Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much his Department has spent on Housing Benefit claims in each year since 2011.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The information is already published and can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/646032/hb-and-ctb-by-la-2016-17.ods
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many households have been subject to the bedroom tax policy in each year since its introduction.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The number of households with a deduction to their Housing Benefit (HB) due to the removal of the spare room subsidy each year since its introduction in April 2013 is available on DWP Stat-Xplore.
Guidance for users is available at:
https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
Figures on DWP Stat Xplore do not include claimants on Universal Credit (UC) with a removal of the spare room subsidy (RSRS) deduction, as this data is not currently available.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent discussions he has had with trades union representatives on high temperatures in the workplace.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
Whilst the Secretary of State has meetings with Trades Union representatives, there have been no discussions about high temperatures in the workplace.
For information on the existing law and guidance on workplace temperature, I refer to a previous answer given by myself on the 9th September 2016 to Question UIN 44106
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of raising to 35-years the age threshold of the shared accommodation rates since January 2012.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Department commissioned an independent evaluation of the changes to Local Housing Allowance (LHA) which were introduced from April 2011, including the impact of extending the age threshold for the Shared Accommodation Rate from 25 to 35 years old. The final report was published in July 2014 and can be found at:
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many prosecutions the Health and Safety Executive has brought against employers for a failure to manage high temperatures in the workplace in each year since 2009.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
The Health and Safety Executive have prosecuted one company since 2009 for failures to manage work in high temperatures. In 2009/10 a company was prosecuted following a work-related fatality where a worker suffered from heat exhaustion in a silo and subsequent heart failure. The company was found guilty and ordered to pay fines totalling £30,000.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many workplace injuries where exposure to high temperatures was a contributory factor were reported to the Health and Safety Executive in each year since 2009-10.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
The ‘Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations’ (RIDDOR) puts duties on employers, some self-employed and people in control of work premises (the Responsible Person) to report certain serious workplace accidents.
RIDDOR is designed to collect top-level information on such cases, including information on the main accident factor, as assessed by the Responsible person making the report. RIDDOR does not however provide information on contributory factors associated with a reported injury.
Prior to September 2011 injury reports included detailed information on the main agent causing the injury. The table below shows the number of injuries to workers caused by exposure to hot environmental temperatures as reported to all enforcing authorities under RIDDOR (1995) for the years 2009/10 and 2010/11.
Table: Injuries to workers caused by exposure to hot environmental temperatures* as reported to all enforcing authorities under RIDDOR (1995), 2009/10 and 2010/11.
*identified by agent code 16.01: Physical phenom - heat
| 2009/10 | 2010/11 |
Fatal Injury | - | - |
Non-fatal injury | 39 | 42 |
Major injury | 23 | 21 |
Over 3-day injury | 16 | 21 |
Since RIDDOR reporting moved online in September 2011 this information is no longer collected, so we cannot identify injuries caused by environmental heat from this date.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 12 January 2017 to Question 58730, on credit unions, what steps he plans to take to complete the expansion project for credit unions; how the £38 million will be allocated; and over what time period that allocation will take place.
Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford
The Contract to deliver the Credit Union Expansion Project was scheduled to end in December 2016. The Association of British Credit Unions Ltd (ABCUL) are delivering the Contract and has provided a proposal to extend the delivery timeline. To allow the proposal to be considered the Department has agreed an interim Contract extension to February 2017.
To the end of December 2016, £30.8.m has been spent. Any remaining expenditure is subject to agreement on ABCUL’s proposal to extend the Contract and delivery of specific outcomes.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the effect of false self-employment on benefit entitlements.
Answered by Damian Hinds
We do not make an assessment of the overall effect of ‘false self-employment’ on welfare benefit entitlements.
RSA Chief Executive Matthew Taylor is currently leading an independent review which will consider employment practices in the modern economy.
Universal Credit simplifies the benefits system by bringing together a range of working age benefits, providing support for both claimants who are not working and those who are working, whether employed or self-employed. UC claimants are required to provide evidence of their self-employment as a condition of receiving benefits.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people who are certified as self-employed in Bolton North East constituency are in receipt of in-work benefits.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The information requested on Universal Credit is not available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
However, there was an average of 1,700 self-employed households in receipt of tax credits in Bolton North East during 2014-15.