Asked by: Imran Hussain (Labour - Bradford East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many children in households affected by the two-child limit on welfare payments are in (a) Bradford East and (b) West Yorkshire.
Answered by Lord Sharma
Data published in June 2018, broken down by country can be accessed at:
The information on the level requested was not captured in the reporting database and therefore is not available. This was due to the small numbers of Universal Credit cases recorded as being affected by this policy, meaning it is not possible to break down these totals by smaller geographic areas without the risk of identifying individual claimants.
Asked by: Imran Hussain (Labour - Bradford East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many job seeker's allowance claimants in Bradford East were subjected to sanctions in each year from 2010.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The number of job seeker's allowance claimants who have been sanctioned by parliamentary constituency is published and can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance for users is available at:
https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
Sanctions are only used in a small percentage of cases, and that is when people fail to meet their agreed commitments without good reason. When considering whether a sanction is appropriate, a Decision Maker will take all the claimant’s individual circumstances, including any health conditions or disabilities, domestic emergencies and any evidence of good reason, into account before deciding whether a sanction is warranted.
Asked by: Imran Hussain (Labour - Bradford East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has a fixed-length absence limit for staff on sick leave.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The Department for Work and Pensions does not have, nor had at any time, a fixed-length absence limit for staff on sick leave.
Asked by: Imran Hussain (Labour - Bradford East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many prisoners released in 2018 applied for welfare support (a) within seven days and (b) after seven days of their release.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur a disproportionate cost.
Whilst Department for Work and Pensions systems do not currently collate data to identify an (ex)offender in a way that allows robust reporting, DWP is committed to gathering better data to support claimants with complex needs and has prioritised this as part of the wider work programme for Universal Credit.
Asked by: Imran Hussain (Labour - Bradford East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many offenders received a benefits sanction within six months of the end of their sentence in 2018.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur a disproportionate cost.
Whilst Department for Work and Pensions systems do not currently collate data to identify an (ex)offender in a way that allows robust reporting, DWP is committed to gathering better data to support claimants with complex needs and has prioritised this as part of the wider work programme for Universal Credit.
Asked by: Imran Hussain (Labour - Bradford East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many offenders sentenced in 2018 received a benefits sanction within the previous six months of their sentencing.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur a disproportionate cost.
Whilst Department for Work and Pensions systems do not currently collate data to identify an (ex)offender in a way that allows robust reporting, DWP is committed to gathering better data to support claimants with complex needs and has prioritised this as part of the wider work programme for Universal Credit.
Asked by: Imran Hussain (Labour - Bradford East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many female offenders were sanctioned for welfare claims within three months of release in each year from 2010.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The information requested is not available.
Sanctions are only ever used as a last resort, and when considering whether a sanction is appropriate, a Decision Maker will take all the claimant’s individual circumstances and any evidence of good cause into account before deciding whether a sanction is warranted.
Asked by: Imran Hussain (Labour - Bradford East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many female offenders did not receive an appointment at their local job centre on the day of their release in each year since 2010.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The information requested is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Imran Hussain (Labour - Bradford East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department assessed the number of households that would be affected by the benefit cap after the most recent welfare payment uprating before it made that uprating.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The eligible benefits which are considered when calculating whether an individual has their benefit capped are frozen for 2018/2019. As such no additional households will be brought into scope of the cap through benefit uprating.
Statistics on the number of households capped, including those with children, can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/benefit-cap-statistics