Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
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 impact delays in change of circumstance requests for Disability Living Allowance claims have on the welfare of those children and their families.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In certain cases, delays may occur due to the gathering of evidence from the NHS or Schools but, where possible, we are aiming to gather this from the parent/guardian of the child to expedite this. We have seen a significant increase in claims, which results in us deploying our people accordingly to ensure we manage service across the entire business.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will publish data on the (a) geographical location and (b) age profile of people who have not claimed Universal Credit following required migration.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The latest published statistics which include geography and age breakdowns can be accessed at: Completing the move to Universal Credit: statistics related to the move of households claiming Tax Credits and DWP benefits to Universal Credit: data to end of August 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the document entitled Personal Independence Payment: Official Statistics to July 2023, published on 19 September 2023, what steps his Department is taking to manage increases in the number of new PIP applications.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Despite the increase in new claims, we have seen a decrease in PIP clearance times since August 2021 with the latest statistics showing that the average end-to-end journey has reduced from 26 weeks in August 2021 to 15 weeks at the end of October. This means that we’re clearing claims faster than we were prior to the pandemic.
This is because we are:
In addition, the Health Transformation Programme (HTP) is modernising Health and Disability benefit services to create a more efficient service, to reduce processing times and improving trust in our services and decisions. As part of this, from July 2023, a limited number of claimants have been able to begin their claim for PIP entirely online.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
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 potential impact of the 27.5 week timescale for completing change in circumstance requests for child Disability Living Allowance claims on those children and their families.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The average journey time for change in circumstances for child Disability Living Allowance is 13 weeks. In certain cases, we are experiencing delays in the gathering of further evidence from the NHS, however, where possible, we are looking to expedite this by obtaining it from the parent/guardian of the child instead.
We have seen a significant increase in child Disability Living Allowance claims and therefore need to deploy our people accordingly to ensure we balance workloads to manage the entire service.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Pension Credit claimants reached State Pension age (a) in and (b) since April 2016.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Latest published statistics show there were 1.38m Pension Credit claimants at May-23. 1,440 of these reached State Pension age (SPa) in April 2016, with a further 196,520 having reached SPa since April 2016.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when he plans to publish his Department's response to the Options for Defined Benefit Scheme: call for evidence which closed in September 2023.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The government response to ‘Options for Defined Benefit schemes: a call for evidence’ was published on 22 November 2023. Please see the link to our response at Government response to Options for Defined Benefit schemes - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people claiming Pension Credit were born on or after April 2016.
Answered by Laura Trott - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Pension Credit is only available to those of State Pension age. Therefore the number and proportion of people claiming Pension Credit who were born on or after April 2016, is zero. They are, at most, seven years old.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, to confirm what the average answering time is on the Pension Service Helpline.
Answered by Laura Trott - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The table below shows data from the Pension Service lines, Pension Credit and State Pension. The metrics include Average Speed to Answer as requested for the last complete calendar month.
Date | Product Line | Average Speed to Answer (hh:mm:ss) |
Aug-23 | Pension Credit | 0:06:08 |
Aug-23 | State Pension | 0:03:08 |
|
|
|
| Average | 0:04:22 |
Please note this information is derived from the Department’s management information designed solely for the purpose of helping the Department to manage its business. As such, it has not been subjected to the rigorous quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics. As DWP holds the information internally, we have released it. However, it is possible information held by DWP may change due to operational reasons and we recommend that caution be applied when using it.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an estimate of the number of families in Ellesmere Port and Neston constituency subject to the two child benefit limit.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
310 Universal Credit households.
Notes:
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reason his Department set the assessment period for the first cost of living payment for 2023 from 26 January 2023 to 25 February 2023.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The qualifying date is as close to the payment date as possible so that only those who have recently received an eligible means-tested benefit receive a Cost of Living Payment
This means that claimants who received a nil award during the qualifying period would not be entitled to a Cost of Living Payment. Most nil awards will be as a result of increased earnings.
Paying those with financial resources available, which would make them ineligible for means-tested benefits, is not the intention of the Cost of Living Payments which are aimed at those on the lowest incomes.