Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 9 May 2019 to Question 250471 on Employment and Support Allowance, how many claimants in each London borough were incorrectly classified as being entitled to contribution-based rather than income-based Employment and Support Allowance.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
We are not able to make robust estimates of the numbers of cases likely to be due arrears at a local authority level. All estimates are national only.
Local authority breakdowns of numbers of cases that have been paid arrears to date could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
We are focusing our efforts on contacting all potentially affected individuals to ensure they are paid as quickly as possible.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many pieces of unstructured white mail have been directed to the Derby contact centre to deal with since the creation of the team established to retrieve all such correspondence; and how many items of that mail are still awaiting redirection to the correct department in that centre.
Answered by Will Quince
Unstructured White Mail is post that is received but does not have a prescribed structure, such as handwritten letters or non DWP forms.
There is no centre to deal specifically with unstructured white mail. There is, however, a team in Derby Contact Centre which receives mail that cannot be attributed to a specific customer or benefit stream and their role is to identify the customer details and benefit stream so that the mail can then be scanned into the relevant systems. The Department does not keep records of volume.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the Valuation Office Agency makes a deduction for (a) water and (b) fuel from the advertised rent for a room in shared accommodation when calculating the 30 per centile of the shared accommodation rate in each broad rental market area.
Answered by Will Quince
The Rent Officers (Housing Benefit Functions) Order 1997 instructs Rent Officers how to compile the list of rents used in the calculation of local housing allowance rates (including the shared accommodation rate) and the 30th percentile of local rents for each broad rental market area. In compiling the list of rents, Rent Officers must exclude the amount of any rent which in the Rent Officer’s opinion is attributable to provision of services or facilities made available to the tenant which are ineligible to be met by Housing Benefit.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the local reference rent levels for each broad rental market area published on 30 April 2019 are based upon the median of market rents for each area.
Answered by Will Quince
The Local Reference Rent is determined in accordance with the formula set out in the Rent Officers (Housing Benefit Functions) Order 1997 for calculating a median rent. The Local Reference Rent is based upon the number of bedrooms and living rooms within the property.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance she has issued to her Department's decision-makers on the classification of EU nationals with indefinite leave to remain through the EU settled status scheme as habitually resident for the purposes of claiming (a) universal credit and (b) other means-tested benefits.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The relevant guidance for decision makers can be found for (a) Universal Credit in the Advice for Decision Making (ADM) memo 09/19, available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/800793/adm9-19.pdf, and (b) other income-related benefits in the Decision Makers’ Guide (DMG) memo 06/19, available online at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/800795/dmg6-19.pdf.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when she plans to publish a consultation on reform of statutory sick pay.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
We plan to consult later this year on measures to reform Statutory Sick Pay.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the recommendation to exempt claimants in temporary accommodation from the benefit cap on page 7 of the report of the Work and Pensions Committee, The Benefit Cap, published on 12 March 2019, HC 1477, if she will ask local authorities to publish the number of households that are currently affected by the cap in their area; and how much Discretionary Housing Payment funding has been used to cover their rent shortfalls in the most recent period for which figures are available.
Answered by Will Quince
The latest official statistics for households capped under Housing Benefit and Universal Credit were published on 2nd May 2019, and contain data on households capped to February 2019, published here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/benefit-cap-number-of-households-capped-to-february-2019.
Statistics by Local Authority are available in Tables 2 and 9, respectively. The number of households who have had their Housing Benefit award capped by local authorities are also published on the DWP Stat Xplore portal (https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/).
Statistics on the use of Discretionary Housing Payments (for local authorities in England and Wales) are provided by local authorities on a voluntary basis and as such may not correspond exactly to the total Discretionary Housing Payment funds allocated. In addition, Discretionary Housing Payment awards can be recorded against a combination of welfare reform categories including households affected by the benefit cap.
The latest statistics on spend by local authorities, covering the period April to September 2018, are published here:
Statistics relating to the specific welfare reform category can be found in Table 7.
The latest full year of statistics available are for the 17/18 financial year and are published here:
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 26 July 2018 to Question 165571 on employment and support allowance, if she will take steps to include the cost of NHS prescription charges and school meals incurred by affected claimants in the underpayment review as recommended in paragraph 2.15 of the National Audit Office report, Investigation into Errors in Employment and Support Allowance, HC 837, published on 19 March 2018.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
We are engaging with a number of authorities who are responsible for passported benefits to raise awareness of the ESA underpayment exercise and the potential issues arising from it. This will enable Departments to understand the impacts on passported benefits they administer.
DWP does not hold information on what people may or may not have claimed. Our focus is on making sure people receive the arrears of ESA they are entitled to.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Written Statement of 21 February 2019, HCWS1348, whether her Department has notified local authorities of the details of the 58,000 employment and support allowance (ESA) claimants identified as having wrongly been awarded contribution-based ESA and not income-based ESA after being moved from incapacity benefit so that their entitlement to council tax support can be reassessed.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
As part of the ESA underpayment exercise we are informing Local Authorities of any new, past awards of income-related ESA in line with our business as usual procedures. This will support local authorities to consider further any possible impacts of the ESA underpayment exercise.Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Written Statement of 21 February 2019, HCWS1348, how many additional claimants have been identified since 11 February 2019 as having been wrongly awarded contribution-based employment and support allowance (ESA) and not income-based ESA after being moved from incapacity benefit; and how much in ESA arrears has been paid to date.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department will be publishing an update of progress on checking cases potentially affected by underpayments of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) on conversion from previous incapacity benefits on the 16 May 2019.
This publication has been pre-announced here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements/esa-underpayments-progress-on-checking