Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress his department has made with implementing the British Sign Language Act 2022.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The British Sign Language Act 2022 gained Royal Assent in April 2022 and does three things:
On Tuesday 9 May, the members of the British Sign Language (BSL) Advisory Board met for the first time. Establishing the Board is a significant step in the implementation of the Act. The Board’s role is to advise the Government on key issues impacting the Deaf community. The Board’s remit includes: advising on the use of BSL in public communications and policy delivery, including input to the guidance outlined in part 3 of the Act; and advising on how to tackle key issues facing Deaf people, such as how to increase the numbers of BSL interpreters.
Work continues across Government to ensure that the departments named in the schedule to the Act are aware of their reporting duty. The first reporting period runs from 28 June 2022 to 30 April 2023 and departments will report on their use of BSL in public communications after the end of the reporting period. The second meeting of senior officials representing the departments due to report on their use of BSL will take place in May.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
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 locating all job centres on (a) affordable and (b) easily accessible public transport routes.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The DWP considers a number of different factors in areas where we expect a demand for our services. The Department seeks properties in both major cities or more rural locations that meet the business requirements for a Jobcentre. We currently have over 800 Jobcentre offices across all constituencies in Great Britain with over 190 new sites opened as part of Plan for Jobs.
Accessible transport links for both colleagues and customers is included in the planning process.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Kickstart scheme placements have been (a) approved and (b) started in (i) Luton North constituency, (ii) Luton and (iii) Bedfordshire.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Delivering the Kickstart Scheme at pace has led to a limited data set which makes it harder to accurately present a snapshot of a smaller geographical area.
We are continuing to develop our data, which may help in sharing local authority level information in due course.
We are able to provide, however, that in the ONS defined region of East of England (which includes Bedfordshire), as of 6 May 2021 around 8,240 jobs had been made available for young people to apply for and around 1,320 jobs started by young people on the Kickstart Scheme.
Although care is taken when processing and analysing Kickstart applications, referrals and starts, the data collected might be subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system which has been developed quickly. The management information presented here has not been subjected to the usual standard of quality assurance associated with official statistics, but is provided in the interests of transparency. Work is ongoing to improve the quality of information available for the programme.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with the Health and Safety Executive on health and safety inspections of supermarket distribution warehouses during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and individual Local Authorities (LA) enforce health and safety law in work premises where the allocation of enforcement responsibility is dependent on the type of work carried out.
Amazon warehouses, where customers’ orders are fulfilled when stored products are picked, packed and shipped, are known as fulfilment centres and are enforced by LAs. There are numerous centres across Great Britain and individual LAs will be better placed to advise on COVID-19 management practices for specific sites. Similarly, supermarket distribution warehouses broadly fall to LA enforcement where goods are stored for retail or wholesale purposes.
As part of its role as the national regulator for health and safety across Great Britain, HSE monitored the effectiveness of COVID-19 risk controls across the supply chain, followed up workers’ concerns in premises enforced by HSE, and recently undertook a joint inspection programme in December 2020 with LAs to cover warehousing and distribution centres. Amazon’s COVID-19 practices were assessed via a virtual head office inspection by HSE and local authority site inspection.
A report on the recent inspection campaign will be issued the week commencing 19th April 2021 to share examples of good practice in relation to COVID risk management.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with the Health and Safety Executive on health and safety inspections of Amazon distribution warehouses during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and individual Local Authorities (LA) enforce health and safety law in work premises where the allocation of enforcement responsibility is dependent on the type of work carried out.
Amazon warehouses, where customers’ orders are fulfilled when stored products are picked, packed and shipped, are known as fulfilment centres and are enforced by LAs. There are numerous centres across Great Britain and individual LAs will be better placed to advise on COVID-19 management practices for specific sites. Similarly, supermarket distribution warehouses broadly fall to LA enforcement where goods are stored for retail or wholesale purposes.
As part of its role as the national regulator for health and safety across Great Britain, HSE monitored the effectiveness of COVID-19 risk controls across the supply chain, followed up workers’ concerns in premises enforced by HSE, and recently undertook a joint inspection programme in December 2020 with LAs to cover warehousing and distribution centres. Amazon’s COVID-19 practices were assessed via a virtual head office inspection by HSE and local authority site inspection.
A report on the recent inspection campaign will be issued the week commencing 19th April 2021 to share examples of good practice in relation to COVID risk management.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will publish her Department's impact assessment on ending the universal credit uplift.
Answered by Will Quince
The £20 per week uplift to Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit was announced by the Chancellor as a temporary measure in March 2020 to support those facing the most financial disruption as a result of the public health emergency. This measure remains in place until March 2021. As the Government has done throughout this crisis, it will continue to assess how best to support low-income families, which is why we will look at the economic and health context before making any decisions.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of allowing UK travellers awaiting repatriation to the UK to apply for universal credit from abroad while they are unable to travel as a result of the covid-19 pandemic.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Income-related benefits, such as Universal Credit, are only payable to people who are in the UK and cannot be claimed by those outside the UK.
Stranded British nationals with a job in the UK are eligible for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme on the same basis as other employees of the company. Additionally, if applicable, stranded British nationals who are small business owners can apply to the Small Business Grants Scheme and Coronavirus Business Interruption loan scheme (CBILS).
The FCO continues to work around the clock with the airline industry and other governments across the world to help British nationals abroad return to the UK.
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what savings have accrued to the public purse as a result of the removal of the spare room subsidy; and what estimate his Department has made of the administrative costs of that policy since its introduction.
Answered by Will Quince
The Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy (RSRS), introduced in 2013, encourages mobility within the social rented sector, strengthens work-incentives and makes better use of available social housing, while providing fairness to taxpayers on expenditure on Housing Benefit.
The policy has saved over £2 billion since its introduction in April 2013. A breakdown by financial year is provided in the table below:
Total Estimated Housing Benefit RSRS Deductions, 2013/14 to 2019/20 (£m pa)
2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 |
385 | 365 | 355 | 335 | 320 | 288 | 290 |
Notes
In terms of the cost of administering the RSRS, funding was made available to local authorities (LAs). Information is published in Housing Benefit subsidy circulars available on Gov.UK.
To date (2019/20) administrative funding for the RSRS policy has been around £68m (which includes funding for the administration of Discretionary Housing Payments associated with the introduction of the RSRS policy).
Asked by: Sarah Owen (Labour - Luton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many foster carers are subject to the spare room subsidy in England and Wales.
Answered by Will Quince
The Removal of the Spare Subsidy (RSRS) policy allows one additional bedroom for approved foster carers, who have a child placed with them or are between placements. This is provided the period in which they don’t have a child or young person placed with them does not exceed 12 months.
Information on how many foster cares are subject to the spare room subsidy in England and Wales is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.