Asked by: Matthew Pennycook (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of the number of households in Greenwich and Woolwich constituency that will be migrated from legacy benefits to universal credit.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The requested information is not available for publication by constituency
Asked by: Matthew Pennycook (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when her Department undertook the most recent equality impact assessment of universal credit.
Answered by Lord Sharma
DWP published an Equality Impact Assessment for Universal Credit in 2011, which stands overall, although in line with Ministers’ legal duties equality impacts have been considered on all major changes to Universal Credit.
The Equality Impact Assessment can be accessed at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-equality-impact-assessment
Asked by: Matthew Pennycook (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent estimate he has made of the additional funding required by his Department over the next two years to prepare effectively for the UK leaving the EU.
Answered by Damian Hinds
Like all departments, the Department for Work and Pensions is planning for a number of EU Exit scenarios. Over £250m of additional funding has been approved across a number of departments in 2017/18 to prepare for Brexit. We have reprioritised during this financial year as necessary, whilst the costs of EU Exit in future years will be affected by negotiations over the coming months.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has confirmed that the government will guarantee European Union funding for all structural and investment fund projects signed before the Autumn Statement 2016, and those signed after that date but before we leave the European Union so long as they are good value for money and in line with domestic strategic priorities, even when these projects continue after we have left.
Asked by: Matthew Pennycook (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of the performance of Access to Work; and what steps his Department is taking to ensure that (a) deafblind people and (b) people with complex needs receive the appropriate levels of support to help them into work.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
The Government wants all disabled and people with a long term health condition to fulfil their potential and achieve their aspirations. Every individual should to have the opportunity to work and share in the economic and health benefits that work brings, regardless of their health condition or disability.
Deafblind customers and customers with complex needs are not recorded separately in Access to Work data, so it is not possible to assess the scheme’s performance with them. However, Access to Work has specialist teams to provide a dedicated service to particular groups of customers including both deaf customers and customers with a visual impairment. People who are deafblind are normally assisted by the Visual Impairment team
Last year, Access to Work helped over 36,000 people to take up or remain in employment. Access to Work figures may be subject to change. Official Statistics have recently been subject to a detailed methodology review which identified some technical issues. We will release a revised publication once these issues have been resolved.
We will soon publish a Green Paper on work and health and conduct a consultation aimed at disabled people, their representative organisations and a wide range of other stakeholders, who all have an important part to play in making the transformative changes needed.
Asked by: Matthew Pennycook (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of isolation in the workplace on disabled people and the effect of such isolation on developing skills and career progression for disabled people.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
The Department for Work and Pensions has not made a recent assessment of the effect of isolation in the workplace on disabled people.
However, we are committed to halving the employment gap between disabled and non-disabled people. The Department for Work and Pensions and the Department of Health have created a cross departmental Work and Health Unit to develop a strategy for system-wide reform on health, disability and employment, in order to reduce the numbers of people who are economically inactive due to a health condition or disability. The treatment of disabled people in the workplace will be among the factors the unit takes into account.
Meanwhile, employers and disabled employees continue to benefit from the support offered through Access to Work, which provides practical support, advice and guidance for both disabled people in work or entering work and their employers.
In addition, the Government’s Disability Confident scheme supports our commitment to halve the disability employment gap by focusing on employers, who have a crucial role to play in ensuring disabled people are recruited, retained and developed in their careers. Employers signing-up to Disability Confident on Gov.UK get access to a wide range of information, good practice and other resources, including links to DWP programmes which offer practical support.
Asked by: Matthew Pennycook (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that personal independence payment assessments are undertaken fairly and appropriately.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
Provider performance is measured across a range of contracted service levels, which set out the Department's expectations for the delivery of the service. These include the requirements for the quality of assessments which are assessed through an independent audit. Contractual remedies are in place if the provider fails to deliver against the service standards.
Asked by: Matthew Pennycook (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans he has to update the document, Medical guidance for DLA decision makers (child cases): staff guide, last updated on 8 December 2015, to incorporate references to congenital, inherited or acquired heart disease.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The department has committed to undertake a comprehensive review of the suite of medical guidance products for Child Disability Living Allowance decision makers over the next 12 months. This will include creating additional guidance where required.
Asked by: Matthew Pennycook (Labour - Greenwich and Woolwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress his Department has made in piloting reasonable adjustments to the work capability assessment for people with mental health problems.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
The Department has been working closely with its new provider, the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments (CHDA) to develop and test new processes for obtaining further evidence as part of the Work Capability Assessment. An initial test of these new processes should start by the end of the year.