Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
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 effect of the lower rate of Universal Credit for claimants aged under 25 on the ability of young people living independently to meet essential living costs.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
No such assessment has been made.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she plans to vary the nature of Support for Mortgage Interest, in the context of rises to the Bank of England base rate.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
There are currently no plans to amend the calculation of Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI).
SMI is calculated by applying a standard rate of interest to the outstanding capital balance. The rate is set at a level equal to the Bank of England's published monthly average mortgage interest rate. A change to the standard interest rate will occur when the Bank of England’s average mortgage rate differs by 0.5 percentage points or more from the rate in payment.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many children of (a) infant school age, (b) primary school age inclusive of infant years, (c) primary school age excluding infant years and (d) secondary school age are from families in receipt of Universal Credit.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The available statistics on the number of households with children on Universal Credit, by number of children and by the age of the youngest child, is published and can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
Plans to extend the statistics to include the age breakdown of all children in Universal Credit households are under development, as detailed in the Department’s Statistical work programme.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether additional travel support will be provided to civil servants employed at the Durham House site which has been identified for consolidation.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The changes the Department is making to estates will both improve the working environment for staff, become greener by becoming smaller, helping meet the Government’s carbon reduction target, and provide value for money for the taxpayer.
As of March 2022, 905 colleagues located in Washington Durham House are being asked to relocate, with their role, to Sunderland Wearview House. Each colleague will have a discussion with their line manager to assess the impact of the move on them and if they are able to relocate. The Department’s priority will be to retain, retrain and redeploy colleagues either within DWP, or within other Government Departments in the area. As a responsible employer, we will make provision for redundancies if it is necessary. However, this will be a very last resort after all efforts to redeploy have been exhausted.
An overarching Equality Assessment has been completed which considers the impact on colleagues. This has been made available in the House Library. Individual site Assessments have also been prepared. The planning of an office closure includes consideration of factors including the ‘Index of Multiple Deprivation’ for each location, which considers many factors, including:
The Department currently expects to exit Washington Durham House by November 2022. Should redeployment mean additional travel costs, colleagues may qualify for an Excess Fares payment to cover those costs. These costs would be paid for up to three years.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, on what date the Durham House site will close.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The changes the Department is making to estates will both improve the working environment for staff, become greener by becoming smaller, helping meet the Government’s carbon reduction target, and provide value for money for the taxpayer.
As of March 2022, 905 colleagues located in Washington Durham House are being asked to relocate, with their role, to Sunderland Wearview House. Each colleague will have a discussion with their line manager to assess the impact of the move on them and if they are able to relocate. The Department’s priority will be to retain, retrain and redeploy colleagues either within DWP, or within other Government Departments in the area. As a responsible employer, we will make provision for redundancies if it is necessary. However, this will be a very last resort after all efforts to redeploy have been exhausted.
An overarching Equality Assessment has been completed which considers the impact on colleagues. This has been made available in the House Library. Individual site Assessments have also been prepared. The planning of an office closure includes consideration of factors including the ‘Index of Multiple Deprivation’ for each location, which considers many factors, including:
The Department currently expects to exit Washington Durham House by November 2022. Should redeployment mean additional travel costs, colleagues may qualify for an Excess Fares payment to cover those costs. These costs would be paid for up to three years.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will publish his Department’s (a) equality impact and (b) socio-economic impact assessment of the closure of the Durham House site in Washington.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The changes the Department is making to estates will both improve the working environment for staff, become greener by becoming smaller, helping meet the Government’s carbon reduction target, and provide value for money for the taxpayer.
As of March 2022, 905 colleagues located in Washington Durham House are being asked to relocate, with their role, to Sunderland Wearview House. Each colleague will have a discussion with their line manager to assess the impact of the move on them and if they are able to relocate. The Department’s priority will be to retain, retrain and redeploy colleagues either within DWP, or within other Government Departments in the area. As a responsible employer, we will make provision for redundancies if it is necessary. However, this will be a very last resort after all efforts to redeploy have been exhausted.
An overarching Equality Assessment has been completed which considers the impact on colleagues. This has been made available in the House Library. Individual site Assessments have also been prepared. The planning of an office closure includes consideration of factors including the ‘Index of Multiple Deprivation’ for each location, which considers many factors, including:
The Department currently expects to exit Washington Durham House by November 2022. Should redeployment mean additional travel costs, colleagues may qualify for an Excess Fares payment to cover those costs. These costs would be paid for up to three years.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether compulsory redundancies will result from the closure of the Durham House site in Washington.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The changes the Department is making to estates will both improve the working environment for staff, become greener by becoming smaller, helping meet the Government’s carbon reduction target, and provide value for money for the taxpayer.
As of March 2022, 905 colleagues located in Washington Durham House are being asked to relocate, with their role, to Sunderland Wearview House. Each colleague will have a discussion with their line manager to assess the impact of the move on them and if they are able to relocate. The Department’s priority will be to retain, retrain and redeploy colleagues either within DWP, or within other Government Departments in the area. As a responsible employer, we will make provision for redundancies if it is necessary. However, this will be a very last resort after all efforts to redeploy have been exhausted.
An overarching Equality Assessment has been completed which considers the impact on colleagues. This has been made available in the House Library. Individual site Assessments have also been prepared. The planning of an office closure includes consideration of factors including the ‘Index of Multiple Deprivation’ for each location, which considers many factors, including:
The Department currently expects to exit Washington Durham House by November 2022. Should redeployment mean additional travel costs, colleagues may qualify for an Excess Fares payment to cover those costs. These costs would be paid for up to three years.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent estimate she has made of the number of jobs that will be affected by the closure of the Durham House site in Washington.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The changes the Department is making to estates will both improve the working environment for staff, become greener by becoming smaller, helping meet the Government’s carbon reduction target, and provide value for money for the taxpayer.
As of March 2022, 905 colleagues located in Washington Durham House are being asked to relocate, with their role, to Sunderland Wearview House. Each colleague will have a discussion with their line manager to assess the impact of the move on them and if they are able to relocate. The Department’s priority will be to retain, retrain and redeploy colleagues either within DWP, or within other Government Departments in the area. As a responsible employer, we will make provision for redundancies if it is necessary. However, this will be a very last resort after all efforts to redeploy have been exhausted.
An overarching Equality Assessment has been completed which considers the impact on colleagues. This has been made available in the House Library. Individual site Assessments have also been prepared. The planning of an office closure includes consideration of factors including the ‘Index of Multiple Deprivation’ for each location, which considers many factors, including:
The Department currently expects to exit Washington Durham House by November 2022. Should redeployment mean additional travel costs, colleagues may qualify for an Excess Fares payment to cover those costs. These costs would be paid for up to three years.
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the profile of the civil servants affected by the closure of Durham House is by (a) age, (b) race, (c) gender and (d) disability.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The following depicts the profile of colleagues based at Washington - Durham House.
Age – 1.7% aged 16-24, 14.4% aged 25-34, 25.2% aged 35-44, 28.3% aged 45-54, 27.2% aged 55-64, 3.1% aged 65+
Race – 1.7% of colleagues are of an ethnic minority
Gender – 31% male, 69% female
Disability – 14.4% of colleagues have declared a disability
Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Sunderland West)
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 effect of the consolidation of Durham House on levels of hybrid working among affected civil servants.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The adoption of hybrid working practices has been carefully and fully considered. The introduction of hybrid working arrangements by the Department for back of house functions means that staff will only need to work on average 40% of their working week in the new location. DWP aims to utilise its hybrid working policy to help facilitate more inclusive workplaces, which are capable of adapting to the needs of employees and the Department.