Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West and Pudsey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps has she taken to ensure that work capability assessments take account of the fluctuating nature of degenerative illnesses.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The Work Capability Assessment has been designed to take full account of progressive conditions such as Parkinson’s. If an individual has a progressive health condition, the Healthcare Professional takes this into consideration when providing advice to the Decision Maker.
Healthcare Professionals are trained to ask about and take account of fluctuation.
The assessment gives people with fluctuating conditions the opportunity to explain how their condition varies over time.
The capability for work questionnaire directly asks if a person’s condition varies in how it impacts on their ability to complete activities over time, and if so to give details of how this affects them as an individual.
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West and Pudsey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what eligibility criteria are planned for each passported benefit for applicants for universal credit.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The eligibility criteria, and the number of recipients and costs of passported benefits is a matter for the responsible department or the devolved administrations.
Where the passported benefit includes one of the legacy benefits, Universal Credit has been added to the eligibility criteria so that people who claim the new benefit can continue to qualify.
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West and Pudsey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, which passported benefits are dependent on receipt of a benefit being merged within universal credit; how many people received each such passported benefit in each of the last three financial years; and what the total cost was of those benefits in each of those years.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The eligibility criteria, and the number of recipients and costs of passported benefits is a matter for the responsible department or the devolved administrations.
Where the passported benefit includes one of the legacy benefits, Universal Credit has been added to the eligibility criteria so that people who claim the new benefit can continue to qualify.
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West and Pudsey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what level of funding his Department has provided to the Office for Nuclear Regulation in each of the last five years; and what estimate he has made of the level of funding his Department will provide in each of the next three years.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
The Office for Nuclear Regulation vested in 2014. Details of the funding has been published in the ONR Annual Report & Accounts which are available on the ONR website and on GOV.UK.
The Department budget has been assigned as part of the Spending Review 2015 Settlement. The Department is continually reprioritising its agenda to achieve this based on the operational, political and financial position.
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West and Pudsey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions he has had with the (a) Secretary of State for Exiting the EU and (b) Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on the implications of leaving Euratom for the Office for Nuclear Regulation; and on what dates those discussions took place.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
The nature of future arrangements with Euratom and the EU will be subject to negotiation. Our aim throughout the negotiations with the European Commission will be to maintain our mutually successful civil nuclear cooperation with Euratom and the rest of the world. The scope of these arrangements will determine the cost and will not necessarily consist of an exact replication of the Euratom nuclear safeguards regime.
We are working closely with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for Exiting the EU to ensure that the Office for Nuclear Regulation will be in a position to take on the role and responsibilities required to meet our international safeguards, and nuclear non-proliferation, obligations.
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West and Pudsey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many staff the Office for Nuclear Regulation has at each (a) grade, (b) age profile and (c) gender.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
This information has been published in the Office for Nuclear Regulation Annual Report and Accounts 2016/17 HC67.
The publication is available on the ONR website and GOV.UK
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West and Pudsey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of staff working for the Office for Nuclear Regulation are (a) British and (b) citizens from other countries.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
As at 31 March 2017 ONR had a headcount of 559 of those 98% were of British or dual nationality (539 British and 7 of dual nationality) and 2 % (13) were citizens from other countries.
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West and Pudsey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to raise awareness of inflammatory bowel disease and its effects with employers.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
The Government wants all disabled people and people with a long term health condition, including those with inflammatory bowel syndrome, to have the opportunity to work and share in the economic and health benefits that work brings.
Government supports employers to help them recruit and retain people with health conditions and disabilities through the Disability Confident campaign, Fit for Work and the Access to Work scheme.
We published ‘Improving Lives the Work: Health and Disability Green Paper’ in October, and we are analysing the responses to understand how employers can be further supported to establish good practices and supportive workplace cultures, and how they can support more people with disabilities and health conditions to stay in or return to work.
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West and Pudsey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people have (a) applied for and (b) received personal independence payments support from his Department related to inflammatory bowel disease.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
The requested information for the number of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) applications for people with inflammatory bowel disease is not available because information on PIP claimants’ disabling conditions is not collected at the initial claim application stage.
The number of people in receipt of PIP with a main disabling condition of inflammatory bowel disease is 5,100, as at the 30th April 2017 and has been published at the following link. Please see the tables “Personal Independence Payment: Detailed medical condition, April 2017 caseload” and filter by ‘Inflammatory bowel disease on the subgroup category. This publication is updated quarterly.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-independence-payment-april-2013-to-april-2017
Data is based on primary disabling condition as recorded on the PIP computer system. Claimants may often have multiple disabling conditions upon which the decision is based but only the primary condition is shown in these statistics. Therefore, there may be other claimants in receipt of PIP who have been diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease who are not captured in the data.
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West and Pudsey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps the Government is taking to ensure employment and support allowance and personal independence payment assessments take greater account of the complexities of inflammatory bowel disease.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
The Health Professional is not required to diagnose a condition or to recommend treatment options. Instead it requires the Health Professional to look at the impact the condition or impairment has on a claimants’ daily life. This requires very different skills from those involved in the diagnosis and treatment of their patients, with less need for specialist knowledge on diagnosis and treatment.
The Work Capability Assessment is a functional assessment which focuses on what an individual can do, rather than assuming that their health condition or disability automatically means they can’t work.
The assessment for Personal Independence Payment focuses on a claimant’s ability to carry out a range of activities which are fundamental to living an independent life. It is designed to help working age people with the extra costs associated with their disability.
All the assessment providers are committed to continuous improvement to support a more consistent application of the assessment process. In addition, the Providers frequently engage with medical experts, charities and relevant stakeholders to strengthen review and update training programmes for all their assessment staff.