Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
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 uprating local housing allowance in line with inflation in areas where private rents have risen above CPI.
Answered by Will Quince
From April 2020 Local Housing Allowance rates will be uprated by inflation – an increase of 1.7% in line with wider benefit uprating. This means around 900,000 people across the UK could see their Housing support payments rise from April.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether funding is available to existing universal credit claimants to pay for childcare so that they are not required to pay up front and claim the money back.
Answered by Will Quince
The Universal Credit childcare policy aligns with the wider government childcare offer, which includes free childcare hours and tax free childcare. Claimants can utilise both the free childcare entitlement and Universal Credit childcare costs in conjunction with each other. This offer means that reasonable childcare costs should not form a barrier to work. The Government is committed to supporting parents with moving into work and, as part of this, Universal Credit pays up to 85% of childcare costs, compared to 70% in legacy benefits.
The Flexible Support Fund (FSF) can pay up to 100% of the upfront childcare costs (subject to payment limits) that the claimant incurs before starting work and receiving their first wage. Through FSF, work coaches can support claimants with barriers that may prevent them from moving into employment, such as childcare or travel costs. Each case is considered carefully on its own merits with financial help available in advance to eligible claimants.
Universal Credit claimants are able to upload digital copies of their childcare cost receipts or invoices through their online Universal Credit account. In October 2019, the Department introduced changes to give parents longer to report their childcare costs. Childcare costs can be claimed in the same assessment period they were paid, or by the end of the following assessment period.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Work and Pensions Select Committee report on Bereaved Support Payments, published on 22 October 2019, what the expected publication date is of the Government response to that report.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
We will submit our response to the Work and Pensions Select Committee report on Bereavement Support Payment once the committee is fully up and running. Any decision on publication will be for the Committee to make.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the 2 July 2019 research, Cover the cost: restoring local housing allowance rates to prevent homelessness, commissioned by Crisis on 2 July 2019, if her Department will undertake a cost-benefit analysis to assess the potential effect of restoring local housing allowance rates to the level of the cheapest third of local rents.
Answered by Will Quince
We estimate the cost would be about £800 million in 2020/21, excluding any changes in behaviour by tenants and landlords.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proof of settled status is required for an EEA national who has been granted settled status and is applying for benefits.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
Eligibility for income-related (means-tested) benefits, such as Universal Credit, depends on a person’s immigration status in the UK.
EEA nationals who are habitually resident in the UK and have been granted settled status are eligible to access income-related benefits.
Mechanisms are in place between DWP and the Home Office to verify settled status through the Habitual Residence Test Process.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many of applications for (a) universal credit and (b) job seekers allowance were rejected on the Habitual Residency Test in each of the last five years.
Answered by Lord Sharma
Long-standing policy has always been eligibility for income-related (means-tested) social security benefits depends on a person’s immigration status in the UK. Claimants must be exercising a legal right to reside and be habitually resident before they are eligible to claim income related benefit. This is assessed through the Habitual Residence Test (HRT), which has been in place since 1994.
Information on the number of JSA claims which failed the Habitual Residence Test are available in “Analysis of Migrants’ Access to Income-Related Benefits”
Information on Universal Credit contracts which have a recorded failed Habitual Residence Test are as follows: 2016/2017 – 800 failed claims, 2017/2018 – 7,600 failed claims and 2018/2019 – 30,700 failed claims, this reflects the increasing caseload on UC since it’s rollout. UC data supplied is derived from unpublished management information, which was collected for internal Departmental use only and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. The data should therefore be treated with caution. UC cases may be closed for other reasons (for example, “ineligible”) but may have failed the HRT – these are not captured in the estimates above.
Information for JSA claims from 2017/18 is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost. No data was recorded on UC data for HRTs prior to 2016/17
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many jobseekers have made a claim under the Jobcentre Plus Travel Discount scheme via job centres; and what the value was of those claims in the last three years.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The information requested is not centrally collated in a format that can be easily disaggregated, and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will provide an update on the Government's plans to reform bereavement support payments.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
Bereavement Benefits were reformed in April 2017, with the introduction of Bereavement Support Payment. We confirm that we intend to evaluate its impact once there has been enough time for the reforms to fully bed in.
Asked by: Stella Creasy (Labour (Co-op) - Walthamstow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what information her Department holds on the number of reports of abuse and harassment of staff at jobcentres by location over the last five years.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
DWP takes any form of abuse and harassment of its staff by customers and claimants very seriously and has robust controls in place to mitigate the risk of Unacceptable Customer Behaviour (UCB), nonetheless there will be occasions when it does unfortunately occur. We encourage our people to report each and every instance of unacceptable behaviour and we do take action against the perpetrator, with measures proportionate to the seriousness of the incident.
Information collected includes: