Asked by: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)
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 effect of pensions auto-enrolment on the income of low-paid workers.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Automatic enrolment has been a great success story with nearly 9.3 million workers enrolled into pensions saving. More than 1 million employers have met their automatic enrolment duties.
Pension saving involves a balance between spending needs today versus saving for tomorrow – our system enables people to save and get an employer contribution, in most cases with tax relief too, so as to build retirement provision for their future. And it’s a system that allows people to opt out if they so choose. And importantly, the earnings trigger –currently at £10,000 and which is kept under annual review– is set at a level at which it ‘pays to save’ for individuals.
The largest increase in participation has been among those for whom the policy was developed, including eligible low earners with some 63% of these workers in the private sector earning between £10,000 and £19,999 now saving into a workplace pension.
We want to build on this, and we are increasing the minimum contributions from the current 2% of qualifying earnings to 5% in April 2018 and 8% in April 2019 to improve the level of savings, and in our 2017 Review of automatic enrolment set out our ambition for reforms which together would increase a median earners’ private pension pot size at retirement by over 40 per cent and for lower earners by over 80 per cent.
We recognise the potential impact on low paid workers; but of the 10 million employees we expect to be newly saving or saving more by April 2018 as a result of automatic enrolment, many will not see a fall in their take home pay because the increase in contributions will be counter-balanced by increases to the personal tax allowance, any pay increases, and the national living wage.
Asked by: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment the Government has made of the potential merits of tapering state benefits when an employee retires and has an auto-enrolment pension.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The new State Pension is not means tested. There are no plans to change this.
Asked by: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in each Government Office region in Scotland receive support for mortgage interest; and how many of those people also receive (a) employment support allowance, (b) personal independence payments and (c) jobseeker’s allowance.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Information on the number of Support for Mortgage Interest claimants in Scotland is published here: http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2018-02-19/128199/.
The table below provides the Department’s estimate of the caseload of Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) claiming ESA and JSA in Scotland.
| SMI and Employment and Support Allowance | SMI and Job Seeker’s Allowance |
Scotland | 5,000 | - |
Notes:
Robust estimates are not available on SMI claimants in receipt of Personal Independence Payment in Scotland or at geographies smaller than Scotland level.
Asked by: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in each Government Office region in Scotland receive support for mortgage interest; and how many of those people also receive (a) employment support allowance, (b) personal independence payments and (c) jobseeker’s allowance.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Information on the number of Support for Mortgage Interest claimants in Scotland is published here: http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2018-02-19/128199/.
The table below provides the Department’s estimate of the caseload of Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) claiming ESA and JSA in Scotland.
| SMI and Employment and Support Allowance | SMI and Job Seeker’s Allowance |
Scotland | 5,000 | - |
Notes:
Robust estimates are not available on SMI claimants in receipt of Personal Independence Payment in Scotland or at geographies smaller than Scotland level.
Asked by: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in each parliamentary constituency in Scotland receive support for mortgage interest; and how many of those people also receive (a) employment support allowance, (b) personal independence payments and (c) jobseeker’s allowance.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Department does not hold the data requested. The data needed to make robust estimates of the number of recipients of Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) at geographies smaller than Government Office Region is not available to Departmental analysts.
Asked by: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether an increase in the rate of Child Benefit in Scotland under section 24 of the Scotland Act 2016 will be included in the calculations of the benefit cap.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The Scotland Act 2016 transferred substantial new welfare powers to the Scottish Parliament, including the ability to top-up any reserved UK Government benefit, create new benefits in areas of devolved responsibility and pay discretionary payments. These powers came into force on 5 September 2016.
Child Benefit remains a reserved UK Government benefit. The Scottish Government could therefore use its new top-up powers to administer separate payments to claimants who receive Child Benefit.
We are working closely with the Scottish Government on the transfer and implementation of their new employment and welfare powers and we look forward to hearing about their plans, as they introduce their Social Security Bill around June.
The benefit cap would not apply to these top-up payments made under section 24.
Asked by: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of universal credit awards in Scotland are made under split payment arrangements.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
This information is not currently available.
Asked by: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in Scotland received the carer element of universal credit in each of the last two years for which information is available.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The information requested is not currently available. The Department updated its strategy for releasing official statistics on Universal Credit (UC) in December 2016. As outlined in the strategy, officials are currently assessing the data for UC and will only release information once the necessary quality assurance work has taken place. These statistics will be published in accordance with the relevant protocols in the Code of Practice for official statistics.
Universal Credit official statistics and the Departments release strategy can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/universal-credit-statistics
Asked by: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants in Scotland received carer premiums for (a) jobseeker's allowance, (b) employment and support allowance, (c) income support and (d) pension credit in in each of the last three years for which information is available.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
There has been no assessment of carer premiums paid to claimants in Scotland in the last three years.
Statistics on the number of Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income Support and Pension Credit claimants in Scotland in May 2014, May 2015 and May 2016 who were in receipt of Carer’s Allowance are shown in the following table.
Income Support, Pension Credit and Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants in receipt of a carer’s premium, Scotland, May 2014 - May 2016
| Income Support | Pension Credit | Jobseeker’s Allowance |
May 2014 | 25,460 | 22,780 | 500 |
May 2015 | 26,280 | 20,690 | 300 |
May 2016 | 27,050 | 19,770 | 300 |
Source: DWP 5% and 100% Work and Pensions Longitudinal Study data
Notes
The information requested is not readily available for Employment and Support Allowance claimants and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Ian Murray (Labour - Edinburgh South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment the Government has made of the total value of carer premiums paid to claimants in Scotland in each of the last three years for which information is available.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
There has been no assessment of carer premiums paid to claimants in Scotland in the last three years.
Statistics on the number of Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income Support and Pension Credit claimants in Scotland in May 2014, May 2015 and May 2016 who were in receipt of Carer’s Allowance are shown in the following table.
Income Support, Pension Credit and Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants in receipt of a carer’s premium, Scotland, May 2014 - May 2016
| Income Support | Pension Credit | Jobseeker’s Allowance |
May 2014 | 25,460 | 22,780 | 500 |
May 2015 | 26,280 | 20,690 | 300 |
May 2016 | 27,050 | 19,770 | 300 |
Source: DWP 5% and 100% Work and Pensions Longitudinal Study data
Notes
The information requested is not readily available for Employment and Support Allowance claimants and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.