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 - Minister of State (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.
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 steps his Department is taking to reduce the increase in absolute child poverty in (a) the North East and (b) Yorkshire and the Humber.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No assessment has been made of child poverty in the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber for 2020/21. Given the impact of the pandemic on the size and quality of sample data, DWP statisticians concluded that for several of the breakdowns it would be difficult to make meaningful assessments of trends and changes in 2020/21 compared with the pre-Covid position. The Chief Statistician has therefore taken the decision not to publish additional breakdowns for regional child poverty in 2020/21.
The Government is committed to reducing poverty and supporting low-income families. In 2022/23 we will spend over £242 billion through the welfare system in Great Britain including £108 billion on people of working age.
With 1.25 million job vacancies across the UK, our focus is firmly on supporting parents to move into, and progress in work, an approach which is based on clear evidence about the importance of parental employment - particularly where it is full-time - in substantially reducing the risks of child poverty. The latest available data on in-work poverty shows that in 2019/20, children in households where all adults were in work were around six times less likely to be in absolute poverty (before housing costs) than children in a household where nobody works.
In 2021, compared to 2010, there were nearly 1 million fewer workless households and almost 590,000 fewer children in workless households in the UK. In 2020/21, there were 200,000 fewer children in absolute poverty (before housing costs) than in 2009/10.
To help people into work, including parents, our Plan for Jobs is providing broad ranging support for all Jobseekers with our Sector Based Work Academy Programmes (SWAP), Job Entry Targeted Support and Restart scheme. We are also extending the support Jobcentres provide to people in work and on low incomes. Through a staged roll-out, which started in April 2022, around 2.1 million low-paid benefit claimants will be eligible for support to progress into higher-paid work.
Around 1.9 million of the most disadvantaged pupils are eligible for and claiming a free school meal, saving families around £400 per year. In addition, around 1.25 million more infants enjoy a free, healthy and nutritious meal at lunchtime following the introduction of universal infant free school meals. The National School Breakfast Provision programme (NSBP) is providing funding of up to £24 million in a two-year contract to continue our support for school breakfast provision until July 2023 supporting pupils in up to 2,500 schools that meet our criteria for levels of disadvantage.
The Government is also investing £200 million a year to continue the Holiday Activities and Food Programme, which benefitted over 600,000 children last summer, and we have increased the value of the Healthy Start Scheme by a third to £4.25 a week.
The government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living and has taken further decisive action to support people with their energy bills. The government’s Energy Price Guarantee will save a typical British household around £700 this winter, based on what energy price would’ve been under the current price cap – reducing bills by roughly a third. This support will be in place from 1 October 2022 until 31 March 2023. A review will be launched to consider more targeted measures to support households with their energy bills after this period. This is in addition to the over £37bn of cost of living support announced earlier this year which includes the £400 non-repayable discount to eligible households provided through the Energy Bills Support Scheme.
The £37bn also includes up to £650 in cost of living Payments (paid in 2 lump sums of £326 and £324) which have targeted support at around 8 million low-income households on means-tested benefits. In addition, 6 million eligible disabled people have received a one-off disability Cost of Living Payment of £150 and pensioner households will receive a one-off payment of £300 alongside the Winter Fuel Payment from this month.
In collaboration with Local Authorities we have a well-established system of hardship payments, including the Discretionary Housing Payments, available as a safeguard for if claimants demonstrate they cannot meet their immediate and most essential needs due to the rise in the cost of living. For those who require additional support, we extended the Household Support Fund in England, which will be providing up to £421m of support for those most in need for the period October 2022 - March 2023 and is being delivered by Upper Tier and Unitary Councils. In the case of South Tyneside, the local authority has been allocated £1,484,854.01 for this period. The devolved administrations have been allocated £79 million through the Barnett formula as usual.
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 cost of DS1500 forms is for patients; and from where patients can obtain that form.
Answered by Julie Marson
Most claims made under the Special Rules for End of Life (SREL) are supported by a short medical evidence form, called either the SR1 or DS1500, completed by a clinician who is involved in their care. People nearing the end of their life are not required to pay for these forms or for their clinician to fill them out on their behalf. Patients can request one free of charge from a registered clinician such as a GP, hospital consultant, hospice doctor or a senior nurse involved in their care.
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, if she will publish the guidance her Department has issued to case managers working on applications for advance payments of Universal Credit; how often advances were provided to people in each of the last 12 months; and for what reasons those advances were provided.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Universal Credit guidance is deposited in the House of Commons library twice a year, the latest published guidance was deposited on 26 April 2022 and can be found here.
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 her Department has spent on defending initial decisions made at benefit or health assessments which were then overruled at a tribunal, in the most recent year for which data are available.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
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, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of including data at a local authority area level in the household food insecurity element of the Family Resources Survey.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Family Resources Survey is designed to produce robust regional estimates and does not include all local authorities each year so is not suitable for analysis at the Local Authority level.
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, by what date all personal independence payment applicants will be offered the choice of an audio recording at their assessment.
Answered by Chloe Smith
At present, claimants may use their own equipment to record their Personal Independent Payment (PIP) face to face assessment, should they wish to and in line with the conditions laid out in the PIP Assessment Guide. The option to request an audio recording of their PIP telephone assessment is also available with both assessment providers.
The department is currently working with PIP assessment providers to deliver an audio recording service for face to face assessments, that removes the requirement for the claimant to provide the equipment. Work is also ongoing to introduce an audio recording facility for video assessments. This will bring the audio recording of face to face and video assessments in line with the recording of telephone assessments and we aim to complete both as soon as it is practically possible.
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 progress she has made on the rollout of yellow card warnings in place of immediate benefit sanctions.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We have not committed to rollout yellow card written warnings in place of immediate benefit sanctions. We are still looking into this process by undertaking a series of small-scale Proof of Concepts. This was delayed due to the pandemic. We are working to complete all testing before making an assessment of the merits of extending such a system.