Universal Credit is now fully rolled out. From 12 December 2018, it has been available for new claims across the country.
Universal Credit replaces six benefits with one, to simplify the system and make work pay. As a result, people claiming Universal Credit move into work faster, stay in work longer and spend more time looking to increase their earnings. Universal Credit also provides more help with childcare costs, a dedicated Work Coach, scraps the 16-hour ‘cliff edge’ and the prohibitive tax rates should someone start work.
Under the legacy system £2.4 billion of welfare benefits did not get paid at all because claimants could not navigate the complexity of the system. Universal Credit is putting this right, ensuring this money goes to 700,000 claimants who need it.
The next stage of the Universal Credit process will be to move claimants on the existing legacy benefits onto Universal Credit. Once this process has been completed there will be an additional £2.1 billion spend per year on Universal Credit compared to the current legacy system it replaces. Earlier this month, in Written Statement HCWS1243, I set out our revised plans on how we intend to do this over the next few years.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure that the Health and Safety Executive has the capacity to act on four residential fires in one building in the course of one year.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The Health and Safety Executive is not the enforcing authority for fire safety and general fire precautions in residential properties. Fire safety in certain types of residential accommodation is enforced by Local Authorities under the Housing Act 2004 and Fire & Rescue Authorities under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much her Department paid out to Capita for personal independence payment assessments which were overturned on appeal in 2017.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The information is not available and could only be provided at disproportionate costs.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average payment has been to the top (a) one, (b) five and (c) 10 per cent of benefit claimants by amount received in each of the last two years.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Annual estimates for the UK are presented in the table below (in nominal terms):
Year | (a) The average annual payment to the top one per cent of benefit claimants | (b) The average annual payment to the top five per cent of benefit claimants | (c) The average annual payment to the top ten per cent of benefit claimants |
2015/16 | £30,000 | £23,000 | £20,000 |
2016/17 | £31,000 | £23,000 | £20,000 |
These figures have been estimated using data collected by the DWP’s Family Resources Survey (FRS). The FRS is a continuous household survey which collects information on the income and circumstances of a representative sample of 20,000 private households in the United Kingdom each year. 2016/17 is the latest year for which FRS data is currently available.
Estimates have been adjusted for non-response using grossing factors that control for tenure type, Council Tax Band and a number of demographic variables. However, as with all surveys, FRS estimates are subject to sampling error and remaining non-sampling bias.
Compared to administrative records, the FRS is known to under-report benefit receipt.
This analysis considers total income from benefits and tax credits for a benefit unit, rather than at an individual level. This is because entitlement to many forms of state support is assessed at a benefit unit level. A benefit unit is defined as a single adult or a married or cohabiting couple, as well as any dependent children. An adult is defined as those individuals aged 16 or over, unless defined as a dependent child. An individual may be defined as a child if aged 16-19 years old, and not married nor in a Civil Partnership nor living with a partner; and living with parents; and in full-time non-advanced education or in unwaged government training.
Analysis includes all income from DWP and HMRC benefits and tax credits, plus council tax benefit. This includes statutory sick pay, statutory maternity pay, statutory paternity pay and statutory adoption pay. Estimates are gross of High Income Child Benefit charge.
Figures are rounded to the nearest £1,000 and have not been adjusted for inflation. The median rather than the mean average has been used, as the distributions requested are non-normal.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether Capita are paid for PIP Assessments which are later overturned on appeal.
Answered by Sarah Newton
Capita are paid based on the number of assessment reports completed which meet the Department’s quality standards. Decisions on entitlement to Personal Independent Payment are made by DWP Case Managers not the assessment provider. When a decision is overturned at appeal it does not necessarily mean that the original decision and the assessment report considered in the decision making process, was wrong. Often additional written evidence not available to either the DWP Case Manager or the assessor at the time of the assessment is made available.