Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans her Department has to introduce a minimum protected income within the universal credit system to ensure that claimants are not left in poverty after any deductions are taken from their monthly award.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The Government recognises the importance of safeguarding the welfare of claimants who have incurred debt. Universal Credit already has procedures and regulations in place protect claimants from excessive deductions. The maximum rate of deductions cannot normally exceed 40% of the Universal Credit standard allowance. If a claimant is in financial difficulty as a result of the level of deductions being made they can contact the Department to request that a reduction in deductions be considered.
In January 2018, of all Universal Credit Full Service awards:
(a) 6% had a total deduction amount (either to a third party, for an advance, or for a fraud penalty) which equalled 40 per cent of the standard allowance
(b) Less than 0.5% had a total deduction amount which exceeded 40 per cent of the standard allowance. In these cases, a priority order is applied so that deductions for rent or fuel costs are applied first, in order to protect claimant welfare.
Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of claimants of employment and support allowance are awarded payments through the exemption contained in paragraph 25(b) of the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations 2013.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many assessments of claimants transferring between disability living allowance and personal independence payments have been made in the last five years.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
Information on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) clearances by type (e.g. awarded/disallowed after or before referral to the assessment provider or withdrawn), for both new claims and reassessed claims (for those previously in receipt of Disability Living Allowance (DLA)), is published on Gov.UK: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk
Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here: https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html.
Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants have been transferred from disability living allowance to personal independence payments in the last three years.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
Information on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) clearances by type (e.g. awarded/disallowed after or before referral to the assessment provider or withdrawn), for both new claims and reassessed claims (for those previously in receipt of Disability Living Allowance (DLA)), is published on Gov.UK: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk
Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here: https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html.
Asked by: Ian Mearns (Labour - Gateshead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people who previously claimed disability living allowance and were transferred to personal independence payments in the last three years have had their payments (a) reduced, (b) unchanged and (c) increased.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The latest available data on personal independence payment (PIP) claims in payment, registrations, clearances and awards for both new claims and reassessed claims (for those previously in receipt of disability living allowance (DLA)) are published on Gov.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/personal-independence-payment-statistics.
In particular, breakdowns of reassessed claims in payment by type and rate of awards, and reassessment claims by type of clearance (i.e. whether the claim was awarded, disallowed or withdrawn), can be found at https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here: https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html.
The Department does not have verified data on the number of DLA claimants who have had their benefit payments changed as a result of the move to PIP. We intend to provide more detailed breakdowns of DLA to PIP reassessment outcomes in due course. The Department is working to guidelines set by the UK Statistics Authority to ensure we are able to publish statistics that meet high quality standards at the earliest opportunity.