Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what information her Department holds on the number of claimants of (a) jobseekers allowance and (b) universal credit have been sanctioned as a result of a failure to attend mandated English lessons.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The information requested is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
The available information on Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) and Universal Credit (UC) sanction decisions by referral reason, is published every quarter and can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
For JSA, failure to attend English lessons would be included in the general referral reason ‘Other Employment Programmes’ under the sub-category reason of ‘Failure to attend a place on a training scheme or employment programme without good reason’. For UC, failure to attend English lessons would come under the general referral reason ‘Employment Programmes’ under the sub-category reason of ‘Failure to participate in an employment programme’.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress her Department has made towards meeting the 2020 poverty reduction targets set out in the Child Poverty Act 2010; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Tackling child poverty and disadvantage is a priority for this government. To do this requires an approach that goes beyond the safety net of the welfare state to tackle the root causes of poverty and disadvantage. This is why the income-related targets and the requirement to publish a child poverty strategy set out in the Child Poverty Act 2010 have been repealed. In their place, we introduced statutory measures to drive action on parental worklessness and children’s educational attainment – the two areas that we know can make the biggest difference to disadvantaged children. The Government has a statutory duty to report annually to Parliament on these indicators and will do so again in March 2018.
The links to the latest report and available data are below:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/childrenlivinginlongtermworklesshouseholdsuk2016
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/revised-gcse-and-equivalent-results-in-england-2016-to-2017
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants for (a) jobseekers’ allowance and (b) universal credit have been (i) referred for an assessment of their English language skills and (ii) mandated to undertake English learning in each of the last three years.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The number of referrals for assessment of a claimant’s English language skills is as follows:
| Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants | Universal Credit Live Service claimants |
2014/15 | 10,559 | 28 |
2015/16 | 4,659 | 207 |
2016/17 | 2,773 | 312 |
The number of referrals for claimants to undertake English learning are as follows:
| Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants | Universal Credit Live Service claimants |
2014/15 | 5,187 | 13 |
2015/16 | 2,577 | 73 |
2016/17 | 1,222 | 95 |
We are unable to indicate how many of the referrals for English learning were the result of mandating. Such information is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Source:
Jobseeker’s Allowance - Department for Work and Pensions Labour Market System (LMS).
Universal Credit Live Service - Department for Work and Pensions Work Services Platform (WSP).
Notes:
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 28 December 2015 to Question 19729, how many jobseekers were referred to English language skills educational providers by jobcentres in (a) 2016 and (b) 2017.
Answered by Lord Sharma
Between January and December 2016, in England and Scotland there were 16,880 referrals of jobseekers to English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) training.
Between January and May 2017, in England and Scotland there were 6,530 referrals of jobseekers to English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) training.
Notes
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Secretary of State for Work and Pensions with reference to the Answer of 19 October 2015 to Question 10807, how many free guidance sessions with Pension Wise have been held for those with defined contribution pensions in each year since October 2015; and what estimate his Department has made of the number of such sessions which will be held in 2018.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The number of Pension Wise website visits and appointments has grown significantly from a standing start when the service launched in April 2015, and is still rising.
Pension Wise delivered 61,000 face to face and telephone appointments in 2015/16, 66,000 in 2016/17 and is on track to deliver more than 80,000 in 2017/18.
There have been around 6.2 million visits to the pension wise website since launch.
In July 2017 Pension Wise introduced digital appointments, which guide users through their pension options, scams and tax implications online. Digital appointments mirror the content provided in a face to face or telephone appointment. So far, Pension Wise has delivered almost 22,000 digital appointments.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people who moved into supported housing in 2016-17 are eligible for housing benefit.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Department does not currently collect administrative data on the number of people who are eligible for housing benefit and who moved into supported housing in 2016-17.
Developing a workable and sustainable funding model for supported housing is a priority for the Government. We will set out further details on the Government’s plans later in the autumn.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average time was for a decision being reached on a claim for employment and support allowance in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt
The latest available information on Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) clearance times can be found in the ESA Outcomes of Work Capability Assessments quarterly statistics published here:
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance his Department provides to local authorities on administration of discretionary housing benefit; and what steps his Department is taking to monitor the effectiveness of delivery of that benefit to those most in need.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Discretionary Housing Payment fund is not a benefit, but is available to people in receipt of either Housing Benefit or the housing element of Universal Credit if they need further financial help with housing costs. This includes helping with such things as rent deposits and removal costs as well as mitigating the impact of welfare reform.
These payments are discretionary and are made by local authorities who have a duty to act fairly and reasonably when considering applications. The Department does however provide on line guidance to Local Authorities in England and Wales. Local authorities also provide voluntary monitoring returns to the Department twice yearly on how these payments have been allocated. Details of the 2016/17 End of Year statistical monitoring returns can be found below:
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people employed by his Department are from other EU countries.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
All Government Departments are bound by legal requirements concerning the right to work in the UK and, in addition, the Civil Service Nationality Rules.
Evidence of nationality is checked at the point of recruitment into the Civil Service as part of wider pre-employment checks, but there is no requirement on departments to retain this information beyond the point at which it has served its purpose.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the implications are for his Department's policies of the Institute of Fiscal Studies assessment that the Government lacks a clear and effective child poverty strategy.
Answered by Damian Hinds
The Prime Minister is clear that tackling poverty and disadvantage, and delivering real social reform, is a priority for this Government. We intend to bring forward a Green Paper on social justice, which will identify and address the root causes of poverty, building upon the two statutory indicators set out in the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016.