Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an estimate of (a) the amount of savings accruing to the public purse through penalties incurred on housing benefit arising from the under occupancy penalty to date and (b) the amount paid in discretionary housing payments in that time.
Answered by Esther McVey
a) The Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy is estimated to save around £500 million per year in 2013/14 and 2014/15.
b) In 2013/14 total discretionary housing payment expenditure by local authorities across Great Britain was £176,393,889. This figure includes amounts spent by Local Authorities over and above their government contribution in DHP funding. At the end of the financial year, 240 out of 380 LAs across Great Britain under-spent by £13,285,430 against the available government contribution. This was in addition to the £7,111,693 unallocated from the £20 million reserve fund.
Detailed information about discretionary housing payment expenditure was published in June 2014 and can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/322455/use-of-discretionary-housing-payments-june-2014.pdf
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many benefit claimants have declined to move into a property with fewer bedrooms, having been offered that option of doing so under the Government's under-occupancy penalty policy.
Answered by Esther McVey
The information requested is not available.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to tackle delays faced by people waiting for a medical assessment following their application for personal independence payment.
Answered by Mike Penning
We are committed to ensuring Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claimants receive high quality, objective, fair and accurate assessments. Since the introduction of PIP new claims in April, we have been closely monitoring all aspects of the process.
Our latest analysis is telling us that the end-to-end claimant journey is taking longer than expected. We are working closely with the assessment providers to ensure that they are taking all necessary steps to improve performance, speed up the process and ensure claimants receive a satisfactory experience. We are also seeking to ensure that all the steps in the process run as smoothly as possible and that there are no barriers in our processes and systems that contribute to claims taking longer than necessary to progress.