Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 18 September 2018 to Question HL9912 on universal credit, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of the steps that the Government is taking to ensure the accuracy of the electronic verification of universal credit claimants who meet the eligibility criteria for free school meals.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The Department works closely with the Department for Education (DfE) to assist it deliver its Free School Meals policy.
DWP has a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with DfE over the transfer of data from the Universal Credit system to the Passported Benefits Eligibility checking system. Data is received from the Universal Credit system, on a daily basis. This means that the data is at most 23 hours and 59 minutes old, depending on when the claimant / agent last updated the record.
If a claimant has an open Universal Credit full service claim their take home pay is compared against the earning threshold. As a safeguard for claimants who have fluctuating earnings, the take-home pay is checked going back up to 3 months. In these cases, the take-home pay is aggregated to give an amount for use in the eligibility calculation.
DfE have processes in place to inform and deal with delays to ensure no claimants lose out as a result of this.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
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 effect of delays in the payment of universal credit benefits on (a) food bank use and (b) child poverty levels in Preston.
Answered by Lord Sharma
Under the legacy system £2.4 billion of benefits did not get paid at all because claimants could not navigate the complexity of the system. Universal Credit puts this right, ensuring this money goes to 700,000 claimants who need it.
There are many and varied reasons why people use food banks and it is misleading to link this to any single cause. People on Universal Credit move into work faster and stay in work longer. Work offers families the best opportunity to move out of poverty and Universal Credit strengthens incentives for parents to move into and progress in work. There are 300,000 fewer children in absolute poverty compared with 2010 – a record low.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many personnel from (a) Cumbria Constabulary, (b) Lancashire Constabulary and (c) Merseyside Constabulary her Department has (i) sign posted and (ii) recorded as made use of a local food bank in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
In line with the guidance issued to Jobcentre Plus staff, they are not required to keep records of the number of benefit claimants signposted to food banks in their local area.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has plans to record the number of universal credit claimants that are referred to food banks by job centres.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
Jobcentre Plus does not make direct referrals to food banks, but offers a signposting service to customers who have expressed an interest in using a food bank. The Department has no plans to require Jobcentre staff to record the number of Universal Credit claimants that are signposted to food banks.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
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 potential merits of removing reductions in the level of housing benefit to meet the Government's homelessness reduction target by 2027.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The Government has set out its plans to eradicate rough sleeping by 2027 in the recently published Rough Sleeping Strategy.
A copy of the Rough Sleeping Strategy can be found here - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-rough-sleeping-strategy
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential for an increase in food bank use during the school summer holidays in the North West.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The Department has not carried out any research into trends in the number of people using food banks or into the many and varied factors which may be influencing their growth. However, we are currently reviewing research carried out by a variety of organisations, to add to our understanding of food bank use, and will consider requirements to add to our evidence base.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many funeral expenses payments have been made in Preston constituency since January 2015.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claims for the Social Fund Funeral Expenses Payment Scheme her Department refused in Preston in each year from 2015 to 2018.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent estimate her Department has made of the number of people who will lose their homes as a result of the ending of the Support for Mortgage Interest for claimants in receipt of Employment and Support Allowance.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) claimants will have the option to take up the offer of an SMI loan when the SMI benefit scheme ends. The new loan scheme will continue to provide robust protection against repossession to all eligible claimants in times of need, with the level of support available being calculated in the same way as under the SMI benefit system. Claimants and mortgage lenders will not see any difference in the payments they receive and claimants will not be required to repay the loan until their property is sold or transferred subject to the availability of sufficient equity to repay the loan.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what support her Department provides to job clubs run by Christians Against Poverty; what the nature of that support is; and at which locations those job clubs are based.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The Department works in collaboration with a number of external organisations to ensure claimants are able to access the support they need.
We have been working with Christians Against Poverty (CAP) since April 2012, with CAP offering a wide range of free non contracted provisions that Work Coaches can signpost claimants towards. This includes job clubs, debt help and money management courses to help claimants overcome barriers to employment.
Relationships with CAP are managed at a local level across the Jobcentre network. Information on the local services provided by CAP is available to staff via our District Provision Tool. This digital tool lists local and national provision and support delivered by Jobcentre Plus, Skills Funding Agency, Skills Development Scotland, Careers Wales, other providers, local authorities, and independent and volunteer organisations.