Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 18 January 2023 to Question 122141 on Pensions: Reform, whether the reforms will be (a) published and (b) implemented before 1 June 2023.
Answered by Laura Trott - Shadow Secretary of State for Education
The final draft Occupational Pension Schemes (Administration, Investment, Charges and Governance) and Pensions Dashboards (Amendment) Regulations 2023 were laid on 30 January 2023 and, subject to Parliamentary approval, these regulations will come into force from 6 April 2023.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pension, with reference to the keynote speech made by the Minister for Science, Research and Innovation at Onward UK on 11 January 2023, whether his Department will publish the reforms to pensions intended to unleash the power of the city.
Answered by Laura Trott - Shadow Secretary of State for Education
Reforms are planned to come in this spring.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy press release entitled Millions of Britons to be able to request flexible working on day one of employment, published 5 December 2022, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential impact of these measures on the condition of Universal Credit recipients in Newcastle upon Tyne; and if his Department will make an estimate of the potential impact of these measures on the number of Universal Credit recipients in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Answered by Guy Opperman
No such assessment has been made.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of rising mortgage interest rates on levels of poverty in (a) the UK, (b) the North East and (c) Newcastle upon Tyne Central constituency.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
It is not possible to produce a robust estimate on the effect of mortgage interest rates on levels of poverty in the UK, the North East, or the Newcastle upon Tyne Central constituency.
Statistics on poverty levels in 2019/20 are available at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/(opens in a new tab) on the HBAI dataset.
It is not possible to provide a robust estimate for 2020/21 due to the impact the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic had on data quality.
Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of the fall in the value of Sterling on the adequacy of the level of (a) Universal Credit and (b) Pension Credit.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
There is no objective way of deciding what an adequate level of benefit should be as every person has different requirements. 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.
However, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is required by law to undertake an annual review of State pensions and benefits. The outcome of that review will be announced later this year, and the new rates will enter into force from 10 April 2023.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the report by the North East Child Poverty Commission entitled Getting the building blocks wrong: Early childhood poverty in the North East, published in September 2022, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his policies of the conclusions on the risk of poverty faced by (a) families where someone has a disability, (b) lone parent families, (c) families with parents aged under 25 and (d) families in rented homes.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Projecting the impacts of policies on income poverty is very difficult to do accurately – as poverty is dependent on changes for every type of income for the whole population. It is very difficult to isolate the specific impact of one policy and how many people might be moving slightly above or below a threshold that changes over time. Many policies will lead to changes in behaviour (e.g. being incentivised into employment) which can also be very difficult to predict.
National Statistics on the number and percentage of people in poverty are published annually in the “Households Below Average Income” publication. Statistics, covering up until 2019/20, can be found here:
The Government is committed to reducing child poverty and supporting low-income families. In 2022/23 we will spend over £242 billion through the welfare system in Great Britain including £108 billion on people of working age.
This is in addition to the support we have already provided by increasing the National Living Wage to £9.50 per hour and giving nearly 1.7 million families an extra £1,000 a year, on average, through our changes to the Universal Credit taper and work allowances. To further support parents to move into and progress in work, the government provides a range of childcare offers. For more information on what childcare support may be available, we encourage parents to us the helpful Childcare Choices website.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the report by the North East Child Poverty Commission entitled Getting the building blocks wrong: Early childhood poverty in the North East, published in September 2022, if he will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of the findings on the level of in-work child poverty in (a) the North East and (b) other regions; and if her Department will take steps to help tackle in-work child poverty in the North East.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Projecting the impacts of policies on child poverty is very difficult to do accurately – as poverty is dependent on changes for every type of income for the whole population. It is very difficult to isolate the specific impact of one policy and how many people might be moving slightly above or below a threshold that changes over time. Many policies will lead to changes in behaviour (e.g., being incentivised into increasing their earnings) which can also be very difficult to predict.
Statistics covering up until financial year ending 2021 on the number of children who are in low-income in the North East and other regions can be found in the annual publication: Children in low income families: local area statistics.
Childrenin low income families: local area statistics 2014 to 2021 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The Government is committed to reducing child poverty and supporting low-income families. In 2022/23 we will spend over £242 billion through the welfare system in Great Britain including £108 billion on people of working age.
To support parents to progress in work, we are extending the support jobcentres provide to people in work and on low incomes to help them to increase their earnings and move into better paid quality jobs. This new in-work progression offer started to roll-out from April 2022. Once fully rolled out, we estimate that around 2.1m low-paid benefit claimants will be eligible for support. This will be provided by work coaches and focus on removing barriers to progression such as support with childcare or addressing skills gaps. This new progression offer is in addition to a change the government made last month to the Administrative Earnings Threshold in Universal Credit. By raising the threshold on 26th September 2022, approximately 114,000 more UC claimants on the lowest incomes will benefit from regular work coach support. The Chancellor announced that we would go further and raise the threshold again from January 2023 to expand this support to approximately 120,000 more people.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the adequacy of the (a) size and (b) resources of the data and analytics team within her Department.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Shadow Minister (Equalities)
DWP regularly assess Data and Analytics capability and capacity based on assessment of DWP requirements. DWP have assessed this requirement as part of the Spending Review settlement process alongside other priorities. This has included looking at the data and analytics outcomes that DWP need to deliver, and whether the technical infrastructure, capability and capacity are appropriately aligned.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of whether there is a link between people (a) applying for, (b) claiming and (c) under sanction in relation to universal credit and instances of (i) attempted suicide and (ii) suicide.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
Attempted suicides and suicides are very complex issues. Where there is an allegation that the Department’s actions may have contributed to this outcome, we take it very seriously.
Ultimately, Coroners have responsibility for concluding the cause of death. Their investigations and conclusions are made at public hearings and published. If a risk of other deaths occurring in similar circumstances is identified, Coroners will issue a Prevention of Future Deaths report which is published on the judiciary website.
The Department also conducts Internal Process Reviews (IPRs). These are internal retrospective investigations, focused on organisational learning. An IPR will be conducted in all cases where:
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of trends in the level of benefit sanctions in Newcastle.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
No assessment has been made.
Sanctions statistics for those people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA), Employment Support Allowance (ESA), Income Support (IS) and Universal Credit (UC) are published quarterly.
Monthly figures are available for JSA from April 2000 to April 2022, ESA from October 2008 to April 2022 and IS from October 2016 to April 2022, with UC sanction rates available from April 2019 to May 2022.
All of these statistics are available by local authority at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance for users is available at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html