Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 17 April to Question 175632, on Universal Credit: Carers, for what reasons he has no plans to publish his high-level Equalities Impact Assessment for additional conditionality for lead carers of young children; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Guy Opperman
In line with the practice of successive administrations, the Government does not routinely publish equality impact assessments.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 9 March 2023 to Question 156110 on Local Housing Allowance: Rents, if he will make an estimate of the number and proportion of Broad Rental Market Areas in which the LHA meets the 30th percentile of local rents.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The latest available data on the 30th percentile of local rents is for the twelve months to September 2022. At the Broad Rental Market Area (BRMA) level, there is no BRMA in Great Britain where all five LHA rates meet the latest 30th percentile of local rents. Of the 960 LHA rates nationally, 45 are at or above the latest 30th percentile, equivalent to 4.7% of rates.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make it his policy to end the policy of limiting the payment of additional child elements of universal credit to the first two children in a household; how many (a) households and (b) children are affected by the two-child limit; for what reasons his Department implements this policy; if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of this policy on levels of child poverty; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Guy Opperman
Latest statistics related to the policy published in July 2022 and can be accessed at Universal Credit and Child Tax Credit claimants: statistics related to the policy to provide support for a maximum of 2 children, April 2022
There are no plans to end this policy. The policy was announced in 2015 as part of a package of measures to deliver a more sustainable welfare system.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to his Department's press release entitled Millions of low-income households to get new Cost of Living Payments from Spring 2023, published on 3 January 2023, if he will make a comparative assessment of the effect of the (a) Energy Price Guarantee and (b) Energy Bill Support Scheme on the estimated average incomes on a real-terms basis of (i) households in receipt of means-tested benefits, (ii) people with disabilities and (iii) pensioners between financial years (A) 2022-23 and (B) 2023-24; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The analysis requested is not readily available and to produce it would incur disproportionate cost.
The Government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living this winter and is taking action to help. The Government's Energy Price Guarantee will save a typical British household around £900 this winter, based on what energy prices would have been under the current price cap - reducing bills by roughly a third. This is in addition to the £400 non-repayable discount to eligible households provided through the Energy Bills Support Scheme, paid over six months starting in October 2022.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Government response to the Independent Review of the Child Maintenance Service Response to Domestic Abuse, published 17 January 2023, what assessment she had made of the potential effect of not adopting recommendation 10 on the implementation of the remaining recommendations.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The Government recognises the importance of developing clear plans for implementation of the independent review recommendations and believes the best way to monitor progress and ensure effective delivery is through the Department’s existing robust delivery mechanisms.
The Government has accepted 8 out of the 10 recommendations and is committed to taking these forward. It will also take what other practical steps it can to ensure parents who have experienced abuse can set up and maintain child maintenance arrangements safely.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what percentage of invoices for support under the Access to Work scheme were paid within 30 days in (a) 2022 and (b) to date in 2023; and what steps his Department is taking to reduce the time taken to pay of Access to Work scheme invoices.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The data to produce the requested information is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
However, we are transforming the Access to Work service through increased digitalisation, which will make the service more efficient, will make the application process easier, and will improve the time taken from application through to decision. We are also currently testing a revised digital payment journey for Access to Work claims which will provide Access to Work customers with the ability to submit claim information electronically. Moving away from the current clerical process will provide a more efficient, streamlined service for customers.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many (a) new staff and (b) staff moved from other responsibilities have his Department deployed to process the increase in Pension Credit applications.
Answered by Laura Trott - Shadow Secretary of State for Education
We have reassigned the full time equivalent of 100.27 colleagues and recruited 85 temporary staff to process the increased levels of Pension Credit Claims following the successful Pension Credit Campaign.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will take steps to immediately increase benefits in line with the September 2022 CPI inflation rate when it is announced on 19 October 2022; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has a statutory duty to annually review benefits and State Pensions as outlined in the Social Security Administration Act 1992.
Her review will be conducted based on the earnings growth figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on 11 October and the CPI figure for the year to September published by the ONS on the 19 October.
Any new benefit and State Pensions rates will come into force in the 2023/24 tax year.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make it her policy to implement the National Food Strategy recommendation that the true cost of eating healthily should be calculated into benefits payments; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
The current rates of income-related benefits such as Universal Credit do not represent a minimum requirement and are not described as such in legislation. The Government specifies the rates which are applicable to different benefits, and these may vary according to claimants' circumstances.
Income-related benefit rates are not made up of separate amounts for specific items of expenditure such as food or fuel charges, and beneficiaries are free to spend their benefit as they see fit, in the light of their individual commitments, needs and preferences.
The Government has expanded free school meals to more children than any other, including rolling out universal infant free school meals to all children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2, ensuring a further 1.25 million pupils receive a free nutritious meal each day, in addition to the 1.9m children that receive benefits related free school meals.
The Holiday Activities and Food programme has been expanded to operate across all England Local Authorities, providing over £600m for the next 3 years. Last summer reaching over 600,000 children.
We are investing up to £24 million into the National School Breakfast Programme, benefitting up to 2,500 schools in disadvantaged areas, building on the previous programme.
The Government also increased the value of Healthy Start Food Vouchers from £3.10 to £4.25, (children aged under one receive £8.50 in total, every week), helping eligible low-income households to buy fresh, frozen and tinned fruit and vegetables, fresh, milk and infant formula. Recipients are also eligible for free Healthy Start vitamins.
Asked by: Caroline Lucas (Green Party - Brighton, Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make it his policy to allow local authorities to make decisions on the allocation of Household Support Fund monies to households based on local population needs; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by David Rutley
Local Authorities in England have received their allocations from the £421m Household Support Fund extension for April – September 2022, alongside the grant determination and guidance. The allocations for Local Authorities for this period can be found here. Local Authorities have discretion on exactly how and when this funding is used within the scope set out in the guidance, based on their assessment of local need.
From October 2022, Government is providing an additional £500 million to help households with the cost of essentials, bringing the total funding for this support to £1.5 billion. In England £421m will be used to further extend the Household Support Fund (October 2022 – March 2023). Guidance and individual local authority allocations for this further extension to the Household Support Fund will be announced in due course.