Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether any refurbishments have been made to ministerial offices in his Department in each of the last two years.
Answered by Paul Maynard
I can confirm that for calendar years 2022 / 2023, to date, there has been no refurbishment and nil investment (£0) in the ministerial offices located in the DWP Corporate Sites London, Caxton House and Leeds, Quarry House.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many settlement payments his Department issued following claims of (a) bullying, (b) harassment and (c) discrimination in the (i) 2019-20, (ii) 2020-21, (iii) 2021-22 and (iv) 2022-23 financial years.
Answered by Paul Maynard
The information below shows the information held by DWP in relation to the settlement payments following claims of (a) bullying, (b) harassment and (c) discrimination over the financial years of (i) 2019-20, (ii) 2020-21, (iii) 2021-22, (iv) 2022-23.
(i) 2019-2020
(a) Bullying – 0
(b) Harassment – 3
(c) Discrimination – 0
(ii) 2020-2021
(a) Bullying – 0
(b) Harassment – 2
(c) Discrimination – 0
(iii) 2021-2022
(a) Bullying – 3
(b) Harassment – 11
(c) Discrimination – 0
(iv) 2022-2023
(a) Bullying – 2
(b) Harassment – 4
(c) Discrimination – 0
This is the number of cases settled by DWP due to poor prospect of success at litigation in line with Cabinet Office guidance. DWP do not have in place any compromise agreements in this period.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether there have been any power cuts on their Department's property in each of the last three years.
Answered by Paul Maynard
The DWP’s FM supplier has investigated the number of power cuts across the estate by accumulating data from the appropriate work order service line on their system (Electrical-Power Cuts-HS- Local cut or partial cut) for the current, and last 3 years. The results are as follows:
Year | Count |
2020 | 169 |
2021 | 198 |
2022 | 205 |
2023 | 256 |
Grand Total | 828 |
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that people in chronic mental health crisis and chronic psychosis are not excluded from the substantial risk category of limited capability for work-related activity.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
People who experience severe and enduring mental health problems have one of the lowest employment rates in the UK. Yet the vast majority want to work, and with the right support many people can. Our aim is to support those who want to work, aiming to remove this inequitable approach to supporting people back to work.
We have listened to stakeholder concerns about the impact on vulnerable customers of removing Limited Capability for Work Related Activity Substantial Risk (LCWRA risk) altogether and agree that LCWRA risk should be preserved for the most vulnerable. We will realign LCWRA risk with its original aim of applying only in exceptional circumstances, whilst still protecting and safeguarding the most vulnerable, which will include those who are at serious risk of suicide or self-harm. We propose that the criteria should include those who are currently in crisis under home treatment plans and those with an active psychotic illness, which will capture those who have recently, or may require, home treatment intervention because of their mental health condition.
We will work alongside clinicians to define the criteria and the medical evidence needed from claimants and people involved in their care, to ensure the process is safe, fair, and clear.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what data their Department holds on the (a) number and (b) total cost of replacing (i) laptops, (ii) mobile phones, (iii) memory sticks and (iv) external hard drives that have been (A) lost and (B) stolen in the last year.
Answered by Paul Maynard
The following table includes the number of lost or stolen devices in DWP in the last year. Departmental recording systems do not differentiate between lost and stolen, therefore these numbers have been amalgamated.
Type | a) Number lost/stolen | b) Cost |
i) Laptops | 94 items | £78,014.13 |
ii) Mobile phones | 24 items | £10,800.00 |
iii) Memory sticks | 6 items | £00.00 |
iv) External hard drives | Zero items | £00.00 |
All departmental IT is fully security encrypted. Memory sticks are also fully encrypted, and no data is accessible on a lost stick.
The departmental security unit records and investigates each reported loss from the Department. If appropriate, the police are invited to undertake further inquiries. Any mobile device reported as lost is immediately and remotely deactivated and the contents deleted. The user account on any laptop reported as lost is immediately and remotely locked. There has been no data loss or compromise because of these losses.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make it his policy to extend adoption pay to self-employed people who have a child via surrogacy.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The Government has no plans to extend adoption pay to self-employed people who have a child via surrogacy.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department has taken through advertisements to help ensure that all pensioners who are eligible for Pension Credit are aware of their eligibility.
Answered by Laura Trott - Shadow Secretary of State for Education
To raise awareness of Pension Credit and increase take-up, the Department made a multimillion pound investment in a marketing campaign in the last year. The campaign included advertising on national TV, regional and national newspapers and local and national broadcast radio. We used ‘Out of Home’ channels, which included advertising on the sides of buses and interior bus panels as well as digital street displays and digital information screens in Post Offices and GP surgeries across GB.
Our online marketing activity included promotion of Pension Credit on social media, via internet search engines and sponsored advertising on targeted websites that pensioners, their friends and family are likely to visit.
Within our network of jobcentres, we provided customers with leaflets and arranged for Jobcentres to display Pension Credit posters. We engaged with Local Authorities nationwide through the Government Communication Service local network and provided them with promotional materials to enable them to support the campaign. Our digital toolkit was also updated with information and resources that any stakeholder can use to help promote Pension Credit.
I very recently held an event with MPs to encourage their further support and promotion of Pension Credit.
In June 2022, we held a Pension Credit awareness media ‘day of action’ working in close collaboration with broadcasters, newspapers and other partners such as Age UK, Independent Age and the private sector to reach out to pensioners to promote Pension Credit through their channels. This led to Pension Credit news bulletins on ITV, mentions by financial influencer Martin Lewis and also led to Pension Credit trending in the top 20 on Twitter.
In June, we will again encourage media outlets and partners to join us in promoting Pension Credit.
A key message of the campaign has been to highlight that receiving even a small amount of Pension Credit can act as a passport to a range of other benefits including help with rent, heating and a free TV licence for the over 75s. We also heavily publicised the additional cost of living payments, which Pension Credit claimants are entitled to
As part of the annual uprating of State Pension, we once again wrote to over 11 million pensioners promoting Pension Credit in the accompanying materials.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has sought legal advice on the extent to which the Health and Safety Regulations fall under the scope of the Retained EU Law Bill.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
Following an assessment by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), there are health and safety regulations which fall within scope of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. HSE has taken all necessary steps to identify relevant legislation and updates have been made available for the Retained EU Law Dashboard on the gov.uk website.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he plans to take steps to amend the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 to include a provision on the provision of sanitary bins in male toilets.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to PQ180529.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the Disability Cost of Living Payment.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The Government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living and has taken further, decisive action to support them providing total support of over £94bn over 2022-23 and 2023-24 to help households and individuals, including disabled people, with the rising cost of living.
The Energy Price Guarantee is supporting millions of households with rising energy costs in addition to other cost of living support delivered last year, which includes:
For those who require additional support the current Household Support Fund, running in England from 1 October 2022 to 31 March 2023, is providing £421 million of funding. The devolved administrations have been allocated £79 million through the Barnett formula.
The Household Support Fund will continue until March 2024. This year long extension allows Local Authorities in England to continue to provide discretionary support to those most in need with the significantly rising cost of living. The guidance for Local Authorities for this next iteration has now been published and can be found here: 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024: Household Support Fund guidance for county councils and unitary authorities in England - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). The Devolved Administrations will receive consequential funding as usual to spend at their discretion.
This month we uprated benefit rates and State Pensions by 10.1%. In order to increase the number of households who can benefit from these uprating decisions, the benefit cap levels are also increasing by the same amount.
In addition, for 2023/24, households on eligible means-tested benefits will get up to £900 in Cost of Living Payments. This will be split into three payments of around £300 each across the 2023/24 financial year. The first payment is due to be paid to eligible households from tomorrow (25th May). A separate £300 payment will be made to pensioner households on top of their Winter Fuel Payments and individuals in receipt of eligible disability benefits will receive a £150 payment. Further to this, the Energy Price Guarantee will be extended from April 2023 until the end of March 2024, meaning a typical household bill will be around £3,000 per year in Great Britain.