Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many new applications for universal credit have been processed in (a) Cardiff and (b) Vale of Glamorgan in each month since 1 January 2020.
Answered by Will Quince
Statistics on Universal Credit claims can be found on Stat-Xplore:
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: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many complaints her Department received in relation to processing claims for (a) universal credit and (b) personal independence payments in Wales in the last six months.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The customer’s address is not a mandatory field when registering complaints on the Department’s complaints system. From the available data, the Department has received a total of 13 Universal Credit and 22 Personal Independence Payment complaints in relation to processing claims for Wales during the period July to December 2019.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment has been made of the effectiveness of the financial assistance scheme for pensioners affected by occupational pension scheme looses.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS), which is administered by the Pensions Protection Fund (PPF) on behalf of DWP, was set up in 2005 with assistance payments backdated to May 2004 when the policy of the FAS was announced. Prior to the establishment of the FAS, employees received vastly reduced benefits from pension schemes in difficulty and sometimes nothing at all, irrespective of the contributions they had made.
£400 million of public funding over 20 years was initially committed to the FAS which helped an estimated 15,000 people. The support available to members of FAS has subsequently been extended over the years and, as a consequence, the level of Government funding of the scheme has increased significantly bringing the Government’s total long-term cash expenditure on the scheme to £8.6 billion.
The FAS closed to notification and qualification of new schemes on 1 September 2016 but will continue to support its 150,000 members who will continue to receive a meaningful income for the rest of their lives.
The Government remains committed to the principle of providing protection for members of pension schemes in the event of employer insolvency via the PPF.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what support her Department is providing to (a) pilots and (b) cabin crew affected by the liquidation of Thomas Cook.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
DWP stands ready to support anyone affected by the closure of Thomas Cook, with our Rapid Response Service (RRS) offer. This is a redundancy service designed to give support and advice to employers and their employees when faced with redundancy. It is coordinated nationally by the National Employer and Partnership Team (NEPT) and is managed by Jobcentre Plus.
The RRS has been mobilised to help people find a new job as soon as possible by offering tailored support. Each Jobcentre Plus district deploy resources according to the situation and the requirements of the workforce. The RRS is delivered in partnership with a range of national and local partners, including National Careers Service and local service providers.
Our local teams are monitoring all new claims to benefits to identify where the claimant is an ex-employee of Thomas Cook so that they quickly receive the right level of support.
The Department is working closely with over 100 employers to offer support and opportunities. We are delivering over 65 Job Fairs nationally, where ex-employees can meet local employers with vacancies.
The full range of support available from Jobcentre Plus and partners includes:
Please note that the data supplied are derived from unpublished management information which was collected for internal Departmental use only, and have not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. They should therefore be treated with caution.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
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 universal credit claimants in (a) Cardiff South and Penarth, (b) the Vale of Glamorgan and (c) Wales who have (ii) had their housing benefit stopped without notice and (ii) are in rent arrears.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
Local Authorities have a duty to notify changes to a Housing Benefit award. Therefore, if a Housing Benefit claim ends because of a move to Universal Credit, the claimant is notified that the Housing Benefit claim has ended.
However, we know that many tenants are arriving on Universal Credit with pre-existing rent arrears, that their arrears tended to increase prior to making a claim for Universal Credit, and that Universal Credit actually appears to be helping to clear arrears over time. According to latest figures (November 2018) only about 8% of social rented households were on Universal Credit.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
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 people in (a) Cardiff South and Penarth, (b) the Vale of Glamorgan and (c) Wales that have waited more than 6 weeks to receive benefit payments in the latest period for which figures are available.
Answered by Lord Sharma
For Universal Credit New Claims no claimant has to go five weeks without receiving support, as advances, worth up to 100 per cent of a claimant’s indicative award, are available, if required and a two week ‘transitional housing payment’ is available to those claimants who were receiving Housing Benefit before they moved onto Universal Credit.
In many cases where full payment is not made on time, it is due to unresolved issues such as: claimants not accepting their Claimant Commitment or passing identity checks, or having outstanding verification issues, such as housing costs and self-employed earnings. In order to support claimants to claim, we have taken steps to improve verification processes. For example, we have listened to feedback and built processes into the system to make it easier and quicker for people to verify their housing costs, for example through the landlord portal.
The table below shows the number and proportion of UC New Claims where full payment/part payment was made within 6 weeks of the claim being submitted.
These figures relate to New Claims where the first payment was due in November 2018.
| Waited more than 6 weeks from declaration for any UC payment | As a proportion of all payments due this month |
Cardiff South and Penarth | 20 | 8% |
Vale of Glamorgan | 10 | 4% |
Wales | 310 | 5% |
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Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the average annual loss in pension credit and pension age housing benefit per couple who are in a mixed-aged relationship after 15 May 2019.
Answered by Guy Opperman
Mixed-age couples will see no reduction in the amount of benefit they receive as a result of this change, unless they are already in receipt of Pension Credit and/or pension-age Housing Benefit but then lose entitlement to both of those benefits.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
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 number of pension credit claimants in (a) Cardiff South and Penarth, (b) the Vale of Glamorgan and (c) Wales who have a partner of working age and will be affected by forthcoming changes to the rules on pension credit.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The changes the government announced on January 14 will ensure that same work incentives will apply to the younger partner as apply to other people of the same age and that taxpayer support is directed to where it is needed most.
The change will not affect mixed age couples who are entitled to Pension Credit and/or pension age Housing Benefit immediately before May 15, unless their entitlement to both those benefits subsequently ends.
The number of future mixed age couples that are estimated to be affected by the forthcoming changes is not available.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent estimate her Department has made of the number of mixed-age couples who have been negatively affected by changes to universal credit.
Answered by Guy Opperman
Additional support to all claimants whatever their age, has been provided by the Autumn Budget 2017 and 2018 and will therefore not have any negative impact on mixed-aged couples claiming Universal Credit.
Following Autumn Budget 2017, the Department has introduced a range of measures to support claimants and ensure no one has to experience hardship within the initial assessment period, these include: making advances more generous, removing the 7 waiting days; providing an additional transitional payment of 2 weeks of Housing Benefit; and changing how claimants in temporary accommodation receive support for their housing costs.
Measures introduced at Autumn Budget 2018 will provide further assistance for claimants over the next few years. These include reducing, from October 2019, the maximum rate at which deductions can be made from a Universal Credit award from 40% to 30% of the standard allowance, with the period over which these recoveries are made extended from 12 to 16 months in October 2021. Payment of Income Support and the income related elements of Employment and Support Allowance and Jobseeker’s Allowance will continue for two weeks after a claim for Universal Credit has been made, effective from July 2020, benefitting 1.1 million households. Additionally, from April 2019, there will be a £1000 increase in work allowances from April 2019, which will provide a £630 boost for households with children, and for people with disabilities.