Asked by: Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what provisions there are for the repayment of an SMI loan in the event of bankruptcy or home repossession; and whether such loan repayments will be prioritised over other existing debt in such an event.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Where possible, a legal charge will be secured over the claimant’s property as security for the Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) loan. The legal charge will rank below any pre-existing charges on the property including the mortgage. Pre-existing charge holders will always have priority in recovering their debt from the equity when a house is sold or in the event of bankruptcy and if the amount of equity available after the sale of the property is less than the amount due to be recovered the balance will be written off. Where a customer in receipt of SMI loan becomes bankrupt or enters an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) there is provision for SMI loan payments to continue if the claimant has a continuing liability to make mortgage repayments. The Department does not anticipate that the introduction of SMI loans will lead to an increase in the number of homes that are repossessed.
Asked by: Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the support for mortgage interest loan will have implications for a person's credit rating.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) loans are not a typical credit product and as such will not appear on a customer’s credit report. There is no requirement to make monthly repayments and the loan is only recoverable on the sale or transfer of the customer’s property.
Asked by: Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 27 February 2018 to Question 128375, on Universal Credit: Internet, if she will she set an estimated year of delivery for the development of an online password reset function for universal credit claimants.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Improvements to features including those for making payments to claimants, further enhancements to the security of the system and features to improve the experience of people with specific needs are being addressed before the online password reset. It would not be useful to produce a schedule of changes as they are constantly reviewed and adapted as we work in an agile environment.
We are continually delivering the functionality that gives the most value at any time, whilst ensuring the service is safe, secure and performing. This method ensures we will deliver this functionality at the most appropriate point.
Asked by: Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 27 February 2018 to Question 128375, on Universal Credit: Internet, if he will publish a timetable for those features mentioned which have a higher priority than the establishment of an online password reset function for universal credit claimants.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Improvements to features including those for making payments to claimants, further enhancements to the security of the system and features to improve the experience of people with specific needs are being addressed before the online password reset. It would not be useful to produce a schedule of changes as they are constantly reviewed and adapted as we work in an agile environment.
We are continually delivering the functionality that gives the most value at any time, whilst ensuring the service is safe, secure and performing. This method ensures we will deliver this functionality at the most appropriate point.
Asked by: Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 22 February 2018 to Question 128116, what the average time taken is between (a) a complaint being received on the equalisation of the state pension age and (b) the completion of checks on that complaint to establish it can be accepted for examination by her Department's independent case examiner.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The average time taken from receipt of a complaint about the equalisation of the state pension age, to the point at which the Independent Case Examiner’s Office makes a decision on whether it can be accepted for examination is currently 4 weeks.
Asked by: Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 27 February 2018 to Question 128375, on Universal Credit: Internet, what funding the Government has made available for the development of IT systems for universal credit; and which private contractors her Department has commissioned to develop such systems.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Expenditure on the development of IT systems for Universal Credit to February 2018 is approximately £500 million.
The key IT providers who have supported the development include:
· Accenture
· IBM
· DXC
· CapGemini
· Capita
· Thoughtworks
· Mongo
· Oracle
· Experian
· Booking Bug
· SCC
· Computacenter
· BT
· RedHat
· Amazon Web Services
Development of the Universal Credit Full Service is being led by an in-house team.
Asked by: Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 22 February 2018 to Question 128116, on State Retirement Pensions: Females, what steps her Department plans to take to address the outstanding complaints in a timely fashion and whether she (a) is seeking more funding for that purpose and (b) plans to appoint more investigator staff.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Independent Case Examiner’s Office has established a dedicated team of investigation case managers from within existing resources, to examine this group of complaints. The resources allocated to the Office are reviewed on an annual basis; however, there are no plans to seek additional funding or appoint more investigation staff to consider this group of complaints.
Asked by: Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 22 February 2018 to Question 128116, on State Retirement Pensions: Females, how many complaints have been dismissed while undergoing checks to establish if they can be accepted for examination since 2 October 2017.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Between 2 October 2017 and 20 February 2018, the Independent Case Examiner’s Office declined to accept 243 complaints concerning the equalisation of State Pension age, as a result of checks to see if the complaint could be accepted for examination.
Asked by: Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many complaints received by the Independent Complaint Examiner on the equalisation of the state pension age since 2 October 2017; and how many of these complaints (a) have been resolved and (b) were not progressed to investigation.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
We have interpreted this question as a request for information about: the number of complaints received about the equalisation of State Pension age between 2 October 2017 and 27 February 2018; the number investigations concluded into complaints about the equalisation of State Pension age between 2 October 2017 and 27 February 2018; and the total number of complaints about the equalisation of State Pension retirement age outstanding at 27 February 2018 (including those undergoing checks to determine whether the complaint can be accepted for examination; those awaiting examination; and those being investigated).
Between 2 October 2017 and 27 February 2018 the Independent Case Examiner’s Office received 1,476 complaints and concluded 52 investigations into complaints about the equalisation of State Pension age. On 27 February 2018, the Office had 2,492 outstanding complaints about the equalisation of state pension retirement age.
Asked by: Ged Killen (Labour (Co-op) - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the average number of complaints reported to the Independent Case Examiner on the equalisation of the state pension age per month since 2 October 2017.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Since October 2017, the Independent Case Examiner’s Office has received on average 295 complaints a month concerning the equalisation of State Pension age.