Asked by: Michael Meacher (Labour - Oldham West and Royton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many persons in the Support Group for Employment and Support Allowance have been called in each month since January 2013, for further work-focused interviews after already assessed as not fit for this kind of activity in each month since January 2013; and what steps he is taking to reduce the number of such interviews.
Answered by Mark Harper - Secretary of State for Transport
Claimants placed in the Support Group have no obligation to attend Work Focused Interviews. We therefore do not hold information on those claimants invited for Work Focused Interviews.
Asked by: Michael Meacher (Labour - Oldham West and Royton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make it his policy to collate and publish information on the weekly amount and duration of jobseeker's allowance hardship payments.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The Department intends to publish figures on the number of hardship applications and awards in May 2015.
Asked by: Michael Meacher (Labour - Oldham West and Royton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people who have been sanctioned since January 2012 have received hardship payments in each year since then; and what the average level was of such hardship payments.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The latest available published information for Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) hardship awards is for the year from April 2011 to March 2012 and can be accessed via the link below.
Information on the weekly amount awarded or on the duration of the award is not available. Therefore it is not possible to work out the average level of such hardship payments.
Asked by: Michael Meacher (Labour - Oldham West and Royton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many peer reviews his Department has carried out following the death of benefit claimants; how many such reviews involved the sanctioning of claimants; and in how many cases his Department's action was found to be inappropriate or incorrect.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The Department has conducted 49 peer reviews relating to the death of a claimant. Peer reviews are conducted to assure the Department’s processes.
Asked by: Michael Meacher (Labour - Oldham West and Royton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when she expects commercial planting of GM crops to begin in England and Wales.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
We are not expecting commercial GM planting here for a few years at least. There are no types of GM crop seed in the current pipeline for EU approval that are likely to be marketed and grown in the UK.
Asked by: Michael Meacher (Labour - Oldham West and Royton)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, how much energy investment of each type was made by energy companies in each year since 1984.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The Department does not hold this information. However, we recently published an Energy Investment Report which showed significant levels of investment since 2010.
· January 2010 and 2013 mobilised over £45 billion in low carbon energy infrastructure,1 which will also support up to 250,000 jobs in the low-carbon energy generation sector by 2020.
· In 2013 DECC estimates that over £14bn was invested in electricity generation and networks.
· Nearly £8 billion invested across a range of renewable technologies in 2013 alone – a record year.2
· UK is the most attractive market in the world for investment in offshore wind and marine renewables.
[1] DECC estimates based on EMR Delivery Plan modelling
[2] Bloomberg New Energy Finance, nominal, converted to pounds sterling.
Asked by: Michael Meacher (Labour - Oldham West and Royton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 12 October 2012 to Question 292135, what was the average tax paid by those people in each of the top (a) 10, (b) five, (c) one, (d) 0.1 and (e) 0.01 per cent of the population.
Answered by David Gauke
The proportion of total income accounted for by the top 10, 5 and 1 per cent of UK taxpayers by income can be found in table 2.4 'Share of total income (before and after tax) and income tax for percentile groups', available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/income-tax-statistics-and-distributions
The number and average income of taxpayers in each group can be determined from the above together with table 2.5 'Income Tax liabilities, by income range', with reference to the total number of taxpayers and their income stated on this table.
Asked by: Michael Meacher (Labour - Oldham West and Royton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many incapacity benefit claimants died during or after their work capability assessment in each of the last two years.
Answered by Mark Harper - Secretary of State for Transport
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
The Department does monitor requests we receive for new statistics and consider whether we can produce and release analysis that will helpfully inform public debate. The Department is therefore looking at this issue with a view to seeing what statistics could be produced on a regular basis.
Asked by: Michael Meacher (Labour - Oldham West and Royton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will investigate the reasons for the level of sanctioning of jobseeker's allowance in the Greater Manchester area being more than a third higher than the national average.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
We deploy a comprehensive monitoring regime to check that sanctions are applied appropriately across our network. Where any site is making significantly more or fewer referrals than we would typically expect, we review their activity to ensure sanctions are being applied appropriately.
Asked by: Michael Meacher (Labour - Oldham West and Royton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, in what capacity he and the Secretary of State for International Development attended the recent Bilderberg Conference in Copenhagen; and whether the visits have been recorded in the register of interests.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer attended the Bilderberg conference in Copenhagen. All travel undertaken by Treasury ministers is carried out in line with the Ministerial and Civil Service Management Codes. Details of all ministerial overseas travel are published quarterly: