Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in Barnsley East constituency have been recipient to Universal Credit in each month since May 2021.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Monthly statistics on the number of people who are on Universal Credit, by parliamentary constituency, are 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
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that departmental staff assessing applications for veteran benefits are aware of the consequences of both mental and physical injury and illness.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
DWP itself does not provide any exclusively "veterans benefits". Instead disabled veterans have access to the usual range of extra cost disability benefits (such as Personal Independence Payment) and means tested benefits (such as Universal Credit). These benefits are designed to help with the costs of living and the additional costs that disabled people might face because of their disability. DWP staff receive training to help them understand the circumstances of veterans and the challenges they may face, including with their physical or mental health, with our Armed Forces Champions having a particular responsibility to build capability and awareness within DWP. More generally DWP has put in place a number of specific provisions to support veterans, ranging from voluntary early entry to the Work and Health Programme to using Service Medical Board evidence to help assess claims where we can.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that benefit assessments for veterans focus on the increased costs of living for disabled people in addition to an individual's ability to secure and maintain employment.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
DWP itself does not provide any exclusively "veterans benefits". Instead disabled veterans have access to the usual range of extra cost disability benefits (such as Personal Independence Payment) and means tested benefits (such as Universal Credit). These benefits are designed to help with the costs of living and the additional costs that disabled people might face because of their disability. DWP staff receive training to help them understand the circumstances of veterans and the challenges they may face, including with their physical or mental health, with our Armed Forces Champions having a particular responsibility to build capability and awareness within DWP. More generally DWP has put in place a number of specific provisions to support veterans, ranging from voluntary early entry to the Work and Health Programme to using Service Medical Board evidence to help assess claims where we can.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder have (a) had a claim for Personal Independence Payments rejected at assessment and (b) have subsequently had decisions overturned on review in the latest period for which figures are available.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The information requested is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the number of people in Barnsley East constituency who have been affected by the underpayment of benefits after transitioning from incapacity benefit to employment and support allowance.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The Department published an update on the exercise to correct past ESA underpayments on Gov.uk on 8 July 2021. This reported that as of 1 June 2021, of the 600,000 cases checked, 118,000 arrears payments have been made totalling £613 million. This report showed the numbers of cases paid arrears at a national level only as the data was not available at sub-national level at that time. The Department is investigating the feasibility of providing this analysis at a constituency level.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has made an assessment of the potential effect of increasing statutory sick pay on compliance with self-isolation measures.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The government has put in place support to help individuals to comply with public health advice on self-isolation.
This includes extending Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) to those who are sick or self-isolating due to coronavirus. SSP is also now payable from the first day of absence, rather than the fourth, where an employee is sick or self-isolating due to coronavirus.
Alongside this, to ease financial barriers to self-isolating, we are providing the £500 Test and Trace Support Payment. This policy has been extended until the end of March 2022
SSP is just one part of our welfare safety net and our wider government offer to support people in times of need. Where an individual’s income is reduced while off work sick and they require further financial support they may be able to claim Universal Credit and new style Employment and Support Allowance, depending on their personal circumstances.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the proportion of workers who are not eligible for statutory sick pay.
Answered by Chloe Smith
There are around two million employees earning below the Lower Earnings Limit (LEL) and who are therefore ineligible for Statutory Sick Pay (SSP).
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many employed people are receiving universal credit in Barnsley East constituency as at 23 September 2021.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The latest available statistics, currently to 12 August 2021, on the number of people who are on Universal Credit and are in employment, by parliamentary constituency, are published monthly 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
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
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 impact of ending the £20 uplift to universal credit on the number of people living in poverty in Barnsley East constituency.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
No such assessments have been made of the effect of ending the £20 uplift on the numbers of people living in poverty in County Durham or Barnsley East.
It is not possible to produce a robust estimate of the impact of removing the £20 uplift on poverty. This is due to the uncertainty around the speed and distribution of the economic recovery, and the resulting effect on the caseload.
The latest poverty figures (2019/20) demonstrate that absolute poverty rates (both before and after housing costs) have fallen since 2009/10. In 2019/20, 14% of people were in absolute poverty (before housing costs), compared to 16% in 2009/10.
There have been significant positive developments in the public health situation since the uplift was first introduced. With the success of the vaccine rollout and record job vacancies, it is right that our focus is on helping people back into work. This approach is based on clear evidence about the importance of employment, particularly where it is full-time, in substantially reducing the risks of poverty.
This Government is wholly committed to supporting those on low incomes, and continues to do so through many measures, including by increasing the living wage, and by spending over £111 billion on welfare support for people of working age in 2021/22.
We recognise that some people continue to require extra support, which is why we have introduced a £421 million Household Support Fund to help vulnerable people in England with essential household costs over the winter as the economy recovers. The Barnett Formula will apply in the usual way, with the devolved administrations receiving around £80 million (£41m for the Scottish Government, £25m for the Welsh Government and £14m for the NI Executive), for a total of £500 million.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make it her policy to publish her Department's responses to future recommendations made by the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
I refer the honourable member to the answer I gave on 1st February 2021 to Question 143863