Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the National Audit Office's projections of the Child Maintenance Service arrears reaching £1 billion by 2031.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The Department has not forecast caseloads beyond 2025. The National Audit Office (NAO) forecast is a simple linear projection that assumes the legislative and economic environment will remain unchanged over the next nine years and does not account for the Child Maintenance Service’s (CMS) ageing population of qualifying children.
Up to December 2021, the CMS has arranged £5.4 billion of child maintenance and £451 million (8%) was unpaid.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the total number of work capability assessments overturned on appeal.
Answered by Chloe Smith
Information on appeal tribunal outcomes in relation to Employment Support Allowance Work Capability Assessments (WCA) is available on Stat-Xplore.
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here:
Similar information on appeals for Universal Credit WCA is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of uprating benefits in line with inflation at the Spring 2022 Budget.
Answered by David Rutley
The increase in benefits is linked to the rate of inflation to September 2021 which is published in October. This is the latest date the Secretary of State can use to deliver the required legislative and operational changes before new rates can be introduced at the start of the following financial year.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to support more autistic people into employment.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The Government has ambitious plans to support disabled people and people with health conditions to achieve their full potential and live better for longer. In 2017, we committed to seeing 1 million more people with disabilities into employment by 2027. In the first four years we saw an increase of 850,000. We have also pledged to narrow the disability employment gap, and this has reduced by 4.8 percentage points since 2013.
The Government’s “National Strategy For Autistic Children, Young People And Adults: 2021 – 2026” specifically recognised the importance of employment support for autistic people. Some key actions are outlined below.
Starting this autumn, we will invest £7.2m in Local Supported Employment services, working with around 20 Local Authorities to enable more social care users with learning disabilities and autism to access the support needed to help them get into work and remain in employment.
We are working with the National Autistic Society to test ways to make Jobcentres more autism-inclusive.
We have strengthened our Disability Employment Adviser role, delivering direct support to claimants who require additional work related support and supporting all work coaches to deliver tailored, personalised support to claimants with a disability or health condition including those with autism.
Access to Work offers disabled customers, including those with autism, tailored packages of support and advice to help them access or remain in work.
The Intensive Personalised Employment Support programme provides highly personalised packages of employment support for disabled people who want to work but have complex needs or barriers and require specialist support to achieve sustained employment such as autism.
The Labour Force Survey questionnaire now includes a question about autism. This allows us to track improvements in the employment status for people with autism,
Through the Disability Confident scheme, DWP is engaging with employers and helping to promote the skills, talents and abilities of people with autism.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the number of people who have been affected by the underpayment of benefits after transitioning from incapacity benefit to employment and support allowance in Ealing Central and Acton constituency.
Answered by Chloe Smith
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 19th January to question number 104377.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of (a) providing a £50 one-off payment to people eligible for the Cold Weather Payment and (b) doubling the Household Support Fund in winter 2021-22.
Answered by David Rutley
Vulnerable households across the country will now be able to access a new £500 million support fund to help them with essentials. As part of this, the Household Support Fund provides £421 million to Local Authorities in England to help vulnerable people with the cost of food, utilities and wider essentials. This fund was announced on 30 September 2021, recognising that some households need additional help this winter as we enter the final stages of recovery from the pandemic and covers the period 6 October 2021 to 31 March 2022 inclusive. There are currently no plans to increase the funding provided.
Cold Weather Payments of £25 are paid to vulnerable households on qualifying benefits for every week of severe cold weather between 1st November and 31st March. There are currently no plans to increase the Cold Weather Payment rate.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of reversing the reintroduction of the Minimum Income Floor.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
No assessment has been made.
The suspension of the Minimum Income Floor was a temporary measure to support self-employed claimants through the pandemic, kept under review in light of the latest economic and public health context. Since 31 July 2021, the pre-pandemic rules for the self-employed have started to apply again.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her oral contribution of 7 September 2021, Official report, column 185, whether her Department has made an assessment of the level of wage growth which discounts the impact of furlough during the covid-19 outbreak; and if she will publish the legal advice referred to in her oral contribution.
Answered by Guy Opperman
Legal advice is privileged. This has been the situation under successive governments.
As the Office for National Statistics have stated, there is no single accepted approach to assessing underlying growth. They have published information that identifies temporary factors, called base and compositional effects, which have been caused by the pandemic and have increased the headline growth rate in earnings above the underlying rate. They have published a range of possible growth rates, but stressed that these should be treated with caution
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has made an estimate of the impact of removing the £20 uplift to the standard allowance of universal credit on child poverty levels in England.
Answered by Will Quince
No assessment has been made.
The Government has always been clear that the £20 increase was a temporary measure to support households affected by the economic shock of Covid-19.
Universal Credit has provided a vital safety net for six million people during the pandemic, and we announced the temporary uplift as part of a COVID support package worth a total of £407 billion in 2020-21 and 2021-22. Our focus now is on our multi-billion Plan for Jobs, which will support people in the long-term by helping them learn new skills and increase their hours or find new work.
Asked by: Rupa Huq (Labour - Ealing Central and Acton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will publish data by ethnicity on the number of jobs created by the Government's job creation schemes.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
I refer the honourable member to the answer given for PQ 21984.