Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much in 2020-21 discretionary housing payments had been distributed nationally as of August 2020.
Answered by Will Quince
We have provided £180m in Discretionary Housing Payment (DHPs) funding to Local Authorities (LAs) to support vulnerable claimants with housing costs in the private and social rented sector in England and Wales for 2020/21. This includes an extra £40m as announced last year at the spending round.
Each year the Department publishes the annual LA allocations; the current year allocations are available at:
Since 2017 DHPs have been fully devolved in Scotland; the Scottish Government is responsible for informing Scottish LAs of their individual allocations.
Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much funding has been allocated to the Health & Safety Executive for (a) delivering Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals after the transition period and (b) establishing a new building safety regulator following the Grenfell Tower disaster; and whether these funding allocations are in addition to the £14 million announced by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on 12 May 2020 for making workplaces safe during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The total funding allocated to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for (a) delivering Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals after the transition period for 2020/21 is £3.46m. This funding is provided by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Allocations for future years will be decided as part of the Spending Review process for 2020.
HSE has not yet been allocated any funding in respect of (b) the new Building Safety Regulator. Costs to the organisation are currently being met by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). HSE and MHCLG are currently discussing future funding arrangements for this work.
The additional HSE funding of up to £14m is additional funding and is ring-fenced for dealing with additional work arising from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if her Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of suspending the under-occupancy charge during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Will Quince
The Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy (RSRS) policy has helped to contain growing housing support expenditure, encourage mobility within the social rented sector, strengthen work-incentives and make better use of available social housing. There are currently no plans to change this policy. It would not be practical to make such temporary adjustments to the size criteria, which require regulatory changes, to reflect self-isolation or shielding when the household, property and rental costs have not changed.
Previously, Housing Benefit claimants who live in the social rented sector generally had their rents met in full and their entitlement was not affected by whether or not they under occupied their homes. However, this was no longer considered sustainable and from April 2013 Housing Benefit for working-age tenants in the social rented sector has been restricted. These restrictions apply where people live in a property that is too large for their needs.
As with all spending decisions difficult choices have to be made about priorities and where to focus additional resources. Those unable to meet a shortfall in their rent can seek assistance via the Discretionary Housing Payment (DHPs) scheme. DHPs can be paid to those in receipt of Housing Benefit or the housing element of Universal Credit who face a shortfall in meeting their rental housing costs.
In addition, we have just announced an extra £40 million for DHPs in 2020/21 in England and Wales.
Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if her Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of removing the £16,000 savings threshold for eligibility for universal credit.
Answered by Will Quince
A key principle of UC is that it supports people who do not have assets available to meet their basic needs. While it is important to protect the incentive to save for claimants on low earnings, people with substantial capital can take responsibility for their own support. This is to ensure that we can maintain our focus on getting money to citizens who need it and safeguarding the most vulnerable.
If capital exceeds £16,000 there will be no entitlement to UC, unless the capital can be disregarded, for example personal injury compensation payments. Capital above £6,000 will reduce the amount of UC paid by £4.35 per month for every £250 of capital or part thereof.
If someone has money in their account that is to be used for business purposes, for example for paying tax, it will not be counted towards their capital, but they may be asked to prove that the money is for business purposes. People should make clear in their application the savings that are business assets, and note it in their online journal.
Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether there is a freephone number that universal credit claimants can use when attempting to make phone contact with her Department from abroad.
Answered by Will Quince
You can dial all of the 0800 numbers from abroad using the 0044 prefix. If a claimant does find themselves needing to dial an 0800 number from abroad, then they may incur charges at the standard international rate. This cost will vary depending on where they are calling from.
Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reason under universal credit (a) statutory maternity pay is classed as earnings and subject to partial disregard and (b) maternity allowance is classed as income with the full payment taken into account.
Answered by Lord Sharma
Universal Credit is a means tested system of support and where claimants have income available to meet their everyday living costs, such as maternity allowance, it is right that their entitlement to UC is adjusted accordingly (as currently is the case with other DWP legacy means tested working age benefits).
Statutory maternity pay is paid by an employer and is a form of earnings. As a result, statutory maternity pay is therefore subject to the work allowance and tapering within Universal Credit, as are other earnings.
Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many (a) disabled social security recipients and (b) pension recipients have their payments made into a Post Office account.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The Department for Work and Pensions provides Post Office card accounts to ensure that customers can continue to access their benefits and pensions in this way.
As of October 2018 there were just under 1.2m active Post Office card accounts. In line with our wider policy on financial inclusion, we have always made it clear that payment into a bank, building society or credit union is the preferred way for all benefits to be paid.
The information requested about the number of disabled social security and pension recipients is not available.
Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether it is her Department's policy that all pensions provider will be required to sign up to the pensions dashboard; and whether the state pension will be included in the pensions dashboard.
Answered by Guy Opperman
I published a written statement providing an update on pensions including the pensions dashboard. (https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2018-09-04/HCWS933/)
We are working through the options around scheme participation in any potential pensions dashboard. The decision whether to legislate to compel participation depends on a number of factors such as the potential service design, delivery model and governance arrangements. Our findings on this will be included in the feasibility study which will be published shortly.
People can access the online ‘Check your State Pension’ service through GOV.UK to get a forecast of their State Pension, where they can get information about how they may be able to improve it, as well as view their National Insurance contribution record. Check Your State Pension has provided more than ten million online estimates since its introduction in 2016. As part of our feasibility work we have been considering whether State Pension data should be available alongside private pension information.