Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people are in receipt of universal credit in Halton constituency.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The information available on the number of people and households on Universal Credit by parliamentary constituency, including a split by whether the household has received a payment or a nil award, can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/. Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people have had payment of universal credit delayed by (a) one week, (b) two weeks, (c) three weeks or (d) four weeks or more in Halton constituency during the last 12 months.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The Department’s data on payment timeliness is not broken down by area or region.
However, data published on 2 October 2017 shows that, nationally, 81% of new full service claims received their first payment in full and on time. Across the whole of Universal Credit, 92% of all households received their full payment on time. The published data can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/universal-credit-payment-timeliness-january-to-june-2017.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 21 December 2017 to Question 120356, what the reasons are for the Qualifying Young Persons criteria in Universal Credit not being aligned with the Qualifying Young Person criteria in both child benefit and tax credits.
Answered by Lord Sharma
Universal Credit has been designed to be simpler than the benefits it replaces and provides support for young people aged 16-19 in full-time non-advanced education or approved training, through the child element paid to their parents. This can continue to be paid until 31st August following their 19th birthday.
The criteria in Universal Credit aligns with the academic year to allow most young people still in education or training under age 20 to finish their course and to be supported under their parents’ claim to Universal Credit up to the point at which they would be able to claim in their own right. This will generally be at age18, if they meet the conditions of entitlement.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what his Departments policy is on the continued payment of universal credit element for young people still in full time, non-advanced education when they reach the age of 19.
Answered by Damian Hinds
Universal Credit provides support for young people aged 16-19 in full-time non-advanced education or approved training, through the additional payments that their parents receive. These payments can continue until 31st August following the young person’s 19th birthday, which aligns with the academic year and allows most young people, still in education or training under age 20, to finish their course. In effect, these young people will be supported under their parents’ Universal Credit claim until they are able to claim in their own right, generally at age 18, if they meet the conditions of entitlement.
Asked by: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he plans to take to ensure that the Government's Work and Health Programme will ensure that autistic people have access to specialist support.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
The Work and Health Programme will provide targeted support to disabled people, including individuals with long term health conditions. We expect providers will take a holistic approach when supporting this claimant group into work. By ensuring that wider barriers to employment are tackled, individuals have a better chance of finding, securing and retaining employment.
These barriers will include linking up with health, social care and other local and specialist services to meet health needs, including services supporting people with autism if this is one of the barriers to work, but the focus will be on overcoming the key barriers to employment not just health support.