Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will undertake a review of the accuracy of the assessments made by personal independence payment assessors.
Answered by Sarah Newton
We are committed to ensuring claimants receive high quality, objective assessments. All Health Professionals who undertake the assessments are subject to on-going audit by our assessment providers to ensure that they deliver high quality assessments. The Department also undertakes independent audit to ensure that the advice provided to the Department’s decision makers is of suitable quality, fully explained and justified.
All Health Professionals undertaking PIP assessments are highly trained practitioners who must have at least 2 years post full registration experience or less than 2 years by individual, prior, written agreement with the Department.
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has plans to integrate housing benefit rates into a single universal credit benefit.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The Universal Credit award includes the amount for housing costs and replaces Housing Benefit for working age claimants.
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the planned timescale is for the transitional protection period for universal credit.
Answered by Lord Sharma
Transitional Protection will not be awarded for a fixed period, but will remain in place until the underlying Universal Credit entitlement increases, which will bring claimants’ entitlement into line with that of those making new claims. Transitional Protection will end, however, if the claimant has a significant change of circumstance.
Subject to Parliament approving the necessary legislation, which we have announced will be brought forward in the autumn, we will be starting managed migration of existing benefit claimants to Universal Credit in 2019 and plan to complete this process in 2023. It is estimated this legislation will bring in £2.6 billion of transitional protection by 2023 (OBR Welfare Trends report January 2018) boosting the incomes of around 1 million Universal Credit households. The regulations also include additional transitional protection arrangements for all approximately 500,000 claimants eligible for a Severe Disability Premium.
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure that British citizens receiving a UK pension while living elsewhere in the EU continue to receive that pension after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The UK State Pension will remain payable worldwide under domestic legislation following our departure from the EU.
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she plans to reduce waiting times for payments of universal credit to help ensure that tenants do not fall into rent arrears.
Answered by Lord Sharma
Research carried out by the National Federation of ALMOs shows over three quarters of their tenants come onto Universal Credit with pre-existing rent arrears.
Arrears are usually temporary and the majority of claimants do succeed in paying their rent, managing their monthly payments and clearing their arrears over time. However, this year following the Autumn 2017 Budget, we have abolished waiting days and now provide 2 weeks of extra housing support to claimants moving to Universal Credit from Housing Benefit.
The assessment period and payment structure of Universal Credit is integral to the overall design, which requires an assessment period of a month to assess earnings. Support is available in the first assessment period through the system of advances. We have also made changes to improve advances, and they can now be repaid over a course of 12 months and can consist of up to 100 per cent of the indicative monthly award from day one.
Around 80 per cent of new claims are paid in full and on time. In many cases where full payment is not made on time, it is due to unresolved issues such as: claimants not accepting their Claimant Commitment or passing identity checks, or having outstanding verification issues, such as housing costs and self-employed earnings. Whilst their verification is on-going, many claimants receive a part payment for those elements of the claim that have been resolved.
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of personal independence payments assessments are home visits.
Answered by Sarah Newton
In the financial year April 2017 to March 2018, 29% of all PIP face to face assessments were conducted in the Claimants home.
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
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 number of employers who have been identified as not providing a workplace pension scheme.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The vast majority of employers are meeting their responsibilities under automatic enrolment, consistent with the legal framework established under the Pensions Act 2008. Where employers fail to comply with the law however, The Pensions Regulator (TPR) has a full range of powers to ensure workers get the pensions they are due.
TPR publishes a quarterly bulletin on automatic enrolment compliance and enforcement activities on its website, the latest update can be found here: http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/docs/compliance-and-enforcement-quarterly-bulletin-april-to-june-2018.pdf
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has plans to introduce the video recording of personal independence payment assessments.
Answered by Sarah Newton
Yes, we are starting behavioural testing with claimants and health professionals over the summer, followed by a live testing pilot later in the year, which will inform wider rollout decisions
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants of universal credit have accepted an advance payment of that benefit.
Answered by Lord Sharma
Our latest national internal data for number of advances awarded indicates that, for eligible new claims to Universal Credit Full Service that were due a first payment in January 2018, 60% received either a ‘new claim’ or ‘benefit transfer’ advance.
Asked by: David Simpson (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance her Department provides on safety measures on farms.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), who has responsibility for health and safety in the agricultural sector, has published extensive guidance addressing a wide range of health and safety measures on farms. This guidance is available free of charge on HSE’s website and can be accessed at http://www.hse.gov.uk/agriculture/index.htm.