Asked by: Jo Stevens (Labour - Cardiff Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much her Department has paid to the Metro Newspaper for each of its advertorials over the next nine weeks.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The Department provides services to around 22 million people, and has a responsibility to communicate policy and essential information to claimants and other key audiences, in a similar way to other government departments. Newspaper advertising contributes to our routine communications activity that has been running alongside the rollout of Universal Credit since 2013.
The Universal Credit Uncovered media partnership with the Metro is currently underway and running for a further six weeks so we are unable to provide accurate spend to date figures for the partnership. However, we can commit to publish final full spend on the partnership at the end of July once all activity has concluded.
The information used for the partnership was sourced by DWP officials. The content features actual claimant case studies and interviews from Jobcentre work coaches, and the advertorials have been developed in partnership with the Metro.
Asked by: Jo Stevens (Labour - Cardiff Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the proportion of pensioners who forewent heating as a result of a lack of funds in the last four months of 2018.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy administers the warm home discount scheme which provides assistance to around 2 million low income and vulnerable households (including 1.21m pensioners) with their energy costs. Further details can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/the-warm-home-discount-scheme
In 2018/19 the DWP is estimated to have spent £122bn on pensioner benefits which included £2bn on winter fuel payments to 12 million pensioners, the majority of whom received their payment before Christmas 2018.
In addition, the DWP also administers the cold weather payment scheme. For the period from the 1 November 2018 to the 31 March 2019, we estimate 438,000 payments were made to Pension Credit customers. Further details about the cold weather payment scheme can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/cold-weather-payment
The DWP does not hold the specific information requested.
Asked by: Jo Stevens (Labour - Cardiff Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much the Government has spent on promoting and advertising universal credit since it was introduced.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The Department provides services to around 22 million people and, as with other government departments, it has a responsibility to communicate policy and essential information to customers and other key audiences.
The ‘Opening Up Work’ campaign aims to increase understanding of how Universal Credit removes barriers to work and career progression, and to ensure people can access information to help people make a claim. The Department has dedicated funds to this campaign to make sure claimants know how to access the support that they need.
Advertising spend to date from 2016-17 onwards on the Universal Credit Opening Up Work campaign is around £6.3 million.
Asked by: Jo Stevens (Labour - Cardiff Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether an equality impact assessment has been undertaken on the potential effect of changes to the eligibility rules for (a) pension credit and (b) housing benefit on women in mixed-age couples.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Before the matter was debated in the passage of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 the government did the 2011 Universal Credit Equality Impact Assessment then there has been ongoing equality analysis of the mixed age couple change. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-equality-impact-assessment
On 28 February 2019, the DWP published a research and analysis paper relating to mixed age couples estimated to be affected by the change in policy: www.gov.uk/government/publications/mixed-age-couples-benefit-impacts-of-ending-access-to-pension-credit-and-pension-age-housing-benefit
It shows that the vast majority of mixed age couples comprised a male and female partner. There is no indication that the change will have a disproportionate impact on the basis of sex.
Asked by: Jo Stevens (Labour - Cardiff Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has assessed the potential cost of providing transitional protection to mixed-age couples moving from pension credit and housing benefit to universal credit.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The mixed age couples change will not apply to couples already claiming Pension Credit and/or Housing Benefit for pensioners on 14 May for as long as they remain entitled to either benefit. DWP wrote earlier this year to those mixed age couples already receiving Pension Credit and/or Housing Benefit for pensioners to ensure they know about the change and how they could be affected if their circumstances change on or after 15 May.
Couples who would be eligible for the pension age benefits under the current rules but have not claimed before 15 May will have up to 13 August to make a backdated claim to 14 May and we have encouraged them to do so.
Asked by: Jo Stevens (Labour - Cardiff Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the number of working days lost to stress in 2018.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Data from the Office for National Statistics shows that in 2017 14.3 million working days were lost in the UK to stress, depression and anxiety. Data for 2018 is not yet available.
Data is available on sickness absence at https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/datasets/sicknessabsenceinthelabourmarket
Asked by: Jo Stevens (Labour - Cardiff Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of personal independence payment applications were (a) refused and (b) withdrawn in the last 12 months.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The latest available data on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) clearances split by type of clearance (i.e. whether the claim was awarded, disallowed or withdrawn) for both new claims and Disability Living Allowance (DLA) reassessment claims, each month from the introduction of PIP in April 2013 to the last available data in January 2019 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.
Asked by: Jo Stevens (Labour - Cardiff Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department has taken to assess the level of in-work poverty in the UK.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
National statistics on the percentage of working age individuals in working families in low income are set out in the annual "Households Below Average Income" publication. Figures on the percentage of working age individuals in working families in low income can be found in the link below, in table 5.11ts for relative low income, and 5.14ts for absolute low income, in the file “workingage-hbai-timeseries-1994-95-2017-18-tables.ods”. These are split into before housing costs (BHC) and after housing costs (AHC).
Asked by: Jo Stevens (Labour - Cardiff Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the cost to the public purse was of (a) conducting tribunal cases on personal independence payments and (b) providing legal representation at tribunal cases on personal independence payments in the most recent 12-month period for which data is available.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
For part (a); the information is not readily available and can only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
The Department has interpreted part (b) as the costs of external counsel’s fees in PIP cases at the Upper Tribunal in the last 12 months. External counsel’s fees billed to date are £42, 279.92. The Department does not instruct counsel to provide legal representation for PIP cases at the First-tier Tribunal.
Asked by: Jo Stevens (Labour - Cardiff Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking ensure that there is sufficient public awareness of the changes to universal credit entitlement for mixed-aged couples among people who are affected by that change.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department announced on 14 January that the mixed age couple policy change will come into force on 15 May. Following the announcement we are implementing plans to raise awareness of the change among people who may be affected.
The Department is writing to mixed-age couples who are already in receipt of Pension Credit or pensioner Housing Benefit. This is in addition to providing information on gov.uk and through existing departmental channels. The Department’s staff in Pension Centres and Jobcentres will also be able to provide such information, as will staff in local authorities who administer Housing Benefit. The Department will also work with relevant organisations to ensure that accurate information is available in the places where people are most likely to seek information.