Asked by: Julian Sturdy (Conservative - York Outer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to help support (a) heavily pregnant women and (b) new mothers on statutory maternity pay with increases in cost of living.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
Maternity Allowance (MA) is available to eligible pregnant women and new mothers who cannot get Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP), such as the low paid and the self-employed. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has a statutory obligation to review SMP, benefits including MA, and pensions annually. The review will commence shortly, and her decisions will be announced to Parliament in the normal way later this year. Any new rates of benefits / pensions will become payable from April 2023.
More broadly, the government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living and has taken further decisive action to support people with their energy bills ahead of Winter 2022. The new “Energy Price Guarantee” will mean a typical UK household will now pay up to an average £2,500 a year on their energy bill for the next two years from 1 October, saving the average household in Great Britain at least £1,000 a year based on current energy prices from October. This is in addition to the over £37bn of cost-of-living support announced earlier this year which includes the £400 non-repayable discount to eligible households provided through the Energy Bills Support Scheme.
Asked by: Julian Sturdy (Conservative - York Outer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of legal safety standards for the use of clean-in-place systems in the brewing industry; and if he will make it his policy to mandate the placing of leakage detecting air testing devices around those systems in breweries.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) already has in place an effective regulatory regime to protect employees from substances hazardous to health in the workplace under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations 2002. The regulations place duties on employers, including those running clean-in-place systems in a brewery, to assess the risk of exposure to substances hazardous to health arising from their activities. HSE publishes Workplace Exposure Limits to help employers define the standard they need to meet. Arising from this, employers are required to put in place appropriate controls to prevent or control exposure of employees to those substances hazardous to health by inhalation, ingestion etc. in the workplace.
The COSHH Regulations 2002 also set out a hierarchy of control measures that should be applied when assessing the effective prevention or control of exposure to substances hazardous to health. Any requirement for an individual brewery to use leakage detection devices should be identified in the risk assessment process and provided by the employer.
Asked by: Julian Sturdy (Conservative - York Outer)
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 potential merits of the Health and Safety Executive strengthening regulation regarding the monitoring of air quality around clean-in-place systems in breweries.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) already has in place an effective regulatory regime to protect employees from substances hazardous to health in the workplace under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations 2002. The regulations place duties on employers, including those running clean-in-place systems in a brewery, to assess the risk of exposure to substances hazardous to health arising from their activities. HSE publishes Workplace Exposure Limits to help employers define the standard they need to meet. Arising from this, employers are required to put in place appropriate controls to prevent or control exposure of employees to those substances hazardous to health by inhalation, ingestion etc. in the workplace.
The COSHH Regulations 2002 also set out a hierarchy of control measures that should be applied when assessing the effective prevention or control of exposure to substances hazardous to health. Any requirement for an individual brewery to use leakage detection devices should be identified in the risk assessment process and provided by the employer.
Asked by: Julian Sturdy (Conservative - York Outer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of offering people eligible for winter fuel payments the option of donating the sum they would receive to charity instead.
Answered by Guy Opperman
Winter fuel payments give reassurance, particularly to poorer pensioners, that they can keep warm during the colder months. The department currently issues over 11 million winter fuel payments within a small delivery window. Introducing an option on the notification for customers to donate their winter fuel payment would introduce complexity to the process. Recipients are of course free to donate the payment to a charity of their choice.
Asked by: Julian Sturdy (Conservative - York Outer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether virtual assessments will remain in-place for universal credit applicants who are classified as clinically extremely vulnerable.
Answered by Chloe Smith
We are currently delivering health assessments through a variety of channels including face-to-face, and telephone and video assessments introduced in response to the pandemic. Whenever possible we will conduct a paper-based assessment. Any future decisions about assessment methods will be evidence-based and to ensure this we will draw on existing evidence as well as research and analysis.
Asked by: Julian Sturdy (Conservative - York Outer)
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 effect on elderly people and people with mobility issues in towns and villages without bank branches of the discontinuation of the Post Office card system.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The Department is committed to supporting the Department’s customers to access their benefit and pension payments as we transform our payment exception services.
Access to a standard account through a bank, building society or credit union enables citizens to benefit from the wider range of financial services and to achieve greater financial inclusion.
The Post Office delivers every day banking services for a large number of banks and building societies to enable citizens with a standard account to withdraw cash, free of charge, deposit cash and cheques and make balance enquires at any Post Office counter including mobile Post Office branches.
The full range of every day personal banking services that the Post Office delivers from any Post Office branch, and for whom they deliver them, is available on the Post Office website https://www.postoffice.co.uk/everydaybanking.
The new payment exception service will ensure that customers can continue to access cash in their local area.
Asked by: Julian Sturdy (Conservative - York Outer)
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 effect on elderly people and people with mobility issues in towns and villages without bank branches of the discontinuation of the Post Office card system.
Answered by Guy Opperman
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Dissolution.
Asked by: Julian Sturdy (Conservative - York Outer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 8 February 2021 to Question 145788, for what reasons local data is not available for the Kickstart scheme; and what steps his Department plans to take to assess the effectiveness of that scheme.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The Department for Work and Pensions collects data on the uptake of the Kickstart Scheme. We have published information on the number of young people who have started in each region, here: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2021-04-12/179100, but we are unable to break this down below the regional level at present.
The need to deliver and operate the Kickstart Scheme at pace has led to a current limited clerical data set which, in turn, makes it harder to accurately present a snapshot of a smaller geographical area, such as a Parliamentary constituency. Information is contained across multiple systems as more than one Jobcentre could cover a single constituency. Conversely, Kickstart placements and vacancies are not allocated to one JCP, so we have many vacancies which may be connected to a company based or headquartered in one area, but the vacancies can be filled from a wider geographical area.
As such, it is not currently possible to provide the data below the regional level. We are, however, continuing to develop our management information tools and data collection system which may help in sharing more localised information at a local authority level in due course.
The Government is monitoring and evaluating the Kickstart Scheme throughout its implementation, and will continue to evaluate the longer term outcomes and impact for Kickstart participants.
Asked by: Julian Sturdy (Conservative - York Outer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of extending the one calendar month deadline to request a mandatory reconsideration to allow claimants sufficient time to compile necessary information in the context of delays caused by the covid-19 (a) outbreak and (b) lockdown announced in January 2021.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The law provides that if an application is made outside the one month time limit but within 13 months of the decision being disputed, the application will be admitted as in time where the claimant can show there were special circumstances for the late application.
Claimants do not have to submit all of the supporting information within one month. When they apply for a Mandatory Reconsideration, they can inform the Decision Maker they intend to provide further information. In these cases, more time will be allowed for this to be provided and no decision will be made until it is received.
Asked by: Julian Sturdy (Conservative - York Outer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many residents of the City of York are accessing support through the (a) Kickstart programme and (b) Plan for Jobs measures in the most recent period for which figures are available.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The requested local data is not available.