Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people appealed against a work capability assessment decision in (a) Blackpool South constituency and (b) Blackpool local authority area since the introduction of such assessments; and how many and what proportion of those appeals were successful.
Answered by Lord Harper
The information requested is not available by constituency or local authority.
The latest published data for Work Capability Assessments was released on the 12 March 2015.
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in (a) Blackpool South constituency and (b) Blackpool local authority area have applied for personal independence payments; and how many of those have received a decision on that application.
Answered by Lord Harper
Information on registration, clearances and awards at Parliamentary Constituency and Local Authority level are published on a quarterly basis as part of our official statistics release, which can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/personal-independence-payment-statistics
The information requested can be found in the data tables that accompany each release. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/412878/tables-pip-statistics-apr-2013-to-jan-2015.xls
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many (a) people in the Work Programme entered employment and (b) people in the Work Programme were subject to benefit sanctions in (i) Blackpool South constituency and (ii) Blackpool local authority area in the last 12 months.
Answered by Esther McVey
The information requested for part (a), in respect of the number of people placed into employment from the Work Programme is not available.
The information we do have shows the number of Work Programme job outcomes, by various geographies and this can be found at:
http://tabulation-tool.dwp.gov.uk/WorkProg/tabtool.html
Guidance for users can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dwp-tabulation-tool-guidance
Information on the number of Jobseeker’s allowance and Employment Support Allowance claimants referred to the Work Programme who have been sanctioned for failure to participate, by various geographies, is published and available at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance for users is available at:
https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Stat-Xplore_User_Guide.htm
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many recipients of jobseeker's allowance in (a) Blackpool South constituency and (b) Blackpool local authority area were sanctioned in (i) 2012, (ii) 2013, (iii) 2014 and (iv) 2015; and what the total amount of benefits withheld was as a result of those sanctions in each of those areas in each of those years.
Answered by Esther McVey
The information we have to answer the first part of the question, in respect of Jobseeker’s Allowance sanctions, by various geographies, up to September 2014, is published and available 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/Stat-Xplore_User_Guide.htm
For part (b) I refer my hon. Member to the answer I gave on the 2 March 2015 to Question UIN 225001
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 7 April 2014, Official Report, columns 103-4W, on state retirement pensions, if he will assess whether a woman born on 6 April 1981 who was in continuous employment from her 21st birthday until her state pension age as derived in line with the practice outlined in the Pensions Bill, had worked consistently in contracted-in employment for 30 hours a week in a role which paid the National Minimum Wage, had average female life expectancy, in line with the most recent ONS population projections, and was subject to any other assumptions used in the Impact Assessment which accompanied the Pensions Bill, would receive a different level of pension at the point of retirement under the Single Tier mechanism than they would have expected under the current pension system; and what the difference in the level of pension would be.
Answered by Steve Webb
The state pension reforms radically simplify state pension provision, by replacing the current, two-tiered pension system with a simpler single-tier state pension for people reaching state pension age after 6 April 2016.
The majority of people reaching state pension age in the 40 years after the new state pension is implemented will have a higher pension income overall over the course of their retirement as a result of the reforms. The new state pension will also underpin automatic enrolment, which will see around 9 million people saving more, or saving for the first time, into a workplace pension.
The Pensions Bill provides for the Government to carry out a review of State Pension age every parliament. It is our intention that State Pension ages will only be finalised once someone is within ten years of their proposed state pension age. Because this date will be affected by future changes in longevity, at this point we cannot say with certainty what will be the state pension age for people born in the 1980s. In addition, any calculation on pension entitlement would also depend on decisions that have not yet been taken, including the starting rate for the single tier. Furthermore, future State Pension levels are determined by up-rating decisions taken by Governments on a year-by-year basis. Therefore, whilst we have forecast the possible impacts of the new system at a population level, it is not possible to give definitive statements of the future state pension entitlements for individuals who do not yet have a set State Pension age, whether under the current system or under the single tier pension
For the first few cohorts of people reaching State Pension Age from April 2016, the government will provide a statement service to help them plan for retirement.
Asked by: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of trends in (a) take-up of workplace pensions and (b) anticipated retirement income from current workplace pension accounts.
Answered by Steve Webb
a)
Automatic enrolment is increasing the take-up of workplace pensions and will continue to do so as the reforms continue to be rolled out over the next few years. The latest figures from The Pensions Regulator show that over 3.2 million individuals have now been enrolled into a workplace pension as a result of the reforms.
In 2013, 50 per cent of all employees were a member of a pension scheme, rising from 47 per cent in 2012. This was the first increase in participation since 2006 and represented the largest rise since records began in 1997. In particular, for the largest private sector companies (those with more than 5000 employees), 51 per cent of employees were members of a workplace pension scheme, up from 36 per cent in 2012. These figures were collected in April 2013 when automatic enrolment had been running for just 6 months.
(b)
Without automatic enrolment, median private pension income was expected to fall from around £3,900 a year in 2020 to around £2,200 a year in 2050. However, with automatic enrolment the median private pension income is expected to be around £3,600 by 2050.