Asked by: Tracy Brabin (Labour (Co-op) - Batley and Spen)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many households in the (a) Batley and Spen and (b) West Yorkshire are in receipt of the £20 per week uplift to Universal Credit.
Answered by Will Quince
The latest available statistics on the number of households with Universal Credit in payment, by parliamentary constituency and other geographical breakdowns, is 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: Tracy Brabin (Labour (Co-op) - Batley and Spen)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of families that use the childcare element of universal credit have at least one family member who is self-employed.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
Based on our internal data, around 10 per cent of Universal Credit Full Service payments containing a childcare element, have at least one person in receipt of self-employed earnings.
Asked by: Tracy Brabin (Labour (Co-op) - Batley and Spen)
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 merits of including in universal credit financial support for administration costs when a child starts a childcare place.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
Universal Credit claimants are able to claim up to 85% of childcare costs. Universal Credit childcare costs can be claimed for one month prior to starting work, to enable a child to settle into a new routine. In addition, the Flexible Support Fund is also available to help parents pay childcare deposits or up-front fees.
Asked by: Tracy Brabin (Labour (Co-op) - Batley and Spen)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 20 June 2018 to Question 155896 on Children: Day Care, for what reason she will not make that analysis available.
Answered by Lord Sharma
Entitlement to Universal Credit is determined by first assessing what a claimant qualifies for, for example, housing costs and caring responsibilities. This can include childcare of up to 85% of eligible costs, up to a limit of £1,108.04 for two or more children.
The conclusion that very few people are affected by the limits described comes from analysis using the DWP Policy Simulation Model, based on the Family Resources Survey. [The PSM is a static microsimulation model which describes the tax and benefit system of the GB population]. It produces financial outputs on a representative sample of the GB population simulating a policy. The analysis in question is based on forecasts which we produce for planning purposes and forecasting during fiscal events. It models the legacy and Universal Credit system, and in particular the childcare policy described above. Upon interrogation of the models, we found that while a handful of cases were affected by the limits above, the number of these were too few to report statistically.
Asked by: Tracy Brabin (Labour (Co-op) - Batley and Spen)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Treasury's response to the Treasury Committee's Ninth Report of Session 2017-19 on Childcare, if she will publish the internal analysis on families reaching the Universal Credit childcare costs support cap.
Answered by Lord Sharma
There are no plans to publish this analysis.