Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he has made an assessment the potential merits of (a) adjusting and (b) abolishing the 2.5% cap on inflation related increases for recipients of the Financial Assistance Scheme.
Answered by Laura Trott - Shadow Secretary of State for Education
While all legislation is kept under review as a matter of course, there are currently no plans to review the Financial Assistance Scheme indexation rules. The Secretary of State has therefore made no such assessment.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of pensioners have received letters informing them that they will receive the 25p age addition increase from their 80th Birthday since 1 January 2023.
Answered by Laura Trott - Shadow Secretary of State for Education
This information is only available at disproportionate cost to The Department for Work & Pensions as the Department does not have a business requirement for this information to be retained.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he plans to review the operation of (a) income-based ESA or (b) contribution-based ESA following the abolition of the Work Capability Assessment announced in Transforming Future Support: The Health and Disability White Paper published in March 2023.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
Our income replacement benefit proposals, as set out in Transforming Support: The Health and Disability White Paper, will apply to Universal Credit. It is not possible to submit a new claim for income-related ESA.
As part of our proposal to improve the design of the benefits system, the UK Government is committed to maintaining a contributory health and disability benefit. We are currently reviewing options on how this can be incorporated within the reforms set out in the White Paper.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the statement in Transforming Support: The Health and Disability White Paper, published in March 2023, that his Department will begin testing matching people’s primary health condition to a specialist assessor, whether he plans to (a) train existing assessors or (b) recruit additional specialist health assessors to deliver this policy.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
We are currently in the early stages of exploring how to test matching people’s primary health condition to a specialist assessor; working with stakeholders and service users to build our understanding of the range of specialisms we need to make available, as well as the improvements we need to make to the assessment process. As part of testing this, assessors will take part in training to specialise in the functional impacts of specific health conditions. We cannot say at this point whether we will recruit additional specialist health assessors to support this testing.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will amend assessment criteria for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) to ensure that claimants who are not eligible for PIP but who (a) are eligible or (b) would be eligible for the Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity group can access long term financial support.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
As part of our proposal for reform, people that are receiving both PIP and UC will receive a new UC health element as part of their claim. However, in today’s benefits system some people who are determined to have LCWRA do not receive PIP. This is also the case for some people that are in the ESA Support Group.
For this group, we will carefully consider whether they meet the PIP assessment and eligibility criteria. As we develop our reform proposals, we will consider how disabled people and people with health conditions who need additional financial support may receive it.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
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 amend FCA guidance to waive the requirement that someone has to seek independent financial advice and obtain a certificate to allow a transfer out of a defined benefit pension, if they can provide evidence that they are themselves a qualified financial adviser.
Answered by Laura Trott - Shadow Secretary of State for Education
The appropriate independent advice requirement, contained within The Pension Schemes Act 2015 (Transitional Provisions and Appropriate Independent Advice) Regulations 2015, was introduced to ensure members with safeguarded benefits understood the level of security in retirement provided by such benefits and what the member would lose if they were to exchange them for benefits that can be accessed flexibly.
An amendment to the regulations, in 2017, requires the Secretary of State, from time to time, to carry out a review of the requirement and publish a report on the conclusions of the review.
My department is conducting such a review, and has engaged with the pensions industry, industry bodies, the regulators and consumer groups to inform this review and will publish the conclusions when it is complete.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether their Department has purchased mobile UV virus irradiation units.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
A number of ultraviolet (UV) based virus irradiation units (VIU) were purchased during the Covid 19 pandemic. These were procured to support the overall respiratory infection control measures in specific scenarios. They were installed in a number of small Interview Under Caution rooms and were also added to a number of the new temporary job centres, that were created during the height of the pandemic.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
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 not uprating Local Housing Allowance on rates of (a) eviction and (b) homelessness applications in the next 12 months.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
No assessment has been made.
The causes of homelessness are multi-faceted and often complex, they interact dynamically making it difficult to isolate the relative importance of individual factors.
In 2020 LHA rates were raised to the 30th percentile, a significant investment of almost £1 billion, we have maintained the increase since then so that everyone who benefited from the increase continues to do so.
We recognise that rents are increasing but the challenging fiscal environment means that difficult decisions were necessary to ensure support is targeted effectively. The Chancellor announced at Autumn Statement a package of targeted support worth £26 billion.
Government has committed to a ban on section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions to protect tenants and will introduce a Renters Reform Bill in this Parliament.
This Government is also providing an additional £50 million, through a top up to the Homelessness Prevention Grant, for local authorities to help prevent vulnerable households from becoming homeless. This additional investment builds on the £316 million in funding already available to local authorities through the Homelessness Prevention Grant for 2022/23. This is part of the £2 billion of funding to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping over the next three years.
For those who require additional support with housing costs, Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) are available. Since 2011 we have provided nearly £1.5 billion in funding for DHPs.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department's guidance entitled Cost of Living Payment, published in May 2022, whether it is his Department’s policy that people who were in receipt of a Universal Credit payment in the period between 26 August 2022 and 25 September 2022 are eligible for the second Cost of Living Payment, including those who have a direct payment arrangement with their landlord.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
For the second Cost of Living payment of £324, individuals must have been entitled to a payment (or later found to be entitled to a payment) of either Universal Credit for an assessment period that ended in the period 26 August 2022 to 25 September 2022, income-based JSA, income-related ESA, Income Support or Pension Credit for any day in the period 26 August 2022 to 25 September 2022.
Those who are entitled to Universal Credit and have a direct payment arrangement with their landlord will be entitled to the cost-of-living payment as long as their Universal Credit claim has not been nilled due to a sanction or earnings.
Asked by: Daisy Cooper (Liberal Democrat - St Albans)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what methods exist for (a) a claimant or (b) a Member of Parliament to contact the specialist team within the Department who are responsible for assessing and issuing the Cost of Living Payments.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
Payments are automatically paid into the bank accounts of those eligible in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland who receive a qualifying benefit, meaning they will not need to do anything to receive the money.
Information about eligibility for the cost-of-living payments and how to contact DWP if someone believes they meet the eligibility conditions but have not received a payment is available through gov.uk. For Means Tested Benefit 1 payments this has reverted to business-as-usual processes and for Disability Cost of Living Payments the contact form can be used. For anyone who is unable to engage with DWP digitally our normal processes apply.