Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
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 collect data on the reasons people do not claim Universal Credit when required to do so by the managed migration process.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
A survey commenced in April this year where we contacted people who have not claimed Universal Credit following receipt of the migration notice. Findings from this survey will be published in due course.
We published research on Tax Credit only claimants on 29 February 2024 Move to Universal Credit – insight on Tax Credit migrations and initial Discovery activity for wider benefit cohorts - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 18 March 2024 to Question 902040 on Universal Credit, when he will publish constituency level data setting out how many Universal Credit Migration Notice letters he plans to send.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department publishes regular Move to Universal Credit statistics, which can be found at: Move to Universal Credit statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). The next release, on Tuesday 14 May 2024, will include statistics, including Migration Notices sent, by Parliamentary Constituency level. Forecasts at constituency level are not readily available.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has (a) made an assessment of the potential impact of Universal Credit migration on disabled people and (b) put support in place for disabled people affected by that migration.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The DWP continue to learn and iterate our approach as we progress our Move to Universal Credit activity. We remain committed to ensuring that the transition to Universal Credit works as smoothly as possible for all customers, including the most vulnerable in society. Our latest insight publication is available on GOV.UK - Move to Universal Credit – insight on Tax Credit migrations and initial Discovery activity for wider benefit cohorts - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
We have developed an enhanced support journey for ESA and Income Support customers and remain confident that this provides effective support for our most vulnerable customers.
All customers can also use the independent Help to Claim service run by Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland which provides support across England, Scotland, and Wales as well as accessing face to face support at job centres.
Also, we continue to work with a broad range of external stakeholders to gather their insight and experience of working with our mutual customers, to learn and develop our approach for moving legacy benefit customers to Universal Credit.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to help support women in Hornsey and Wood Green constituency to return to work after a career break.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Local Jobcentre teams are supporting residents into work and helping those in work to progress to higher paid jobs. We are working with local and national employers to help fill vacancies quickly, delivering Sector-Based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs), recruitment days, Job Fairs, and work trials, all of which can help support women to return to work after a career break.
In addition, one to one support from a Work Coach and Contracted Employment Programmes, the department also offers help with CVs and employability skills, mentoring circles for people aged 50 plus and support with childcare costs. Where a Work Coach identifies a barrier to securing or progressing in employment, they can use the Flexible Support Fund (FSF) to procure clothing, tools, digital devices, and to help with travel to work costs.
In Haringey, we are working with the Construction Youth Trust to support more women into construction roles, with referrals made by Jobcentres across the borough, and funding available to support women who want to work in this sector.
To help facilitate signposting discussions with claimants, staff have access to a database of national and local support information, the District Provision Tool as well as the new Managed Jobs and Opportunities which ensures that claimants can access tailored support where required. This includes provision aimed at women across London such as Dress for Success, a service that supports women to improve their confidence when attending interviews and Smart Works, a UK charity that provides high quality interview clothes and interview training to unemployed women.
We are also working with Transport for London and the College of North East London on their Women into Transportation and Engineering provision. This provides two weeks of pre-employment training, covering CV writing, and workplace skills, plus a Smart Works coaching and styling appointment designed to give participants the confidence to apply for the roles offered within the programme
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to ensure carers are made aware when they have exceeded the threshold for claiming carer's allowance.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP remains focussed and passionate about ensuring that the experience for our DWP customers is at the forefront of the decisions that we make, the processes we deliver, and the improvements that we design.
We have made it easier for customers to contact DWP via the channel that makes the most sense for them. DWP customers can report change of circumstances by telephone, letter, and online via GOV.UK which outlines the routeway of how a customer should notify DWP for each benefit where changes occur. This includes the use of Universal Credit Journal to report changes directly to the appropriate benefit affected where earnings increase or decrease accordingly.
For customers seeking advice on Carer’s Allowance (CA) entitlement, GOV.UK provides detail on eligibility. The CA threshold for earnings is £151 a week from April 2024, after tax, National Insurance, and expenses.
Following a successful claim to CA customers are issued with an ‘award letter’ which includes a reminder that ‘You must tell us if your earnings or expenses change.” This helps to ensure that their CA claim runs smoothly, and the earnings threshold for claiming Carer's Allowance is not exceeded.
As benefit and pension rates are uprated, CA customers are further issued with new benefit rate ‘uprating letters’ which also include reminders to report changes in circumstances.
For irregular earners, CA work closely with our customers to ensure CA is only paid for the periods when the customer’s earnings fluctuate and are below the earnings limit. In this way, this should ensure that CA is not overpaid, as information is obtained from the customer for set periods of time to ensure CA is paid correctly for that period.
As our customers rightly expect, DWP is committed to continuous improvement, and we have many mechanisms in place to measure, and analyse the experience of our customers, providing DWP with a rich source of feedback that helps us to review and improve our services.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to tackle discrepancies in entitlements for people on legacy benefits who are required to migrate to Universal Credit.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government has given a commitment that no eligible customer, notified they must claim Universal Credit (UC) by the Department for Work and Pensions, and whose circumstances remain the same, will have a lower entitlement on claiming UC than their existing entitlement to legacy benefits. To meet this commitment, eligible customers will be assessed for Transitional Protection and where necessary awarded a Transitional Element as part of their UC award.
Transitional Protections are also applied to customers who would not normally meet UC entitlement conditions. Normal UC entitlement rules of not being in full time education are disregarded for the duration of the course the customer was undertaking on claiming UC and having capital over £16,000 does not prevent entitlement for UC for 12 assessment periods.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when he expects to announce his plans for the household support fund for financial year 2024-25.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government has provided over £2 billion in funding for the Household Support Fund since October 2021.
The current Household Support Fund runs from April 2023 until the end of March 2024, and the government continues to keep all its existing programmes under review in the usual way.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to help reduce youth unemployment in Hornsey and Wood Green consitutency.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department of Work and Pensions Youth Offer provides individually tailored Work Coach support to young people aged 16 to 24 who are claiming Universal Credit. This support includes the Youth Employment Programme, Youth Employability Coaches for young people with additional barriers to finding work, and Youth Hubs across Great Britain.
Within the Haringey and Wood Green constituency, we have a dedicated Youth Work Coach Team across our Jobcentres. This team spends two days a week co-located within the Rising Green Youth Hub, based in Wood Green, to dedicate extra support to young people within the borough to address barriers and move them closer to employment. We also hold regular ‘Young People Jobs fairs’ focused on the sectors and employers young people are interested in. To do this we involve a variety of employers and partners into the Jobcentres and Youth Hub to engage and support this group.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of levels of youth unemployment in Hornsey & Wood Green constituency in each of the last 5 years.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Due to small samples, reliable estimates of youth unemployment for Hornsey and Wood Green cannot be produced from the available survey data.
The claimant count for various age groups is published and available here.
Guidance for users can be found here.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many cold weather payments were made to pensioners in Hornsey and Wood Green constituency in (a) 2021-22 and (b) 2022-23; and what the total value of those payments were.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Cold Weather Payment (CWP) scheme is administered at weather station level rather than at a constituency or regional 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, 0° C or below over seven consecutive days, during the Cold Weather season (November to March).
The constituency of Hornsey and Wood Green covers all or part of the following postcode areas: N2, N4, N6, N8, N10, N11, N13, N17, N22 and N81[1].
For the 2021/22 and 2022/23 Cold Weather Payment seasons, the above postcode areas are covered by the weather station Heathrow. Heathrow weather station covers the following postcode areas, in Table 1, which include constituencies other than Hornsey and Wood Green.
Table 1 Postcode districts mapped to Weather Stations | |
Weather station | Postcode Districts Covered |
Heathrow | BR1-4, CR0, CR2-8, E1-18, E20, E1W, EC1A, EC1M, EC1N, EC1R, EC1V,EC1Y, EC2A, EC2M, EC2N, EC2R, EC2V, EC2Y, EC3A, EC3M, EC3N, EC3R, EC3V, EC4A, EC4M, EC4N, EC4R, EC4V, EC4Y, EN1-5, EN7-11, HA0-9, IG1-11, KT1-24, N1-22, N1C, NW1-11, SE1-28, SL0, SL3, SM1-7, SW2-20, SW1A, SW1E, SW1H, SW1P, SW1V, SW1W, SW1X, SW1Y TW1-20, UB1-11, W2-14, W1B-D, W1F-H, W1J-K, W1S-U, W1W, WC1A-B, WC1E, WC1H, WC1N, WC1R, WC1V, WC1X, WC2A-B, WC2E, WC2H, WC2N, WC2R |
Qualifying individuals living in these postcode districts will have received a payment in respect of a seven-day period of Cold Weather.
For the 21/22 Cold Weather Payment season, running from 1 November 2021 to 31 March 2022, there were 0 Cold Weather Payment triggers for Heathrow weather station.
For the 22/23 Cold Weather Payment season, running from 1 November 2022 to 31 March 2023, there was 1 Cold Weather Payment trigger for Heathrow weather station. The estimated payments to Pension Credit recipients during 22/23 Cold Weather Payment season is 180,000, equating to an estimated spend of £4.5 million.
[1] Postcode information was obtained from the ONS Postcode Directory (November 2023): ONS Postcode Directory (November 2023) | Open Geography Portal (statistics.gov.uk)