Asked by: Neil Gray (Scottish National Party - Airdrie and Shotts)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the effect of the five-week wait for a first payment of universal credit on levels of poverty in (a) Airdrie and Shotts constituency and (b) Scotland.
Answered by Will Quince
No one has to wait five weeks for their first payment of Universal Credit. New claim advances are available to support those in financial need until their first payment is made. The Department has learnt from where we did not get things right in the past in the legacy benefit system. Too often, the desire to pay quickly meant claimants not receiving their correct entitlement as we did not have an appropriate timeframe to review household circumstances.
Claimants can access up to 100% of the total expected monthly award, which they can pay back over a period of up to 12 months. We have announced that from October 2021, the repayment period for these advances will be extended further, to 16 months. Proposed repayments of the advance are explained, and all claimants are advised to request a level of advance which is manageable both now and when considering the repayments required.
The best way to help people improve their lives is through employment. Households where all adults are in work are around 6 times less likely to be in relative poverty than adults in a household where nobody works. This improves further if all the adults are working full time, reducing a child’s risk of being in poverty from 66% for (two-parent) families with only part-time work to 7%. Universal Credit allows households the freedom from the ‘cliff edges’ which featured in the legacy benefits system, where money was lost when working more than 16, 24 or 30 hours.
There are many reasons people use foodbanks and their growth cannot be linked to a single cause. We have listened to feedback on how we can support our Universal Credit claimants and acted quickly, making improvements such as removing waiting days and introducing housing benefit run on. These changes are giving support to vulnerable people who need it most, whilst at the same time helping people get into work faster.
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government why the objectives listed in the departmental plan for the Department for Work and Pensions makes no reference to (1) reducing poverty, and (2) the Sustainable Development Goal on poverty.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
As clearly set out in the Government’s published response to the Voluntary National Review of the Sustainable Development Goal 1, we are committed to delivering a sustainable, long-term solution to reducing poverty through welfare reforms that ensure that the benefits system works with the tax system and the labour market to support employment and higher pay. There is clear evidence that full-time work dramatically reduces the risk of poverty for working families; for example, there is only a 7% chance of a child being in poverty (relative, after housing costs) if both parents work full-time compared with 66% for children in (two-parent) families with only part-time work.
Although not directly referenced, our approach to reducing poverty is already reflected in our Single Departmental Plan which sets out how we plan to achieve our key strategic objectives including delivering an effective labour market strategy that boosts employment among under-represented and disadvantaged groups and facilitating progression; and consolidating the delivery of Universal Credit so that it works for everyone.
Universal Credit, at the heart of our reforms, has already shown that it is more effective in getting people into work than the legacy benefits it replaces. Nine months into a UC claim, 40% of claimants are working for an employer in a paid role, compared with only 23% at the start of their claim. This is a key approach to provide a sustainable solution to reducing poverty.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans her Department has to increase financial support for single-parent families.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Under Universal Credit, working families can claim back up to 85% of their registered childcare costs each month. This can be claimed up to a month before starting a job.
In the Autumn Budget 2017, the Department introduced a range of measures to support claimants and ensure no one has to experience hardship within the initial assessment period. These include making advances more generous, removing the 7 waiting days, providing an additional transitional payment of 2 weeks of Housing Benefit and changing how claimants in temporary accommodation receive support for their housing costs
We recently announced that parents may be eligible to receive a Flexible Support Fund Award or a budgeting advance to enable them to take up a job offer or increase their working hours.
We are also piloting a more flexible approach to claimants reporting childcare costs, which will allow people to be reimbursed for childcare even if they aren’t able to provide immediate evidence. Once the pilots have concluded, we will consider whether to roll out this approach further.
Additionally, there will be a £1000 increase in work allowances from April 2019, which will provide a £630 boost for households with children, and for people with disabilities.
Asked by: Thelma Walker (Labour - Colne Valley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the effect of the high income child benefit tax charge on single-parent families.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
The Government introduced the High Income Child Benefit Charge (HICBC) from January 2013 to ensure that support is targeted at those who need it most. It applies to anyone with an individual income over £50,000, who claims Child Benefit or whose partner claims it, regardless of the make-up of their household.
The impacts on individuals and households were published in the Tax Information and Impact Note at Budget 2012 when HICBC was announced:
Asked by: Paul Sweeney (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many single parent asylum-seeking families are sharing accommodation provided by Serco.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The use of individual properties across provider’s portfolios changes daily subject to demand.
Information on the current number of properties shared between single parent families could only be provided at disproportionate cost by examination of individual provider property records.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether children of single parent families would fall within the provisions of article 10(1)(e)(iii) of the draft agreement on the withdrawal of the UK from the EU in circumstances where the custody of a child has been disputed.
Answered by Lord Keen of Elie
It is the Government’s intention to implement this aspect of the Withdrawal Agreement in the UK by way of the EU Settlement Scheme, which will allow EU citizens living in the UK before we leave the EU to apply for status to remain once the UK has left. However, when determining the custody of a child in the UK whether or not the parent is a single parent is not a relevant factor. It will continue to be the case that the court with jurisdiction will decide on custody (with whom the child is to live and when) on the facts of the individual case.
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what proportion of lone parent families subject to the benefit cap on Universal Credit have a child aged under 2 years old.
Answered by Baroness Buscombe
Figures on number and proportion of single parent families subject to the Benefit Cap on Universal Credit by age of the youngest child are intended for future publication. The Department published its Universal Credit experimental statistics future release strategy on the 12 June 2018 in response to the public consultation on future Universal Credit statistics.
Asked by: Dan Jarvis (Labour - Barnsley Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the report by the Social Metrics Commission, A new measure of poverty in the UK, published in September 2018, what steps her Department is taking to support single parent families that live in poverty.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Work offers people the best opportunity to get out of poverty. Children of lone parent workless families are around 4 times more likely to be in poverty than those where their parent works full time. We are helping lone parents with the biggest challenges they face. Universal Credit is a modern welfare system where work always pays. Since April 2016, the Universal Credit childcare element covers up to 85% of eligible costs, compared with 70% in the legacy tax credits system. Lone parents are also no longer incentivised to work just 16 hours, unlike the legacy system. National Statistics show there are 100k fewer children of lone parents in absolute poverty than 2010.
We welcome the work that the Social Metrics Commission has done. Measuring poverty is complex, and this report offers further insight into that complexity and the additional measures that can be taken into consideration. From discussions with SMC they acknowledge that further work needs to be done (particularly around data availability and quality). We will carefully consider their recommendations and the detail behind the methodology they have employed when this has been made available.
Asked by: Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that people are not better off out of work than in work.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
Work is the best route out of poverty and the government is ensuring that work always pays. Increases in the National Living Wage (NLW) have handed full-time minimum wage workers a pay rise of over £2,000 since the introduction of the NLW, and changes to the personal allowance will see 1.2m individuals taken out of income tax altogether by 2018-19 (compared to 2015-16).
We have also made sure the welfare system is fairer and rewards work. Universal Credit (UC) replaces six benefits with one and applies a single taper to claimants’ benefit awards, removing the poor incentives of the old system to ensure that it always pays more to be in work than out of work.
The Government’s childcare offer is also ensuring parents are supported into work. UC provides support for childcare costs worth up to £1108 per month for two or more children. Eligible working families in England are also entitled to 30 hours free childcare for three and four-year olds, worth up to £5000 per year. A lone parent only has to earn around £6,500 a year to be able to access this entitlement and a couple just over £13,000, making work pay for parents.
Asked by: Catherine McKinnell (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department has made an assessment of whether single parents in England would benefit most from either (a) childcare vouchers or (b) tax-free childcare.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
Tax-Free Childcare is fairer for single parents as it is paid per child whereas childcare vouchers are paid per parent. About 1 million more families will be able to receive Tax-Free Childcare than currently receive vouchers. Childcare Vouchers are offered by less than 5% of employers and are not available to the self-employed, so many single parents aren’t able to receive them.