Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
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 support victims of universal credit scams.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The Department takes benefit fraud very seriously and is committed to taking appropriate action when it is detected.
If a claimant has been the victim of fraud, and has not benefitted financially in any way, they will not be asked to repay the money. The Department considers all cases on their individual merits and decisions are made on the strength of the evidence provided.
The Department has been working to improve knowledge and awareness of advances fraud amongst Jobcentre and Service Centre staff. Guidance has also been issued to ensure that staff are aware how to refer cases of suspected fraud to the Department’s Counter-fraud team.
Most welfare losses, across Government, arise from claimants failing to report changes of circumstances, Universal Credit (UC) provides a single, digital interface through which claimants can more easily report these changes. As such, once UC is fully rolled out, we expect cross-welfare losses to fraud, error and overpayments to be reduced by around £1 billion per year.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
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 improve access to benefits for all people who have been diagnosed as terminally ill.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The Special Rules for Terminal Illness provide a guaranteed entitlement to benefit under a fast track process, without people being required to attend a face-to-face assessment.
On 11 July the Secretary of State announced an in-depth evaluation of how the benefits system supports people nearing the end of their life, and those with the most severe conditions.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
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 local authorities that run local welfare assistance schemes.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The reforms to the Social Fund in 2013 allowed local authorities in England and the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales to deliver their own local provision for people who are in need of urgent help. Local authorities are best placed to decide how to target flexible help to support local welfare needs. The Government has no further plans to review provision.
We passed funding over to local authorities and devolved administrations from April 2013. This gave them maximum flexibility to deliver services as they see fit according to local needs.
The Local Government Finance Settlement for 2015-16 identifies a notional amount relating to local welfare provision in each upper-tier and unitary authority’s general grant, totalling £129.6 million for England. The notional allocation for local welfare provision remains at £129.6 million in England in the Local Government Financial Settlement until 2019/20. There are no plans to ring-fence this notional allocation.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry 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 number of people that benefited from local welfare assistance schemes in 2017-18.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The reforms to the Social Fund in 2013 allowed local authorities in England and the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales to deliver their own local provision for people who are in need of urgent help. Local authorities are best placed to decide how to target flexible help to support local welfare needs. The Government has no further plans to review provision.
We passed funding over to local authorities and devolved administrations from April 2013. This gave them maximum flexibility to deliver services as they see fit according to local needs.
The Local Government Finance Settlement for 2015-16 identifies a notional amount relating to local welfare provision in each upper-tier and unitary authority’s general grant, totalling £129.6 million for England. The notional allocation for local welfare provision remains at £129.6 million in England in the Local Government Financial Settlement until 2019/20. There are no plans to ring-fence this notional allocation.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will reintroduce a cash grant to local authorities for local welfare assistance schemes.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The reforms to the Social Fund in 2013 allowed local authorities in England and the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales to deliver their own local provision for people who are in need of urgent help. Local authorities are best placed to decide how to target flexible help to support local welfare needs. The Government has no further plans to review provision.
We passed funding over to local authorities and devolved administrations from April 2013. This gave them maximum flexibility to deliver services as they see fit according to local needs.
The Local Government Finance Settlement for 2015-16 identifies a notional amount relating to local welfare provision in each upper-tier and unitary authority’s general grant, totalling £129.6 million for England. The notional allocation for local welfare provision remains at £129.6 million in England in the Local Government Financial Settlement until 2019/20. There are no plans to ring-fence this notional allocation.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry 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 number of local authorities that have reduced spending on local welfare assistance schemes by more than half since 2015-16.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The reforms to the Social Fund in 2013 allowed local authorities in England and the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales to deliver their own local provision for people who are in need of urgent help. Local authorities are best placed to decide how to target flexible help to support local welfare needs. The Government has no further plans to review provision.
We passed funding over to local authorities and devolved administrations from April 2013. This gave them maximum flexibility to deliver services as they see fit according to local needs.
The Local Government Finance Settlement for 2015-16 identifies a notional amount relating to local welfare provision in each upper-tier and unitary authority’s general grant, totalling £129.6 million for England. The notional allocation for local welfare provision remains at £129.6 million in England in the Local Government Financial Settlement until 2019/20. There are no plans to ring-fence this notional allocation.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans the Government has in place to help people in receipt of universal credit with the cost of childcare over the summer holidays.
Answered by Will Quince
The Government recognises that childcare costs can affect parents’ decisions to both obtain and maintain employment and is committed to removing barriers that prevent parents moving into work.
To overcome this barrier to employment, Universal Credit claimants are able to claim up to 85 per cent of their childcare costs, compared to 70 per cent on the legacy system. This can be worth up to £13,000 a year for families with two children.
We recognise the difficulty that some claimants might have in paying childcare costs over the summer holidays and have undertaken significant work to increase work coach awareness, understanding and promotion of both the Universal Credit childcare offer and the wider government childcare offer. This is to ensure that parents who are eligible for the 15 hours of free childcare for disadvantaged families with 2-year-old children, and 30 hours of free childcare for working families, take these up. These free childcare offers can be used in combination with Universal Credit support for childcare.
In addition to this, budgeting advances are available for eligible claimants that can be used to cover the cost of paying additional upfront childcare costs or a deposit that might be needed during the school holidays.
Asked by: Jim Cunningham (Labour - Coventry South)
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 proportion of people working in the gig economy that are in receipt of universal credit.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The term “gig economy” covers a wide range of roles and working practices and the information requested is not held.
The Department provides tailored support to our claimants who are in self-employment through our work coaches to help them to increase their productivity and earnings.
Universal Credit encourages all claimants with a work expectation to find and progress in work. To support those already in, or considering self-employment, we have extended the New Enterprise Allowance (NEA) scheme from April 2019 onwards. The NEA provides support and mentoring for claimants who are looking to start or develop their business.