Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department plans to recruit Covert Surveillance Officers to gather evidence to prove or disprove offences relating to benefits claims.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP is recruiting Covert Surveillance Officers.
The Department’s Counter Fraud, Compliance & Debt directorate (CFCD) undertakes directed surveillance as part of the criminal investigation process.
All surveillance activity is applied for under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000 and is conducted in line with the surveillance Code of Practice. It is undertaken only where necessary and proportionate to the alleged offence.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average decision wait time was for new Personal Independence Payment applications over the last year; and how many applications were awaiting a decision on 25 April 2023.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The average decision wait times for new Personal Independence Payment (PIP) applications can be found in the latest published release: “Personal Independence Payment statistics to January 2023”. Particularly, table 1A shows PIP average actual clearance times (median number of weeks) for normal rules, new claims in England and Wales.
Notes:
The number of PIP applicants awaiting a decision has been interpreted as those who had registered a claim, but which had not been cleared. This includes some who may eventually be disallowed pre-assessment, those awaiting an assessment, and those awaiting a decision following an assessment. On 31 January 2023 this stood at 207,000 claims.
Source: PIP Atomic Data Store (ADS).
Notes:
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when he will plans to answer Question 136620 on Universal Credit tabled by the hon. Member for South Shields on 30 January 2023.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
An answer to PQ 136620 was sent on 20/02/2023.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much grant money was returned to his Department by South Tyneside Council in 2021.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The department can confirm that between January 2021 - December 2021, South Tyneside Council refunded a Kickstart grant overpayment of £1,860.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many children live in households which are in receipt of Universal Credit but have experienced a deduction to that benefit in each parliamentary constituency in the most recent month for which data is available.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The requested information is provided in the attached spreadsheet.
Table 1 shows the requested analysis of number of children in Universal Credit households and number of children in Universal Credit households with deductions for claims with a payment due in August 2022 by Parliamentary Constituency in Great Britain (GB).
Accompanying Notes:
1. Figures per low level geography are rounded to the nearest 100, total claims at GB level are rounded to the nearest 1,000. Percentages are rounded to the nearest percent. The sum of individual low level geographies may not sum to the total figure due to rounding.
2. Deductions include advance repayments, third party deductions and all other deductions, but exclude sanctions and fraud penalties which are reductions of benefit rather than deductions.
3. Children are defined here as being people who are declared as living in the same household as the UC claimant(s) and who are under the age of 20. The number of children may not be equal to the number of dependent children in the household who are eligible for child element for various reasons. This includes children over the age of 16 in non-advanced full-time education, looked-after children and, other young people living in multigenerational households whose parents are not the claimant. Those affected by the policy to provide support for a maximum of two children may also have a larger number of children compared to the number of children entitled to the child element in their household.
4. Figures are provisional and are subject to retrospective change as later data becomes available.
5. The 'unknown' label relates to claims for which a constituency could not be determined due to incomplete postcode information.
6. Data for August 2022 has been provided in line with the latest available UC Household Statistics.
7. Claim numbers and number of children on UC will not match official statistics caseloads due to methodological differences.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much grant money was returned to his Department by South Tyneside Council in the period between 1 January 2022 and 30 November 2022.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The department can confirm that no grants by South Tyneside Council were returned to DWP between 1st January 2022 and 30th November 2022.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many children live in households in receipt of Universal Credit in each parliamentary constituency in the most recent month for which data is available.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Statistics on the number of households in receipt of Universal Credit are published every three months. The latest statistics are available by the number of children in the household and by Westminster Parliamentary Constituency, to August 2022, on Stat-Xplore.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much money South Tyneside Council has returned to his Department from grants allocated in December 2022.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP can confirm that no grants were allocated to South Tyneside Council in December 2022 nor any returns made in December 2022 and January 2023.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much money South Tyneside Council has returned to his Department from grants allocated over the last two years as of 23 January 2023.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Having looked at various systems we have determined that this information is not centrally held and so locating, analysing and retrieving the data would incur disproportionate costs.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what support her Department provides for young people in supported housing when they earn enough to take them off Universal Credit and lose their entitlement to full housing benefits.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP provides a range of employment support to different groups including young people who may live in Supported Housing. This includes helping claimants to make a Universal Credit claim as well as providing specialised tailored support through Jobcentre Plus including eligible access to the Flexible Support Fund, individual Work Coach support and priority access to the Work and Health Programme.
The income taper in Housing Benefit ensures claimants will always be financially better off working than not being in work.