Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
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 ensure that Personal Independent Payment assessments take account of complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Answered by Chloe Smith
Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is focused on an individual’s functional needs arising from a long-term health condition or disability, not the health condition or disability itself.
Health Professionals undertaking assessments on behalf of the Department must be registered practitioners who have also met requirements around training and competence. All Health Professionals (HPs) receive training on how to identify the impact of mental health conditions on claimants. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is part of the Continuing Professional Development aimed at updating HPs on key clinical topics. HPs have access to a range of resources, as well as to experienced clinicians to support them in assessing individuals with conditions with which they may not be familiar. In addition, Mental Health Function Champions support HPs by providing additional expertise about mental health, cognitive, developmental and learning disabilities that can be referred to at any time during the assessment process.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when her Department plans to publish a response to the consultation on the Health and Disability Green Paper.
Answered by Chloe Smith
Shaping Future Support: The Health and Disability Green Paper was published on 20th July 2021 with a consultation period running to 11th October 2021.
We received over 4,500 responses to the Green Paper and we will follow up on these responses with a White Paper later this year.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if her Department will explore finding alternative positions in Portsmouth for staff impacted by the closure of Cosham Pension Centre.
Answered by Guy Opperman
DWP follows an established workforce management policy to manage and support impacted colleagues.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if her Department will guarantee that no redundancies will result from the closure of Cosham Pension Centre.
Answered by Guy Opperman
Redeployment will always be our priority and activity is underway to explore opportunities within DWP and across other government departments. The department will fulfil its legal commitment with regard to redundancy in any situation where it is necessary to do so, although redundancies may be unavoidable, we will support individuals throughout.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment she has made of the impact of the closure of Cosham Pension Centre on (a) her Department's ability to process pension claims and (b) levels of unemployment in Portsmouth; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Guy Opperman
Work currently carried out at Cosham will be undertaken in other locations across the national network.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of universal credit claimants had a managed payment to landlord arrangement in place in England in (a) January 2020 and (b) June 2021.
Answered by Will Quince
Monthly statistics on the number of Households on Universal Credit, including those that make use of a Managed Payment to Landlord Arrangement, are published, and a breakdown by country to February 2021 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: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
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 discounting Widowed Parent’s Allowance as income when calculating universal credit entitlement.
Answered by Guy Opperman
No such assessment has been made. We have no plans to change the treatment of Widowed Parents’ Allowance.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
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 implications for her policies of the recently published End Child Poverty data (a) nationally and (b) for Portsmouth South constituency; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Will Quince
No assessment has been made.
In 2019/20, 17% of children were in absolute poverty, before housing costs, a 1 percentage point reduction since 2010. There were also 700,000 fewer people in absolute poverty before housing costs than in 2010, including 100,000 fewer children.
The Department now publishes supplementary official statistics on the number of children in low income families at constituency level. Children in Low Income Families data is published annually. The latest figures on the number of children who are in low income in Portsmouth South, covering 2019/20, can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-in-low-income-families-local-area-statistics-2014-to-2020/children-in-low-income-families-local-area-statistics-fye-2015-to-fye-2020.
This Government is wholly committed to supporting those on low incomes, including by increasing the living wage, and by spending an estimated £111 billion on welfare support for people of working age in 2020/21. This included around £7.4 billion of Covid-related welfare policy measures.
We also introduced the Covid Winter Grant, now the Covid Local Support Grant, together totalling £269m, administered by local authorities in England to help the most vulnerable children and families stay warm and well fed. For Portsmouth City Council this means funding of £1,211,956.46.
As the economy recovers, our ambition is to help parents move into and progress in work as quickly as possible based on clear evidence around the importance of parental employment, particularly where it is full-time, in substantially reducing the risks of child poverty. We are investing over £30 billion in our ambitious Plan for Jobs which is already delivering for people of all ages right across the country.