Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will bring forward an anti-poverty strategy.
Answered by Will Quince
Tackling child poverty is a key priority for this Government. We have provided an unprecedented package of support throughout the pandemic, injecting billions into the welfare system for those most in need, including increases to the Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit standard allowances of up to £1040 this financial year, and uplifts to the Local Housing Allowance rates to cover the lowest 30% of market rents. The Covid Winter Grant Scheme builds on that support with an additional £170m for local authorities in England, to support families with children and other vulnerable people, with the cost of food and essential utilities this winter.
Our long-term ambition is to level up across the country and to continue to tackle child poverty, through our reformed welfare system that works with the labour market to encourage parents to move into, and progress in work, wherever possible. This approach is based on clear evidence about the importance of parental employment, particularly where it is full-time, in substantially reducing the risks of poverty and in improving long-term outcomes for children.
Our £30bn Plan for Jobs is another step on the ladder to achieving this and will support economic recovery through new schemes including Kickstart and Job Entry Targeted Support. We are also doubling the number of work coaches who, through our Jobcentre network, will provide more people with the tailored support they need to move back into work and towards financial independence.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of recent Legatum Institute research which found that 700,000 people in the UK including 120,000 children have been pushed into poverty as a result of the economic effect of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Will Quince
Tackling child poverty is a key priority for this Government. We have provided an unprecedented package of support throughout the pandemic, injecting billions into the welfare system for those most in need, including increases to the Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit standard allowances of up to £1040 this financial year, and uplifts to the Local Housing Allowance rates to cover the lowest 30% of market rents. The Covid Winter Grant Scheme builds on that support with an additional £170m for local authorities in England, to support families with children and other vulnerable people, with the cost of food and essential utilities this winter.
Our long-term ambition is to level up across the country and to continue to tackle child poverty, through our reformed welfare system that works with the labour market to encourage parents to move into, and progress in work, wherever possible. This approach is based on clear evidence about the importance of parental employment, particularly where it is full-time, in substantially reducing the risks of poverty and in improving long-term outcomes for children.
Our £30bn Plan for Jobs is another step on the ladder to achieving this and will support economic recovery through new schemes including Kickstart and Job Entry Targeted Support. We are also doubling the number of work coaches who, through our Jobcentre network, will provide more people with the tailored support they need to move back into work and towards financial independence.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of the findings of the Royal British Legion in its report entitled Making the benefits system fit for service, improving support for veterans with military compensation, published in November 2020, that 8 per cent of survey respondents claiming personal independence payments and 6 per cent claiming employment support allowance felt that the assessor had knowledge of the Armed Forces and Service-related conditions.
Answered by Will Quince
We are currently giving this report the careful consideration it deserves. However, our early analysis finds some of the themes highlighted in the report – such as, effectively identifying veterans; making best use of data and evidence; and improving staff awareness and training - are areas where DWP has already taken action to improve the service we offer to veterans, or have future plans to do so. For example, where possible the healthcare professionals undertaking assessments will use paper based evidence alone, this will include Service Medical Board reports, where available.
For Personal Independence Payment, assessors have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder guidance which was developed with the help of the Royal British Legion.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many food banks there were in (a) March 2020 and (b) November 2020.
Answered by Will Quince
There are no official statistics on the number of food banks, which are independent, charitable organisations.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on making the £20 a week uplift in universal credit permanent.
Answered by Will Quince
The £20 per week uplift to Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit was announced by the Chancellor as a temporary measure in March 2020 to support those facing the most financial disruption as a result of the public health emergency. This measure remains in place until April 2021. As the Government has done throughout this crisis, it will continue to assess how best to support low-income families, which is why we will look at the economic and health context in the new year.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of the finding by the End Child Poverty Campaign that eight out of the 10 local authorities in which child poverty increased between 2014 and 2019 are in the North of England.
Answered by Will Quince
We have examined, from what has been published, Loughborough University’s methodology for estimating housing costs by constituency. We are unable to assess how robust the method for modelling local housing costs is and we do not know the process used for calibrating the local measures with regional level statistics on child poverty from Households Below Average Income.
National Statistics on the number and percentage of children in low income are published annually in the “Households Below Average Income” publication. These remain the most accurate published measurements of low income. The latest HBAI statistics (2018/19) show that since 2009/10, 100,000 children have been lifted out of absolute poverty (both before and after housing costs) and levels of combined material deprivation and low income for children are at their joint lowest level.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what support the Government is providing to self-employed people who are ineligible for the £500 support payment and have to self-isolate due to having covid-19 symptoms.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We have relaxed the application of the Minimum Income Floor (MIF) for all self-employed UC claimants affected by the impact of COVID-19. This means that that a drop in earnings due to sickness or self-isolation, or as a result of the impact of the outbreak, will now be reflected in a claimant’s award. It ensures that the self-employed are supported by the benefit system so that they can follow the Public Health England guidance on social distancing and self-isolation.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 21 April 2020 to Question 33416 on Universal Credit: Coronavirus, what the average processing time was for a universal credit claim in (a) February, (b) March, (c) April, (d) May, (e) June, (f) July and (g) August 2020.
Answered by Will Quince
The latest available information on Universal Credit payment timeliness is published and can be found at: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many children were living in poverty in (a) Hemsworth constituency, (b) Wakefield Council area and (c) West Yorkshire Combined Authority area as at (i) 15 July 2010 and (ii) 15 July 2020.
Answered by Will Quince
National Statistics on the number and percentage of children in low income are published annually in the “Households Below Average Income” publication. The rates of children in absolute poverty in the Yorkshire and the Humber region in the three years to 18/19 has decreased, both before and after housing costs, compared to the three years to 09/10.
Latest statistics for the number of children who are in low income for England and the Yorkshire and the Humber region can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/households-below-average-income-199495-to-201819, “children-hbai-timeseries-1994-95-2018-19-tables” in table 4.17ts (relative low income, before and after housing costs) and 4.23ts (absolute low income, before and after housing costs).
The Department now publishes supplementary official statistics on the number of children in low income families at constituency level. Children in Low Income Families data is published annually.
The latest figures from 2014/15 to 2018/19 can be found at:
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many unemployment young people there are in (a) Hemsworth constituency, (b) Wakefield Council area and (c) West Yorkshire Combined Authority area.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Estimates of the number of people who are unemployed are compiled by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) using the Annual Population Survey (APS), a large household survey.
Estimates are based on a sample of cases and therefore subject to sampling uncertainty. Estimates at sub-regional geographies such as local authorities and parliamentary constituencies or sub-groups such as unemployed young people are especially uncertain.
New figures were released on 16 July 2020 for the April 2019 - March 2020 survey period on the NOMIS website.