Asked by: Owen Smith (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many referrals to debt advice services have been made by jobcentre staff in each of the last five years.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
The information requested is not held.
Asked by: Owen Smith (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reasons the allocation for the Flexible Support Fund is lower in 2016-17 than in 2015-16.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
The budget for Flexible Support Fund (FSF) is subject to annual review and change. This is based on claimant needs and volumes, and as new policies are agreed and old policies are withdrawn. As discretionary expenditure it is also dependent upon overall Departmental affordability.
The FSF budget has actually increased between 2015/16 and 2016/17. In 2015/16 it was £69.5m. It is £76.7m for 2016/17.
Asked by: Owen Smith (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Answer of 4 May 2016 to Question 35718, what his Department's combined legal costs were for the cases EE/2013/0145, EA2013/0148 and EA/2013/0149 heard at the First Tier Tribunal on 22 February 2016.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
The total recorded external legal cost of these cases up to March 2016 is around £94,000.
This case raised important issues both for the Department, and for the Government as a whole, with regards to being able to create a safe space for free and frank provision of advice to officials and Ministers. The Government remains of a view that this was a case worth pursuing as the principles here are important ones for the proper conduct of public affairs.
Asked by: Owen Smith (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people have been migrated on to universal credit through a change of circumstance in each of the last three years.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
This information is not currently available.
Asked by: Owen Smith (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the receipts to the public purse were from (a) the £20 fee charged for applications to the Child Maintenance Service (CMS), (b) the 20 per cent collection fee for paying parents using the CMS collect and pay service, (c) the four per cent collection fee for receiving parents using the CMS collect and pay service and (d) enforcement fees levied on paying parents in 2015-16.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
Receipts to the public purse during 2015-16 were as follows:
Item | Amount received in 2015/16 |
Application fee | £1.7m |
Collection charge from paying parents | £5.6m |
Collection charge from receiving parents | £1.1m |
Enforcement charges | £0.1m |
These figures are draft and subject to audit.
Asked by: Owen Smith (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the outcomes were of the universal credit in-work conditionality pilots.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
The In-work Progression Randomised Control Trial is rolling out nationally but not yet complete. We plan to have recruited the necessary 15,000 participants by Autumn 2016. We will then continue to support claimants for a further year in the trial, with findings in early 2018.
Asked by: Owen Smith (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to universal credit, what his estimate is of Government spending on transitional protection where entitlement is lower in each year until 2018-19.
Answered by Priti Patel - Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs
Our estimates of Government spending on transitional protection over the Spending Review period are: £120 million in 2018/19. The national implementation of managed migration is not planned to start before June 2018, and so transitional protection will not start until then.