Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has undertaken an impact assessment on the roll out of Universal Credit to Tax Credit claimants including those that are farmers.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Universal Credit (UC) was legislated for in 2012. We continue to learn and iterate our approach as we progress our Move to UC activity and remain committed to ensuring that the transition to UC works as smoothly as possible for all individuals. Latest findings of the Move to UC process were published here: Move to Universal Credit – insight on Tax Credit migrations and initial Discovery activity for wider benefit cohorts - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)”
Asked by: Angela Eagle (Labour - Wallasey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to paragraph 3.21 of the report by the National Audit Office entitled Department for Work and Pensions Accounts 2022-23, published on 6 July 2023, how many and what proportion of the incorrect National Insurance records have (a) been and (b) not yet been updated.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
To date we have processed over 23 million pieces of data to HMRC and less than 1% (0.88%) needs data validations. We expect this will be completed by Summer 2024.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to help support women in Hornsey and Wood Green constituency to return to work after a career break.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Local Jobcentre teams are supporting residents into work and helping those in work to progress to higher paid jobs. We are working with local and national employers to help fill vacancies quickly, delivering Sector-Based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs), recruitment days, Job Fairs, and work trials, all of which can help support women to return to work after a career break.
In addition, one to one support from a Work Coach and Contracted Employment Programmes, the department also offers help with CVs and employability skills, mentoring circles for people aged 50 plus and support with childcare costs. Where a Work Coach identifies a barrier to securing or progressing in employment, they can use the Flexible Support Fund (FSF) to procure clothing, tools, digital devices, and to help with travel to work costs.
In Haringey, we are working with the Construction Youth Trust to support more women into construction roles, with referrals made by Jobcentres across the borough, and funding available to support women who want to work in this sector.
To help facilitate signposting discussions with claimants, staff have access to a database of national and local support information, the District Provision Tool as well as the new Managed Jobs and Opportunities which ensures that claimants can access tailored support where required. This includes provision aimed at women across London such as Dress for Success, a service that supports women to improve their confidence when attending interviews and Smart Works, a UK charity that provides high quality interview clothes and interview training to unemployed women.
We are also working with Transport for London and the College of North East London on their Women into Transportation and Engineering provision. This provides two weeks of pre-employment training, covering CV writing, and workplace skills, plus a Smart Works coaching and styling appointment designed to give participants the confidence to apply for the roles offered within the programme
Asked by: Jonathan Gullis (Conservative - Stoke-on-Trent North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what (a) restrictions and (b) guidance are in place for landlords renting out properties to immediate family members and receiving (i) housing benefit and (ii) universal credit for that property.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
To be eligible for support with housing costs in Housing Benefit and Universal Credit, claimants must be liable for making payment of rent on a commercial basis. A claimant can receive support with housing costs if that test is satisfied and liability is to a close relative, but only where that relative does not live in the same property as the claimant.
Guidance setting this out is available on Gov.uk.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in (a) Preston, (b) Lancashire and (c) England have (i) applied for and (ii) received Personal Independence Payments for inflammatory bowel disease in each year since 2020.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The latest available data on personal independence payment (PIP) clearances and awards can be found here. The requested data can be found on the ‘PIP Clearances’ dataset by going to ‘Geography’, ‘National – Regional – LAs – OAs’ and following the drop downs to the relevant areas. Similarly, you can filter for those with inflammatory bowel disease through ‘Disability’, ‘Gastrointestinal disease’ and selecting ‘Inflammatory bowel disease’. To further filter just for those awarded, you can go to ‘Clearance Type Detail’ and select ‘Awarded’.
A lookup which shows which Local Authorities are in Lancashire is available here.
Data is based on primary disabling condition as recorded on the PIP computer systems. Claimants may often have multiple disabling conditions upon which the decision is based but only the primary condition is shown in these statistics.
Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here. An account is not required to use Stat- Xplore, the ‘Guest Login’ feature gives instant access to the main functions.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of waiting times to speak to the Disability Service Centre.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Telephony is our customers’ primary channel to contact us. We continually assess the number of calls we are receiving and the associated waiting times, deploying resources accordingly to support service levels wherever this is possible.
However, due to recent higher volumes of calls than forecast, from the 24th of April and throughout May, we are deploying dedicated telephony specific resource to the Personal Independent Payment telephony lines which will give better support when dealing with sudden increases in traffic.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department has taken to reduce the costs of fraud in his Department in the last three financial years.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are committed to tackling fraud which is why in May 2022 the Department launched a robust plan to drive down fraud and error from the benefits system, alongside investment of £900 million that will deliver £2.4 billion of savings by the end of 2024/25. This plan includes proposed powers to require the transfer of data from third-parties, which has been introduced as part of the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill (No.2). This legislation is forecast to save up to an additional £600m over the Treasury scorecard period. The Department has set out a target to deliver £1.3bn in savings from our dedicated counter-fraud and error resource in 2023/24 as set out in the department’s Annual Reports and Accounts.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the implications for his Department’s policies of the report entitled Women’s State Pension age: our findings on injustice and associated issues published by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman on 21 March 2024, HC 638.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
In laying the report before Parliament at the end of March, the Ombudsman has brought matters to the attention of this House, and a further update to the House will be provided once the report's findings have been fully considered.
Asked by: Martyn Day (Scottish National Party - Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of allowing recipients of Attendance Allowance to report a change in circumstances digitally.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The modernisation of Retirement Services, which includes Attendance Allowance, forms a key part of DWP’s Service Modernisation Programme. A key objective of the programme is to understand how existing services - such as Attendance Allowance - should operate in the future and understand how and whether services, including reporting change of circumstances, can be accessed by citizens more quickly and easily online.
Asked by: Angela Eagle (Labour - Wallasey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many staff in his Department are responsible for manually updating records relevant to eligibility for the State Pension.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
This information is only available at disproportionate cost to The Department for Work & Pensions as the Department does not have a business requirement for this information to be retained.