Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps have been taken by the Health and Safety Executive to promote its guidance on safety on farms.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has responsibility for the regulation of health and safety standards on Great Britain’s (GB) farms. All of HSE’s guidance on farm safety is available free of charge via the HSE website (http://www.hse.gov.uk/agriculture/index.htm). Selected pieces of guidance, with links to the website, are shared widely via partner organisations such as the National Farmers Unions and the members of GB’s Farm Safety Partnerships, are given direct to farmers at HSE’s agricultural compliance events and are subject to wide publicity through a social media campaign linked to HSE’s current farm inspection activity.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of the timeframe for the completion of the roll-out of universal credit.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
I refer the hon. Member to my answer to Question 203793, on 7 January 2019.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many young people participated in the Youth Obligation programme since April 2017.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
I refer the hon. Member to my reply to question 184843 on 29th October.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many senior citizens who were entitled to the winter fuel payment in 2017 were estimated to be higher rate tax payers.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
For winter 2017/18 everyone who had reached women’s state pension age was entitled to claim a Winter Fuel Payment. Official Statistics on tax-payers are published by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the number of households in Northern Ireland that will receive the winter fuel payment in 2018-19.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department for Work and Pensions does not hold this information. Winter Fuel Payments in Northern Ireland are the responsibility of the Department for Communities.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the credit union expansion project.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Government is committed to facilitating sustainable financial services that give consumers greater choice in accessing credit. Credit union membership in Great Britain has increased year-on-year since 2014, rising to around 1.32 million members in 2017; this was an increase of over 150,000 individuals over the 3 year period. It is even more encouraging that credit unions are becoming more popular with junior members; in 2017 there were over 139,000 junior members of credit unions in Great Britain compared to around 128,000 in 2014.
The Credit Union Expansion Project (CUEP) aims were for participating credit unions to modernise and grow in a financially sustainable way, over time. The contractor aimed to deliver that by enabling credit unions to access a standardised banking service.
CUEP has delivered an Automated Loans and Decision tool (ALD) used by over 70 credit unions, centralised services such as a standardised front facing website, and that the ALD has allowed credit unions to achieve up to 40% administrative savings on delivering loans and reduce provision for unpaid debt by over £1 million. CUEP also led to a number of credit unions to merge, and others to work together to develop standardised products and deliver local marketing campaigns to increase membership. CUEP contributed to credit unions on the platform to increase the value of loans made.
Due to the Contractors failure to meet contractual milestones, DWP terminated the CUEP contract on 16th February 2018. Whilst the contractor has not met their contractual agreement, they have delivered a banking platform that allows credit union members to receive a range of banking services and benefit from more affordable credit. At the point the contract was terminated the platform was being used by three credit unions with a total of approximately 16.5k members allowing members to benefit from 24 hour online access to their accounts, and receive faster payments on a loan on the same day, usually within 4 hours.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the number of employers who have not met their obligations to employees on automatic enrolment in pensions in the last three years.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Automatic enrolment has been a great success, with over 9.9 million employees enrolled and more than 1.3 million employers having met their duties to date. Government has put in place a robust, proportionate compliance framework. This is administered by The Pensions Regulator, and includes detailed regulatory guidance about how to comply with the law.
The Regulator publishes quarterly bulletins where figures can be found on compliance and enforcement. These are at http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/doc-library/enforcement-activity.aspx.
The Regulator also publishes an annual commentary and analysis report which can be found at http://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/docs/automatic-enrolment-commentary-analysis-2018.pdf.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that information is provided to people in auto-enrolment pension schemes on the potential monthly contributions required to provide illustrative potential examples of monthly pension payments in retirement.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Review of Automatic Enrolment in 2017 revealed that there is no consensus about future contribution rates and whether, when and to what level they might increase. As such, it is important that we understand the effects the planned increases will have, and to carry out further work on the adequacy of retirement incomes.
As part of the Government's 2017 Review of Automatic Enrolment, we looked at the theme of better engagement and how individuals can be better informed and enabled to plan for retirement. Pension providers increasingly offer online tools which offer fast, creative and cost-effective ways for providers to communicate with savers to help them plan. We welcome this investment, however there is more to do and the Review set out specific areas for the pensions industry and other partners to do build on and develop new initiatives. One area the Review examined was the role and examples of annual benefit statements which provide information to members about their pension saving, including important information to help members plan. One example of good practice included in the Review report was an approach that had been developed by industry and Ruston Smith, co-Chair of the engagement theme in the Review. Since the report was published that work has been continuing, and we welcome this as an example of industry taking the lead and working together to enable members to be able to plan for their retirement.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people between 16 and 24 years old were in part-time employment in (a) 2012 and (b) 2017.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The latest official data available from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that 1.41 million 16 to 24 year olds were working part-time from January-December 2017. This represented 36.6% of 16-24 year olds in employment, down from 1.45 million young people working part time in January-December 2012 (39.9% of 16-24 year olds in employment).
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the timescale is for completing the automatic enrolment review that commenced in 2017.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The review of automatic enrolment was completed and published in December 2017. The review set out the Government’s ambition to build on the success of the workplace pension reforms to date, with a comprehensive and balanced package of proposals to further strengthen pension saving. The proposals, which are aimed at continuing to build a stronger, more inclusive savings culture for future generations, include lowering the minimum age entry point for automatic enrolment from 22 to age 18 and removing the lower earnings limit so that contributions are calculated from the first pound of earnings. Our ambition is to work towards implementing these changes in the mid-2020s. The Review also set out our commitment to test targeted interventions starting this year to identify the most effective options to increase pension saving among self-employed people.
The review report was laid before Parliament; it is available, with the associated analytical report, at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/automatic-enrolment-review-2017-maintaining-the-momentum
Automatic enrolment has been a great success story with more than 9.5 million workers enrolled into pensions saving. Over 1.1 million employers have met their duties. By summer 2018, 10 million people are estimated to be newly saving or saving more as a result of automatic enrolment.