Asked by: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department is taking steps to help support UK pensioners living in countries without a reciprocal pension uprating agreement with the UK.
Answered by Laura Trott - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The UK State Pension is payable worldwide to those who meet the qualifying conditions. Entitlement is based on an individual’s national insurance record. State Pensions are up-rated abroad where there is a legal requirement to do so – for example where there is a reciprocal agreement that provides for up-rating.
This Government continues to take the view that priority should be given to those living in the UK when drawing up expenditure plans for pensioner benefits. There is information available in leaflets and on GOV.UK on how to claim State Pension from overseas and on what the effect of going abroad will be on a person’s UK State Pension.
Asked by: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has held discussions with the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs on the request made by the Government of Canada to discuss a reciprocal social security agreement with the UK.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
I refer the honourable member to the answer given to PQ 45728 on 17 September 2022.
Asked by: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many requests for a reciprocal social security agreements his Department has received, including on pensions, broken down by country in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
I refer the honourable member to the answer given to PQ 129841 on 7 March 2022.
Asked by: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she will take steps to provide additional support for disabled people, in the context of increases in the cost of living.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave on 9 November 2022 to Question UIN 80920.
Asked by: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to reduce (a) delays and (b) waiting times for those in the Personal Independence Payment application process.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
We are committed to ensuring people can access financial support through Personal Independence Payment (PIP) in a timely manner, taking into account the need to review all available evidence. Reducing customer journey times for PIP claimants is a priority for the department and we are working constantly to make improvements to our service.
We are seeing an improvement in average clearance times for new PIP claims and the latest statistics show that the end-to-end journey has steadily reduced from 26 weeks in August 2021 to 18 weeks at the end of July 2022. This is because we are:
Asked by: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
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 adequacy of (a) means-tested and (b) non-means-tested benefit payments for (i) blind and (ii) partially sighted people.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
No assessment has been made of the adequacy of (a) means-tested and (b) non-means-tested benefit payments for (i) blind and (ii) partially sighted people.
Asked by: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
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 of increasing benefits in line with living costs on levels of child poverty.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
No assessment has been made.
The Secretary of State undertakes an annual review of benefits and pensions, and the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) in the year to September this approach has been in place since 1987 is the latest figure that the Secretary of State can use to allow sufficient time for the required legislative and operational changes before new rates can be introduced at the start of the new financial year.
CPI has been the default inflation measure for the government’s statutory annual review of benefits since 2011.
CPI has a basket of goods and services that is relevant to pensioners and benefit recipients, is the target level of inflation used by the Bank of England and is an internationally recognised measure.
National Statistics on the number of children in low income are published annually in the “Households Below Average Income” publication. Latest statistics, covering up until 2020/21, on the number of children in low income in the UK can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1064433/hbai-summary-results.ods
The latest statistics show that in the UK in 2020/21 there were 200 thousand fewer children in absolute poverty, before housing costs, than in 2009/10.
This Government is committed to reducing child poverty and supporting all low-income families, and believes work is the best route out of poverty. With around 1.32 million vacancies across the UK our focus is firmly on supporting people into and to progress. Our multi-billion-pound Plan for Jobs, which has been expanded by £500 million, and Way to Work is a concerted drive across the UK to help half a million currently out of work people into jobs by the end of June 2022.
We are giving the lowest earners a pay rise by increasing the National Living Wage by 6.6% to £9.50 from April 2022, and making permanent changes to Universal Credit, worth £1000 a year on average, to two million in-work claimants.
We recognise that some people require additional support and from April, the government is providing an additional £500 million to help households with the cost of essentials, on top of what we have already provided since October 2021, bringing the total funding for this support to £1 billion.
Asked by: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the Government has plans to reinstate the cross-departmental Child Poverty Unit.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
A key function of the previous Child Poverty Unit was to support the delivery of the child poverty targets that we abolished in 2016, which we have no plans to reintroduce. We believe that an approach to tackling child poverty focused primarily on meeting income-based targets can drive action that focuses primarily on moving the incomes for those ‘just in poverty’ just above a ‘poverty line’ whilst doing nothing to help those on the very lowest incomes or to improve children’s future prospects.
Ministers and officials engage extensively across Government to ensure a coordinated approach to tackling poverty and we will we continue to do so in the future.
The latest statistics show that in 2020/21 there were 200,000 fewer children in absolute poverty before housing costs than in 2009/10.
Asked by: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
What estimate she has made of the number of jobs created by the Kickstart scheme in Rutherglen and Hamilton West constituency.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
I refer the honourable member to the answer given for PQ 58900.
Asked by: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to monitor the impact of its policy on indexing state pensions overseas only for British pensioners in countries with reciprocal uprating agreements.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
No assessment has been made. The decision to move abroad is voluntary and remains a personal choice dependent on the circumstances of the individual. This longstanding policy has been in place under successive governments for over 70 years.