Asked by: Kirsty Blackman (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many applicants moving from disability living allowance to personal independence payment have been awarded less than they were receiving through disability living allowance in (a) Aberdeen North constituency, (b) Scotland and (c) the UK in each year since April 2013.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
The table below shows the number of applicants moving from disability living allowance to personal independence payment who were awarded less than they were receiving through disability living allowance between April 2013 and October 2016, the latest date for which figures are available.
Table – decreased awards following reassessment for PIP in Aberdeen North, Scotland and Great Britain
| Aberdeen North | Scotland | Great Britain |
Jan to Dec 2013 | # | # | # |
Jan to Dec 2014 | # | 800 | 16,100 |
Jan to Dec 2015 | 100 | 6,500 | 65,400 |
Jan to Oct 2016 | 200 | 13,500 | 149,200 |
Total | 300 | 20,800 | 230,700 |
‘#’ used for instances where there are less than 10 cases to avoid the release of confidential data.
Asked by: Kirsty Blackman (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, which EU directives relating to his Department's responsibilities are awaiting transposition into UK law.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The UK remains a member of the EU until we leave, with full rights and obligations of membership. This includes transposing EU legislation into UK law.
The Department for Work and Pensions is aware of the following directives relating to the Department’s responsibilities for which transposition is planned:
Council Directive 2013/59/Euratom of 5 December 2013 laying down basic safety standards for protection against the dangers arising from exposure to ionising radiation. The transposition deadline is 6 February 2018. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has the overall UK government policy lead. The Health and Safety Executive is responsible for a discrete set of regulations (The Ionising Radiations Regulations) under the Basic Safety Standards Directive.
Directive 2016/2341/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 December 2016 on the activities and supervision of institutions for occupational retirement provision (IORPs). The transposition deadline is 13 January 2019.
Asked by: Kirsty Blackman (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department considers Lifetime ISA savings as capital for the purposes of capital limits for welfare means testing.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Like other forms of saving, the surrender value of the Lifetime ISA will be treated as capital in means tested benefits and therefore subject to capital limits. This was set out in a detailed policy document on the Lifetime ISA from HM Treasury in September.
Asked by: Kirsty Blackman (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in Scotland have (a) applied for personal independence payments (PIPs), (b) been refused PIPs and (c) been refused PIPs and subsequently had that decision overturned on appeal; and how many such decisions overturned on appeal were challenged by his Department.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Data on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) registrations, clearances and award rates, at regional level, are available on Gov.UK and were most recently updated on 16 September: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/personal-independence-payment-statistics
The information requested in relation to appeals is not available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. Information on PIP mandatory reconsiderations has been published with the PIP data (earlier link refers) and data for PIP appeals are published by the Ministry of Justice as part of their quarterly Tribunal statistics: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics#social-security-and-child-support-statistics
Asked by: Kirsty Blackman (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many hours his Department spent on processing freedom of information requests in each of the last 24 months.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Processing Freedom of Information requests is an integral part of civil servants' responsibilities. As such the number of hours spent on this activity is not separately identifiable.
Asked by: Kirsty Blackman (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 13 July 2015 to Question 6306, what the reasons are for his decision not to publish his Department's guidance on answering parliamentary questions.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
It is not usual practice to place internal departmental guidance in the House of Commons library but I have now placed a copy of said guidance in the Library.
Asked by: Kirsty Blackman (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 2 July 2015 to Question 3935, what assessment he has made of the compliance of his Department's practice in providing statistics in answers to parliamentary questions with paragraphs 7.37 and 7.38 of the Guide to Parliamentary Work issued by the Leader of the House in May 2010.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The paragraphs referred to by the hon. Member refer to information that is already available in published departmental statistics. I refer her to paragraph 7.32 of the same document.
7.32 Members are advised that questions ‘must be seeking information that is not readily available elsewhere in the public domain‘ (including in answers to identical or similar questions in a previous session). Increasingly, this is the case as more and more information is available on government websites, though not necessarily in the format requested in the question
Asked by: Kirsty Blackman (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 2 July 2015 to Question 3935, what the agreed procedures referred to are; when and by whom they were agreed; and if he will place in the Library a copy of those procedures.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Following agreement from the Ministers in the Department at the time, the internal guidance for answering Parliamentary Questions that contain official statistics was updated in 2012. It is not departmental policy to place internal guidance in the House of Commons library.
Asked by: Kirsty Blackman (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 18 June 2015 to Question 2685, if he will make it his policy to respond to Parliamentary Questions seeking benefits statistics which are held by his Department in Stat-Xplore by publishing extractions of the relevant data in those Answers.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department makes a wide range of official statistics readily available via the GOV.UK website and also via online portals such as Stat-Xplore. The Department follows agreed procedures on how to provide statistics when answering parliamentary questions by using links to the appropriate pages and data portals. This is an efficient way of answering the volume and wide range of parliamentary questions received.
Asked by: Kirsty Blackman (Scottish National Party - Aberdeen North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people had their benefits sanctioned in Aberdeen in each of the last 12 quarters for which figures are available.
Answered by Priti Patel
The latest available information on sanctions, up to December 2014, is published at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/:
Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started---SuperWEB2.html