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 children aged less than 17 receive (a) disability living allowance, (b) personal independence payments and (c) armed forces independence payments.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The latest available data on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Disability Living Allowance (DLA) caseloads (i.e. claims in payment) broken down by year of age can be found at https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/.
Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here:
https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html.
Armed Forces Independence Payment (AFIP) is a weekly benefit which can be claimed by current or former members of the armed forces who were seriously injured whilst in the armed forces. There are currently no AFIP claimants under the age of 17.
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 November 2017 to Question 114593, on universal credit: self-employed, whether he plans to make that information available in the future.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The Universal Credit official statistics consultation ran from 13 September 2017 to 24 October 2017.
We are currently reviewing the responses to the consultation and a link to the results of the consultation will be published on the Universal Credit Statistics page which can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/universal-credit-statistics
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 the Department of Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 18 April 2017 to Question 70208, if he will provide information on how the estimated savings from the minimum income floor for universal credit were calculated for (a) 2017-18; (b) 2018-19; (c) 2019-20; (d) 2020-21, and (e) 2021-22.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The Minimum Income Floor is expected to encourage those reporting very low self-employed income to increase their earnings. Some people will respond to this by increasing their earnings from self-employment, others will look for other employment to increase their income and it is applied equally across all sectors of self-employment.
The Minimum Income Floor is modelled using the Policy Simulation Model and Integrated Microsimulation Model (INFORM) where we apply it to the Universal Credit award calculation for the projected population of Universal Credit self-employed claimants.
The Minimum Income Floor is calculated, as per policy, based on claimants characteristics i.e. National Minimum Wage/National Living Wage (which is a function of age), tax bracket and maximum work search requirement for a given claimant type.
A more detailed modelling methodology of Universal Credit forecasts is likely to be published by Office for Budget Responsibility in 2018 as a part of their Welfare Trends Report series.
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 the Department of Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 11 September 2017 to Question 9283, what the evidential basis is for the statement that flaws in the current system allow some self-employed claimants to receive full State support while declaring low or zero earnings.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Tax Credits for the self-employed lack a strong incentive for claimants to grow their earnings and reduce their dependency on welfare. The rules for eligibility for Working Tax Credit (WTC) are set out in the Tax Credits Act 2002 and the associated regulations, in particular the Working Tax Credit (Entitlement and Maximum Rate) Regulations 2002. These do not include a requirement for those claiming WTC to increase their earnings, or to earn more than a specified amount.
The Government introduced the strengthened self-employment test into Working Tax Credit in 2015 to address the risk of individuals continuing to claim WTC, despite not working on a commercial and with a view to a profit basis. HMRC advice on this is in the link below:
Historically, a high proportion of self-employed Tax Credit claimants saw little progression in their earnings over several years, including many of the lowest earners.
Recently, HMRC and DWP have published data from a survey of self-employed tax credit claimants. These data confirm that many such claimants have low earnings and demonstrate the need to support and incentivise claimants to grow their 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 the Department of Work and Pensions how many and what proportion of self-employed claimants of universal credit are (a) gainfully self-employed (b) not gainfully self-employed and (c) have not been subjected to the gainful self-employment test; and how many of those claimants have identified as (i) employed under PAYE and (ii) neither employed or self-employed.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The requested information is not currently available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
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 childcare facilities his Department makes available for its staff; how much his Department spent (a) overall and (b) per child on those facilities in the last 12 months; and how many of his Department's staff use those facilities.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) does not provide childcare facilities for its staff. DWP offers a childcare voucher salary sacrifice scheme which allows employees to vary their contract of employment to give up part of their salary in return for vouchers. They then use these vouchers to pay for their own childcare. Employees can sacrifice any amount from £1 up to £243 a month dependent on tax rate. Currently the scheme has 1722 users.
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 people have had their welfare entitlement reduced after completing an application for tax free childcare.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The information requested is not available.
Tax-Free Childcare provides support to parents for their childcare costs. We estimate that around 2 million working families will have access to the scheme.
Parents cannot receive support from Tax-Free Childcare where they are in receipt of Universal Credit or Child Tax Credit or Working Tax Credit. However, families who are eligible for both will have the freedom to choose which scheme best meets their needs
The Department for Work and Pensions continues to work closely with HM Revenue and Customs to ensure the schemes complement each other effectively, and that parents will have the guidance they need in order to make an informed decision on which scheme will provide the best support for them.
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 27 June 2017 to Question 772, on Jobcentres: Batley, of he will set out how his Department calculated the journey time of 19 minutes.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Throughout our planning we calculated distances and journey times for Batley Jobcentre using a variety of methods to ensure accuracy, including online tools and timetables, information collected on local public transport routes, and input and scrutiny from local DWP staff and management.
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, for what reason his Department did not undertake a consultation into the closure of Batley Jobcentre Plus.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
There was no public consultation on the proposal to close Batley Jobcentre as the proposed move to merge with Dewsbury Jobcentre is approximately 1.9 miles away and 19 minutes by public transport. We committed to a public consultation for offices over three miles and 20 minutes away by public transport.
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, whether he plans to make carer's allowance available to carers in receipt of a state pension.
Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford
Where a carer's State Pension is less than Carer's Allowance, State Pension is paid and topped up with Carer's Allowance to the basic weekly rate of Carer's Allowance, which is currently £62.70 a week.
However, where the State Pension paid is higher than £62.70, social security rules operate to prevent Carer’s Allowance and State Pension being paid together, since they are designed to meet the same need i.e. to help maintain income. Paying both benefits together would represent duplicate provision. The relevant legislation is The Social Security (Overlapping Benefits) Regulations 1979 (regulation 4), which can be found at http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1979/597/pdfs/uksi_19790597_290216_en.pdf
Where Carer’s Allowance cannot be paid, the person will keep underlying entitlement to the benefit. This gives access to the additional amount for carers in Pension Credit, worth up to £34.95 a week, and even if a pensioner’s income is above the limit for Pension Credit, he or she may still be able to receive Housing Benefit.