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1134314

	registered interest
	date	24/06/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Social Security Benefits
	house id	2
	legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
	question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government what are the current (1) weekly rates of Child Benefit, and (2) monthly rates of Universal Credit standard allowances and child elements; and what would each of those rates have been had they not been frozen for the past four years.
	tabling member printed	Baroness Lister of Burtersett
	uin	HL16599
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/07/2019 answer text <p>Work is the best route out of poverty and for people to be more financially independent. Our welfare reforms are part of the Government’s commitment to incentivise moves into work and progression in work, and to better support working families.</p><p>The Department completed an Impact Assessment titled ‘Welfare Reform and Work Bill: Impact Assessment of the Benefit rate freeze’ in July 2015 which included information surrounding the policy objectives and the intended effects. Benefits for the additional costs of disability, and for carers, are exempt from the benefit freeze.</p><p>Currently the weekly rate of Child Benefit is £20.70 for the eldest or only child and £13.70 for additional children.</p><p>Universal Credit is made up of a standard allowance and any additional amounts which apply to claimants with certain circumstances, such as dependent children. The current monthly rates for the requested Universal Credit components are shown in the tables below.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Standard allowance</strong></p><table><tbody><tr><td><p>Single and under 25</p></td><td><p>£251.77</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Single and over 25</p></td><td><p>£317.82</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>In a couple and both under 25</p></td><td><p>£395.20 (for both)</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>In a couple and either are 25 or over</p></td><td><p>£498.89 (for both)</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p><strong>Child components</strong></p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p>For the first child</p></td><td><p>£277.08 (born before 6 April 2017) £231.67 (born on or after 6 April 2017)</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>For the second or other eligible children</p></td><td><p>£231.67</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>For a disabled or severely disabled child</p></td><td><p>£126.11 or £392.08</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p>We are unable to determine what each of the rates would have been had they not been subject to a freeze, as the legacy system is not comparable with Universal Credit.</p><p> </p> answering member printed Baroness Buscombe question first answered 08/07/2019 15:17:12 answering member 3349 label Biography information for Baroness Buscombe
	tabling member	4234 label Biography information for Baroness Lister of Burtersett

1132841

	registered interest
	date	18/06/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Social Security Benefits
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much her Department owes in social security benefit back-payments to claimants as a result of errors made by her Department.
	tabling member constituency	Glasgow North West
	tabling member printed	Carol Monaghan
	uin	266166
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 24/06/2019 answer text <p>The information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p /> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 24/06/2019 16:52:20 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	4443 label Biography information for Carol Monaghan

1132842

	registered interest
	date	18/06/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Social Security Benefits
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much her Department owes in social security benefit back-payments to claimants as a result of tribunals or High Court judgments finding in favour of such claimants.
	tabling member constituency	Glasgow North West
	tabling member printed	Carol Monaghan
	uin	266167
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 24/06/2019 answer text <p>The information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 24/06/2019 16:50:44 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	4443 label Biography information for Carol Monaghan

1127591

	registered interest
	date	20/05/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Social Security Benefits
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 20 May 2019 to Question 254839 on Social Security Benefits, whether claimants of (a) personal independence payments and (b) employment and support allowance whose claims were subject to a review by her Department's Quality Team are entitled to access any feedback on their claim from Quality Team reviewers.
	tabling member constituency	Motherwell and Wishaw
	tabling member printed	Marion Fellows
	uin	256373
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 28/05/2019 answer text <p>The Department has one quality team who check all benefits, any feedback from this team, on individual claims, can be requested through a Right to Access Request.</p><p><strong> </strong></p> answering member constituency North Swindon answering member printed Justin Tomlinson question first answered 28/05/2019 14:40:35 answering member 4105 label Biography information for Justin Tomlinson
	tabling member	4440 label Biography information for Marion Fellows

1134285

	registered interest
	date	24/06/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Social Security Benefits
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 24 Jun 2019 to Question 264329, of the 749,000 claimants with deductions from universal credit for non-universal credit debts, how much debt remains outstanding for each benefit in the Prescribed Social Security Benefits / Payments category.
	tabling member constituency	Birkenhead
	tabling member printed	Frank Field
	uin	268400
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 27/06/2019 answer text <p>The table below shows the outstanding debt balances for the 749k Debtors with recovery from UC for non-UC debts.*</p><table><tbody><tr><td><p><strong>Benefit </strong></p></td><td><p><strong>Current Debt Balance</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Attendance Allowance</p></td><td><p>£0.022m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Administrative Penalty</p></td><td><p>£0.011m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Bereavement Allowance</p></td><td><p>£0.038m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Bereavement Benefit</p></td><td><p>£0.001m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Bereavement Support Payment</p></td><td><p>£0.005m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Carer’s Allowance</p></td><td><p>£18.290m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Civil Penalties</p></td><td><p>£0.099m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Disability Living Allowance</p></td><td><p>£6.934m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Disability Working Allowance</p></td><td><p>£0.004m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Employment and Support Allowance</p></td><td><p>£39.226m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Family Credit</p></td><td><p>£0.097m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Housing Benefit</p></td><td><p>£94.378m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Incapacity Benefit</p></td><td><p>£6.371m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit</p></td><td><p>£0.027m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Income Support</p></td><td><p>£120.712m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Invalidity Benefit</p></td><td><p>£0.080m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Job Seekers Allowance</p></td><td><p>£22.745m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Maternity Allowance</p></td><td><p>£0.096m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Pension Credit</p></td><td><p>£0.568m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Personal Independence Payments</p></td><td><p>£1.262m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Reduced Earnings Allowance</p></td><td><p>£0.006m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Retirement Pension</p></td><td><p>£0.126m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Sickness Benefit</p></td><td><p>£0.002m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Severe Disablement Allowance</p></td><td><p>£0.259m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Social Fund Loans</p></td><td><p>£73.925m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Social Fund Overpayments</p></td><td><p>£0.619m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Non UC Short Term Advances</p></td><td><p>£0.293m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Supplementary Benefit</p></td><td><p>£0.113m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Tax Credit Overpayment</p></td><td><p>£635.113m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Unemployment Benefit</p></td><td><p>£0.020m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Widows Benefit</p></td><td><p>£0.045m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Widowed Mother Allowance</p></td><td><p>£0.418m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Widows Pension</p></td><td><p>£0.125m</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Widowed Parent’s Allowance</p></td><td><p>£1.491m</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p><strong> </strong></p><p>The Department works hard to prevent potential benefit overpayments from occurring. Internal and external data matches are increasingly helping inform benefit payments and alerting staff to check for any undeclared changes in people’s circumstances in real time.</p><p>Where overpayments do occur, the Department ensures that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect claimants who are subject to deductions to repay these overpayments.</p><p>It is not intended that the recovery of an overpayment should cause any claimant undue financial hardship.</p><p><em>*The data provided in this response has been sourced from internal management information and was not intended for public release. It should therefore not be compared to any other, similar data subsequently released by the Department. All figures have been rounded to the nearest thousand.</em></p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 27/06/2019 16:54:19 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	478 label Biography information for Lord Field of Birkenhead

1134286

	registered interest
	date	24/06/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Social Security Benefits
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 24 June 2019 to Question 264329, of the 749,000 claimants with deductions from universal credit for non-universal credit debts, how many claimants are repaying debts in each of the Prescribed Social Security Benefits / Payments categories.
	tabling member constituency	Birkenhead
	tabling member printed	Frank Field
	uin	268401
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 27/06/2019 answer text <p>As at 24 June 2019, 593k of the 749k debtors are currently repaying debts*. DWP is unable to break this down by benefit.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p>The Department works hard to prevent potential benefit overpayments from occurring. Internal and external data matches are increasingly helping inform benefit payments and alerting staff to check for any undeclared changes in people’s circumstances in real time.</p><p> </p><p>Where overpayments do occur, the Department ensures that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect claimants who are subject to deductions to repay these overpayments.</p><p><em> </em></p><p><em>*The data provided in this response has been sourced from internal management information and was not intended for public release. It should therefore not be compared to any other, similar data subsequently released by the Department. </em></p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 27/06/2019 16:47:00 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	478 label Biography information for Lord Field of Birkenhead

1134287

	registered interest
	date	24/06/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Social Security Benefits
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 24 June 2019 to Question 264329, of the 749,000 claimants with deductions from universal credit for non-universal credit debts, what is the (a) mean and (b) median average debt owed by claimants in each of the Prescribed Social Security Benefits / Payments categories.
	tabling member constituency	Birkenhead
	tabling member printed	Frank Field
	uin	268402
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 27/06/2019 answer text <p>Of the 749k debtors that made a payment in 2018/19, the Mean current balance per debtor is £1,740.68 and the Median current balance per debtor is £757.20.* DWP is unable to break this down by benefit.</p><p> </p><p>The Department works hard to prevent potential benefit overpayments from occurring. Internal and external data matches are increasingly helping inform benefit payments and alerting staff to check for any undeclared changes in people’s circumstances in real time.</p><p>Where overpayments do occur, the Department ensures that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect claimants who are subject to deductions to repay these overpayments.</p><p><em>*The data provided in this response has been sourced from internal management information and was not intended for public release. It should therefore not be compared to any other, similar data subsequently released by the Department. </em></p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 27/06/2019 16:53:35 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	478 label Biography information for Lord Field of Birkenhead

1135484

	registered interest
	date	28/06/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Social Security Benefits
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 27 June 2019 to Question 268401, what information she holds on the reasons why those 156,000 claimants with deductions from universal credit for non-universal credit debts are not repaying their debts.
	tabling member constituency	Birkenhead
	tabling member printed	Frank Field
	uin	270705
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/07/2019 answer text <p>The table below provides information on why the specified claimants were not repaying their debts.</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p>Zero balance**</p></td><td><p>92,776</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Business as usual/head of work (Includes future instalment confirmation)</p></td><td><p>48,196</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Awaiting Financial Reconciliation</p></td><td><p>12,452</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>In progress – Awaiting further information (e.g. customer correspondence/contact)</p></td><td><p>4,214</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Managed by external contractor (Debt collection agency)</p></td><td><p>618</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Awaiting appeal outcome</p></td><td><p>534</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Waiting for customer to call back</p></td><td><p>306</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Other</p></td><td><p>477</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p><em>*The data provided in this response has been sourced from internal management information and was not intended for public release. It should therefore not be compared to any other, similar data subsequently released by the Department.</em></p><p> </p><p><em>** The zero balance category is made up of debts that have been fully repaid, but are yet to be removed from the Debt Manager system. It is important to note that no further recovery action will be taken in these cases</em></p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 15/07/2019 15:06:25 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	478 label Biography information for Lord Field of Birkenhead

1135490

	registered interest
	date	28/06/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Social Security Benefits
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 27 June 2019 to Question 268402, if she will place in the Library a copy of the dataset from which the median balance per debtor was calculated.
	tabling member constituency	Birkenhead
	tabling member printed	Frank Field
	uin	270706
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 03/09/2019 answer text <p>A copy of the relevant dataset* will be placed in the Library.</p><p> </p><p>In order to comply with the General Data Protection Regulations 2018, the dataset contains values only.</p><p> </p><p>The data set shows all balances held on our systems for the relevant period. It includes ‘minus’ figures, which reflect changes made as a result of successful appeals.</p><p> </p><p>The data does not include any Universal Credit overpayments. It includes debts accrued in a number of ways including Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit overpayments built up under HMRC as well as fraud and error overpayments.</p><p> </p><p>Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit were introduced in 2003, with some people then accruing debts over many years.</p><p> </p><p>We do not want people to face undue financial hardship as a result of repaying overpayments. If people do struggle, adjustments can be made and will be based on an individual’s circumstance.</p><p> </p><p>The overall maximum amount that can be deducted from a claimant’s Universal Credit each month to recover a benefit overpayment is an amount equal to 40% of their Universal Credit standard allowance.</p><p> </p><p>The vast majority of benefit payments are made correctly; this stock of debts equates to around 0.6% of current annual welfare expenditure. The legacy welfare system is complex in its structure and administration and in the way that qualifying conditions interact with each other. UC provides a single system of means-tested support for working-age households who are in or out of work and we expect this to reduce overpayments.</p><p> </p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><em>*The data provided has been sourced from internal management information and was not intended for public release. It should therefore not be compared to any other, similar data subsequently released by the Department.</em></p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 03/09/2019 16:11:32 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	478 label Biography information for Lord Field of Birkenhead

1127575

	registered interest
	date	20/05/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Social Security Benefits
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment she has made of the effect of the benefits freeze on the incomes of households with children.
	tabling member constituency	Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill
	tabling member printed	Hugh Gaffney
	uin	256366
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 29/05/2019 answer text <p>An Impact Assessment of the benefit freeze was published in 2015, this is available in the link below.</p><p> </p><p><a href="https://www.parliament.uk/documents/impact-assessments/IA15-006C.pdf" target="_blank">https://www.parliament.uk/documents/impact-assessments/IA15-006C.pdf</a></p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The Welfare Reforms such as the benefit freeze were designed to incentivise parents to choose to move into and progress in work. Evidence shows that work is the best route out of poverty. Children in workless households are five time more likely to be in poverty than those in households where all adults were working. Since 2007/08, the incomes of the poorest fifth have increased by over £850 above inflation, whereas the incomes of the richest fifth have increased by around £650.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 29/05/2019 12:21:19 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	4614 label Biography information for Hugh Gaffney