Asked by: Ronnie Cowan (Scottish National Party - Inverclyde)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that claimants that no longer receive the severe disability premium after migrating to universal credit receive the financial benefits they are entitled to.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The draft Universal Credit (Managed Migration Pilot and Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2019 were laid in Parliament on 14 January 2019, and will introduce provision for those claimants who were in receipt of the Severe Disability Premium (SDP) and who have moved on to Universal Credit following a change in their circumstances. These regulations will provide both an on-going monthly payment to eligible claimants who have already lost the SDP as a consequence of moving to Universal Credit, and an additional lump sum payment to cover the period since they moved.
These regulations are subject to parliamentary debate and approval before they come in to force. Once introduced we will implement our processes to identify those who are potentially eligible for payments, aiming to make all payments as quickly as possible and within 6 months of the regulations coming into force. This will be a time consuming process, as we have to identify claimants and assess their eligibility, possibly needing to check some information directly with claimants. We aim to finish making payments within 6 months of the regulations coming into force.
Asked by: Ronnie Cowan (Scottish National Party - Inverclyde)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what response time her Department has set for correspondence from Members of the Scottish Parliament on constituent cases in relation to welfare matters.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The Department has the same target response times for correspondence from Members of the Scottish Parliament as it does for hon. Members of this House. The target response time for correspondence addressed to Ministers is 20 working days. The target response time for correspondence addressed to officials is 15 working days.
Asked by: Ronnie Cowan (Scottish National Party - Inverclyde)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many enquires her Department has received from Members of the Scottish Parliament in relation to constituency cases in the last six months.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The information requested is not available other than at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Ronnie Cowan (Scottish National Party - Inverclyde)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Written Statement of 20 December 2018 on Personal Independence Payment, Official Report HCWS1224, what estimate her Department has made of (a) the number of claimants in Inverclyde that have received personal independence payments arrears and (b) the total amount paid to those claimants in the latest period for which figures are available.
Answered by Sarah Newton
We are not in a position to provide volumes at detailed geographic breakdowns, as the volumes at this level would be small and therefore disclosive. We are working at pace to ensure that claimants receive any additional entitlement to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) as soon as possible.
Asked by: Ronnie Cowan (Scottish National Party - Inverclyde)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what (a) detailed analysis and (b) impact assessments she has undertaken in areas with full-service universal credit in place in order to inform the future roll-out of that policy.
Answered by Lord Sharma
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to Question 169858 on 11 September.
In addition we have recently published the Social Security Advisory Committee response which includes a detailed analysis of Managed Migration which can be accessed at:
Asked by: Ronnie Cowan (Scottish National Party - Inverclyde)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Government news release of 1 October 2018 entitled Citizens Advice to provide support to Universal Credit claimants, how much funding she plans to allocate to Citizens Advice in Scotland to provide that support; and what plans she has to provide funding for areas that do not have a Citizens Advice office.
Answered by Lord Sharma
For Citizens Advice Scotland the grant award is £1,323,412 in 2018/19 and £4,085,919 in 2019/20. Citizens Advice Scotland is committed to providing a Universal Support service across Scotland
Asked by: Ronnie Cowan (Scottish National Party - Inverclyde)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants in Inverclyde were in receipt of severe disability premium before transferring to universal credit.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The information requested is not collated centrally. This would require the merging of several complex datasets, and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Ronnie Cowan (Scottish National Party - Inverclyde)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 30 October 2018 to Question 182229 on Children: Maintenance, if she will publish those same figures for Inverclyde constituency.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The number of paying parents with any unpaid maintenance, and the corresponding amount of money outstanding of such unpaid maintenance as of June 2018 for the constituency of Inverclyde are outlined in the table below. This includes all paying parents with unpaid maintenance regardless of whether there is an ongoing maintenance liability.
| Number of paying parents with unpaid maintenance | Amount of unpaid maintenance (£) |
Inverclyde | 150 | 230,000 |
Paying parents are rounded to the nearest 10; unpaid maintenance is rounded to the nearest £10,000.