Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the significant findings were of equalities impact assessment on the removal of housing benefit for 18 to 21 year olds.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
This policy affects Universal Credit recipients only, not Housing Benefit recipients.
I was provided with comprehensive advice with respect to this measure which enabled me to fully comply with my Public Sector Equality Duty and am satisfied there are no significant issues that were not sufficiently mitigated by the exemptions that we have put in place.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has produced updated estimates of the (a) annual and (b) total number of (i) applicants to and (ii) costs of the Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme for 2014 to 2024, since changes made to that scheme from February 2015.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
The Department does not produce projected estimates for the Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme. The latest report on the Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme (DMPS) including costs, are produced in the annual review, which can be found at:
An earlier report can be found at:
The Department also produces bi-annual statistics showing the actual number of applicants. The latest publication can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/diffuse-mesothelioma-payment-scheme-statistics
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in Wythenshawe and Sale East constituency who are existing universal credit claimants and who are in work will have their universal credit decreased as a result of changes to the work allowance taking effect in April 2016.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
The information requested is not available because individual claimants’ circumstances can change as they move in and out of work or their earnings change. We have contacted all claimants who are in work and reporting earnings to make them aware of this change, which will affect a subset of that population.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the proportion of the gross working premium of insurers which was required to fund the Diffuse Mesothelioma Payments Scheme in (a) 2014-15 and (b) 2015-16.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
In 2014/15 the Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme (DMPS) levy was charged at £32m which represented 2.2% of employers’ liability gross written premium (EL GWP). The actual cost of the DMPS in 2014/15 was £24.2m, and the additional £7.8m collected has been carried forward into 2015/16.
On 12 January 2016 the Department announced that it anticipated the gross cost of the DMPS in 2015/16 to be £31m. This represents 2% of EL GWP. However, the amount actually levied on the insurance industry for 2015/16, taking into account the £7.8m carried forward, is £23.2m, which represents 1.5% of EL GWP.
Note: The proportions quoted above use the most recently available EL GWP data in any one year. Due to the time taken to collect and verify this data, the EL GWP figure used to calculate the proportion the levy represents will be two years old. For example, for the 2014/15 levy the EL GWP data is from 2012.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what timetable he has set for tax credit claimants in Wythenshawe and Sale East constituency to migrate to universal credit.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
We are rolling out Universal Credit (UC) in a careful and controlled manner – an approach that was endorsed by the Major Projects Authority. UC is now available to single claimants, couples and families in Wythenshawe and Sale East constituency.
Our plan is that existing benefit and tax credit claimants will be migrated to UC by 2020/21. Further details will be made available in due course.
Asked by: Mike Kane (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what his Department's policy is on using 0845 business rate telephone numbers for benefits claimants.
Answered by Esther McVey
Calls to claim benefit by telephone are free as the Department uses 0800 free phone numbers for these lines. The use of 0845 numbers were inherited from previous Government and this Department has since introduced 0345 numbers, but will retain the 0845 prefixes for the time being given it can still cost less to call these numbers from some operators’ packages.
Any charges that apply to these calls will be set by the customer’s telephone or mobile operator. Charge variations will occur due to operator packages and individual price plans. We are aware of possible concerns about call charges to our enquiry lines so we will offer to call a customer back if concerns are raised over the cost of the call.