Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans her Department has to mark International Men's Day on 19 November 2019.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
No one should suffer unfair treatment because of their gender. Every year International Men’s Day offers an opportunity to highlight how outcomes for men and boys can be improved and to talk about some of the important work going on every day across Government to do this.
The work ranges from the introduction of shared parental leave, which allows men to take time away from the workplace and bond with their new children, benefitting that crucial long-term relationship for both parent and child, to our programme tackling LGBT bullying in schools which seeks to protect those who may be victimised by outdated and stereotypical ideas of what it means to be a ‘real man’.
Government is also working with local authorities to ensure their suicide prevention plans support more men, and in the Domestic Abuse Bill we propose to create a statutory definition of domestic abuse that makes clear men also can be victims of this abhorrent crime.
In DWP we have a series of national events taking place over the coming weeks to mark International Men’s Day. DWP have partnered with external organisations (The Good Lad initiative and Springboard Consultancy) to give a platform to raise awareness of the challenges that men face in life and raising awareness of men’s wellbeing. We have also invited DWP senior positive role models to talk about their journey, DWP User Researchers to talk about the issues that impact on men at work and the DWP Women’s Network to lead a session on allies and how allies benefit us all.
Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether (a) she, (b) Ministers in her Department and (c) officials in her Department have met with representatives from #BackTo60, the One Voice movement.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The Secretary of State, Ministers in her Department, nor any officials in the Department for Work and Pensions, have met with such representatives.
Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people in Shipley constituency have (a) opted out after being auto-enrolled into a workplace pension and (b) saved more than the auto-enrolment minimum contribution.
Answered by Guy Opperman
Automatic enrolment has achieved a quiet revolution through getting employees into the habit of pension saving, and reversing the decline in workplace pension participation in the decade prior to these reforms. Since automatic enrolment started in 2012 participation rates have been transformed with 87% of eligible employees saving into a workplace pension in 2018, up from 55% in 2012.
The Department does not hold data for individual constituencies in relation to opt outs or the number of individuals who have saved above the automatic enrolment minimum contribution level. However, we do know that overall around 9% of automatically enrolled workers have chosen to opt out which is significantly below original estimates; and our latest evaluation report shows that, in April 2017, approximately 5.9 million eligible employees were already meeting the April 2019 minimum contribution rates.
I am providing the following information about the impact of automatic enrolment in your constituency, as of August 2019:
In the Shipley constituency, since 2012, approximately 9,000 eligible jobholders have been automatically enrolled and 1,590 employers have met their duties.
Automatic Enrolment Evaluation Report 2018, available via the following weblink: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/764964/Automatic_Enrolment_Evaluation_Report_2018.pdf.
https://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/en/document-library/research-and-analysis/data-requests
The Pensions Regulator’s data on Automatic enrolment declaration of compliance by constituency, available via the following weblink:https://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/en/document-library/research-and-analysis/data-requests.
Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the cost is to the public purse of the provision of free television licences to people over 75 years of age.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The cost of providing free TV licences to people aged over 75 years was £655m to the public purse in 2017/18. Cost outturn for 2018/19 has not been published yet, but was forecast to be £468m. This is the first year of the part funding agreement that was set out in the summer budget 2015. The cost is forecast to reduce to £247m in 2019/20 and then nil from 2020/21 when responsibility for the concession will transfer to the BBC in June 2020.
Note that all the figures quoted in this response are in nominal terms.
DWP publish expenditure and caseload information here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-2019>
Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 23 January 2019 to Question 208843 on Department for Work and Pensions: Overseas Aid, what that money was spent on.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The Government is clear that in meeting its responsibilities to the world's poorest through its aid commitments, the UK also protects its own security and interests. As set out in the UK's Aid Strategy, the UK aid budget is used to tackle the great global challenges - from the root causes of mass migration and disease, to the threat of terrorism and global climate change - all of which also directly threaten British interests.
The spend comprises part of DWP’s subscription to the International Labour Organisation and the year one costs of refugees from the Vulnerable Persons Relocation Scheme.
Details of UK ODA programming can be found on the DevTracker database at https://devtracker.dfid.gov.uk/
Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much her Department has spent on Official Development Assistance in each year since 2015.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The amounts of DWP expenditure classified by Department for International Development (DFID) as Overseas Development Assistance are shown in the Table below
2015 | 2016 | 2017 |
£m | £m | £m |
9 | 24 | 31 |
These are published by DFID.
2016 and 2017 can be found on Page 12, Table 3 in the following publication
2015 and 2016 can be found on Page 12, Table 3 in the following publication
Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many universal credit claimants subject to recovery of recoverable hardship payments have them recovered at a rate of 40 per cent.
Answered by Lord Sharma
For eligible Universal Credit Full Service claims paid in September 2018, 5,300, which is less than 1%, had repayments taken for a Recoverable Hardship Payment (rounded to the nearest 100). Of these, only 12% have an RHP repayment at 40% of the Standard Allowance whereas, the majority (68%) have a recovery rate of 30% or less.
The claim count figure in this answer will not match the official statistics due to methodological differences.