Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much public funding the Health and Safety Executive (a) received in each of the last 10 years and (b) is forecast to receive in 2019-20.
Answered by Sarah Newton
2009/10 | 2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 | 2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 | 2018/19 - forecast |
£m | £m | £m | £m | £m | £m | £m | £m | £m | £m |
228 | 203 | 175 | 159 | 154 | 138 | 134 | 133 | 128 | 123 |
Figures provided are based on net operating expenditure reported in HSE’s Annual Report and Accounts and excludes Capital spend.
HSE’s funding for 2019/20 is not yet agreed as DWP (HSE’s sponsor department) are still in the process of finalising budgets.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many health and safety concerns were reported by (a) workers and (b) members of the public to the Health and Safety Executive; and how many were investigated by inspectors in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Sarah Newton
Please see attached tables showing concerns raised by workers and members of the public and concerns investigated by Inspectors.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many frontline inspectors the Health and Safety Executive has employed in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The number of frontline inspectors the Health and Safety Executive has employed in each of the last 10 years are as follows:
HSE (including ONR) | ||||
2008/09 | 2009/10 | 2010/11 | 2011/12 | 2012/13 |
1,463 | 1,495 | 1,450 | 1,432 | 1,367 |
HSE (excluding ONR) | ||||
2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 |
1,051 | 1,038 | 1,037 | 988 | 978 |
HSE inspector numbers are as per the respective Annual Report and Accounts.
The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) became an independent statutory public corporation on 1 April 2014 and are excluded from 2013/14 onwards.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many proactive inspections were carried out by the Health and Safety Executive in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The number of proactive inspections carried out by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in each of the last 10 years is as follows:
Year (a) | Number of proactive inspections |
2009/10 | Not available |
2010/11 | Not available |
2011/12 | c.21,700 |
2012/13 | c.22,240 |
2013/14 | c.23,470 |
2014/15 | c.20,200 |
2015/16 | c.18,000 |
2016/17 | c.20,000 |
2017/18 | c.20,000 |
2018/19 (b) | Not yet available |
Figures on the numbers of inspections were not part of HSE’s targets or performance measures prior to 2011/12 and were not collated.
(a) Years commencing 1st April
(b) Year to date
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of paying state pensions on a fixed date in every month rather than a four weekly cycle.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The position on the payment of the State Pension has not changed under this Government, the coalition or its predecessors.
We receive very few representations on fixed date payments of the State Pension. While we understand it may be preferred by some, and we do keep the method of payment under review, there are no plans to change the current payment periods.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the amount of debt to be written-off from arrears accrued under the Child Support Agency because parents had not responded to (a) letters and (b) telephone calls within 60 days.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The estimate can be found on page 24 of the Child Maintenance Compliance and Arrears Strategy consultation document which was published in December 2017
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much her Department (a) has spent and (b) plans to spend in the next three months on publicity in relation to the UK leaving the EU without a deal.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The Government has a duty to inform citizens and businesses about how leaving the EU might affect them, and to advise on the steps they may need to take to prepare for EU Exit.
We have developed a cross-departmental public information campaign to help achieve this. Over the coming weeks, we will be using a range of channels to direct UK citizens, businesses, EU citizens living in the UK and UK nationals living in the EU to a dedicated area on GOV.UK at Gov.uk/euexit.
Information on the costs associated with this campaign will be released in due course as part of normal data transparency releases.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will amend universal credit regulations to allow for the housing cost element for renters to be calculated for a 53-week year in 2019-20; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
Universal Credit is calculated and paid on monthly cycles to reflect the fact that the vast majority of people receive their wages monthly. Many social landlords still expect their tenants to pay rent on a weekly basis, a practice based upon a time when both wages and benefits were paid weekly. The effect of this is that, roughly every six years, there will be 53 payment days in a twelve-month period with the result that, over the cycle, the average social sector tenant will receive approximately 35p a week less towards their rent. A key principle of Universal Credit is that it simplifies the benefit system for working age claimants and re-assessing housing costs to reflect the number of rent payments in any particular year would be complicated and lead to confusion. As such, the Department has no plans to amend these regulations.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Health and Safety Executive inspector posts are currently vacant; and what assessment she has made of the effect of those vacancies on the ability of the Health and Safety Executive to attend incidents.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) currently has 29 regulatory inspector vacancies.
HSE does not investigate all incidents reported to them, only the most serious work-related incidents are investigated. These include those which result in the death of a person and incidents which meet HSE’s incident selection criteria.
http://www.hse.gov.uk/foi/internalops/og/ogprocedures/investigation/incidselcrits.htm
HSE is an arms-length body and the Chair has assured me that current resources are sufficient for HSE to respond to incidents that meet HSE’s incident selection criteria for investigation.