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1240789

	registered interest
	date	06/10/2020
	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	Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit: Asbestosis and Diffuse Pleural Thickening
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when she plans to resume assessments for Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefits for (a) asbestosis and (b) diffuse pleural thickening as done for other disability benefits.
	tabling member constituency	Stockport
	tabling member printed	Navendu Mishra
	uin	99767
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/10/2020 answer text <p>Our priority throughout this health emergency continues to be to protect the public and staff, while ensuring people get the benefits they are entitled to quickly and safely. Face-to-face assessments remain suspended while we review what activity we can gradually start reintroducing in line with the latest public health advice. We will confirm next steps as soon as possible.</p><p> </p><p>In the meantime, for claimants with the most serious or terminal conditions, claims continue to be processed and decisions made as normal. We are actively considering how to deal with those cases not currently being processed.</p> answering member constituency North Swindon answering member printed Justin Tomlinson question first answered 08/10/2020 15:05:04 answering member 4105 label Biography information for Justin Tomlinson
	tabling member	4811 label Biography information for Navendu Mishra

1251888

	registered interest
	date	13/11/2020
	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	Statutory Sick Pay: Coronavirus
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of increasing the level of Statutory Sick Pay for people who have (a) tested positive for covid-19 and (b) been notified to self-isolate via the Track and Trace App.
	tabling member constituency	North Down
	tabling member printed	Stephen Farry
	uin	92025
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 19/11/2020 answer text <p>Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) provides a minimum level of income for employees when they are sick or incapable of work. SSP is payable from the first day of absence from work, rather than the fourth, where an individual is unable to work due to COVID19. It is paid by employers at £95.85 per week for up to 28 weeks in any one period of entitlement. Some employers may also decide to pay more, and for longer, through Occupational Sick Pay.</p><p> </p><p>SSP is just one part of our welfare safety net and our wider government offer to support people in times of need, and we have taken steps to strengthen that safety net. Where an individual’s income is reduced while off work sick and they require further financial support, for example where they are not eligible for SSP, they may be able to claim Universal Credit and new style Employment and Support Allowance, depending on their personal circumstances. The Government introduced a package of temporary welfare measures worth around £9.3 billion this year to help with the financial consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. This included the £20 weekly increase to the Universal Credit Standard Allowance rates as a temporary measure for the 20/21 tax year. We are continuing to work with the Treasury on the best ways to support those receiving benefits.</p><p> </p><p>To help support people in Northern Ireland during the COVID-19 pandemic the Department for Communities has put in place additional support. Financial support may be available for short-term living expenses for those who have a positive Covid-19 diagnosis or are in self-isolation. A non-repayable Discretionary Support Self Isolation Grant may be available for those who are on a low income and are experiencing financial difficulties as a result of being told to self-isolate.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Background</strong></p><p>To help support people during the COVID-19 pandemic the Department for Communities has put in place additional support. This includes:</p><ul><li>a non-repayable Discretionary Support self-isolation grant payment to assist with short term living expenses where a person, or any member of their immediate family, is diagnosed with COVID-19 or is advised to self-isolate in accordance with guidance published by the Regional Agency for Public Health and Social Well-being and</li><li>extending Discretionary Support to full-time students suffering financial hardship as a direct result of COVID-19</li></ul> answering member constituency North Swindon answering member printed Justin Tomlinson question first answered 19/11/2020 14:11:23 answering member 4105 label Biography information for Justin Tomlinson
	tabling member	4856 label Biography information for Stephen Farry

1251903

	registered interest
	date	13/11/2020
	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	Personal Independence Payment: Coventry North East
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of former claimants of disability living allowance who have been unsuccessful in their claim for personal independence payment have been waiting over (a) six months and (b) one year for their appeal to be heard in Coventry North East constituency.
	tabling member constituency	Coventry North East
	tabling member printed	Colleen Fletcher
	uin	91980
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/11/2020 answer text <p>Information on the waiting time to a first tribunal hearing is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.</p><p> </p><p>The Ministry of Justice publish statistics on the mean age of a case at disposal by tribunal venue. This is the average number of weeks from receipt in Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) to the final outcome within the period for all Personal Independence Payment (PIP) appeals. It will include cases cleared at hearing and cases cleared without a hearing which include strike outs, superseded and withdrawals prior to a hearing. An appeal may not necessarily be cleared at its first hearing.</p><p> </p><p>These statistics are available in the Tribunal Statistics CSV files, Tribunal Statistics Quarterly, January to March 2020 publication, available here:</p><p> </p><p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/tribunal-statistics-quarterly-january-to-march-2020" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/tribunal-statistics-quarterly-january-to-march-2020</a></p><p> </p><p> </p> answering member constituency North Swindon answering member printed Justin Tomlinson question first answered 18/11/2020 13:17:38 answering member 4105 label Biography information for Justin Tomlinson
	tabling member	4378 label Biography information for Colleen Fletcher

1250081

	registered interest
	date	06/11/2020
	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	Employment: Chronic Illnesses
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps the Government is taking to help ensure that people with (a) hidden and (b) fluctuating conditions can (i) find and (ii) stay in work.
	tabling member constituency	Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle
	tabling member printed	Emma Hardy
	uin	91919
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 16/11/2020 answer text <p>The Government continues to provide disability employment support through initiatives such as Access to Work (AtW), Disability Confident, the Work and Health Programme, Intensive Personalised Employment Support, and other forms of support that disabled people need to retain, adapt and move into employment. In recognition of the changing working environments since the COVID-19 outbreak and to provide greater flexibility, AtW has flexed and adapted support. Disabled people with fluctuating conditions can have support to work from home when their condition fluctuates and they do not feel well enough to go to work. In addition, assistive technology support is available or technology can be moved from the workplace to the home to enable home working.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Background</strong></p><p>The Government is committed to supporting all disabled people affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. We continue to monitor the impact of COVID-19 on disabled people using existing and new data sources.</p><p> </p><p>We are ensuring that disabled people continue to have access to disability benefits, food, medicines, essentials, accessible communications, updated guidance, including workplace and transport related guidance, as well as financial and other support during the COVID-19 outbreak, e.g. AtW has continued to provide funding for people with a disability or health condition whether they are working in the workplace or are working from home.</p><p>In recognition of the changing working environments since the COVID-19 outbreak, AtW has flexed and adapted support, by making greater use of assistive technology and facilitated moving technology from the workplace to the home to enable home working.</p> answering member constituency North Swindon answering member printed Justin Tomlinson question first answered 16/11/2020 17:38:29 answering member 4105 label Biography information for Justin Tomlinson
	tabling member	4645 label Biography information for Emma Hardy

1250080

	registered interest
	date	06/11/2020
	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	Disability: Pay
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to tackle the disability pay gap.
	tabling member constituency	Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle
	tabling member printed	Emma Hardy
	uin	91918
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 16/11/2020 answer text <p>Pay gaps are caused by a range of factors. To address them, we must ensure that everybody has equal access to opportunities.</p><p> </p><p>We support disabled people to enter employment and stay in work through a range of initiatives such as the Work and Health Programme, Access to Work and Employment Advice in Improving Access to Psychological Therapies services. One of the key transformational elements of Universal Credit is that it provides us with the opportunity to support people who are in work to progress and increase their earnings.</p><p> </p><p>In November 2018, we published a voluntary reporting framework on disability, mental ill health and wellbeing. This is aimed at large employers (with over 250 employees) and it is recommended that they publicly report on the pay and progression of disabled people at regular intervals. The framework can also be used to support smaller employers who are keen to drive greater transparency in their organisation or industry.</p><p> </p><p>The Government will publish a National Strategy for Disabled People which will take into account the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on disabled people. The strategy will focus on the issues that disabled people say affect them the most in all aspects of life, including employment.</p><p> </p><p>More broadly, while our current focus, rightly, is on helping to get people into work, our longer-term ambition, based on clear evidence about the importance of work in tacking poverty, remains to build an economy that gives everyone the opportunity to progress out of low pay.</p><p> </p><p>Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith is leading a time-limited Commission looking at how DWP, wider Government and employers can best support people to progress out of low pay, especially for those groups more likely to be in persistent low pay, such as disabled workers. The Commission has recently launched a call for evidence to help inform their report, which will be published in the new year: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/call-for-evidence-and-good-practice-on-in-work-progression" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/call-for-evidence-and-good-practice-on-in-work-progression</a>.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency North Swindon answering member printed Justin Tomlinson question first answered 16/11/2020 17:02:59 answering member 4105 label Biography information for Justin Tomlinson
	tabling member	4645 label Biography information for Emma Hardy

1250078

	registered interest
	date	06/11/2020
	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	Personal Independence Payment: Appeals
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of factors behind for the rates of success for personal independence payment claimants at the mandatory reconsideration stage; and what steps is taking to increase this rate.
	tabling member constituency	Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle
	tabling member printed	Emma Hardy
	uin	91917
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 16/11/2020 answer text <p>We are focussed on making the right decision for our customers. Last year we implemented a new approach to handling Mandatory Reconsiderations. This approach empowers Decision Makers to contact customers, where appropriate, to see if there is information that would enable us to change the decision. As you have noted it is had a positive effect on outcomes. We will continue with this approach, whilst both enhancing our internal processes and engaging with stakeholders to explore how they can support us to further improve the effectiveness of the MR process.</p> answering member constituency North Swindon answering member printed Justin Tomlinson question first answered 16/11/2020 16:46:38 answering member 4105 label Biography information for Justin Tomlinson
	tabling member	4645 label Biography information for Emma Hardy

1313787

	registered interest
	date	12/05/2021
	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	Universal Credit: Appeals
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of universal credit claimants have had their claim accepted at appeal following an initial rejection in (a) Cynon Valley, (b) Wales and (c) the UK in 2020.
	tabling member constituency	Cynon Valley
	tabling member printed	Beth Winter
	uin	917
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/05/2021 answer text <p>The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.</p><p /> answering member constituency North Swindon answering member printed Justin Tomlinson question first answered 17/05/2021 14:52:03 answering member 4105 label Biography information for Justin Tomlinson
	tabling member	4809 label Biography information for Beth Winter

1300044

	registered interest
	date	08/03/2021
	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	Statutory Sick Pay
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of statutory sick pay.
	tabling member constituency	Carmarthen East and Dinefwr
	tabling member printed	Jonathan Edwards
	uin	913023
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/03/2021 answer text <p>Statutory Sick Pay provides a minimum level of income for employees who are unable to work and we have made temporary changes to support people to follow public health advice on coronavirus.</p><p>Individuals can receive further financial support through the welfare system and the Test and Trace support payment scheme depending on individual circumstances.</p> answering member constituency North Swindon answering member printed Justin Tomlinson question first answered 08/03/2021 17:58:53 answering member 4105 label Biography information for Justin Tomlinson
	tabling member	3943 label Biography information for Jonathan Edwards

1300042

	registered interest
	date	08/03/2021
	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: Disability
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	What assessment she has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on the level of welfare support required by disabled people.
	tabling member constituency	Vale of Glamorgan
	tabling member printed	Alun Cairns
	uin	913013
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/03/2021 answer text <p>This Government is committed to supporting disabled people affected by the Covid-19 outbreak and has delivered an unprecedented package of support, putting £7 billion into the welfare system.</p><p> </p><p>We continue to monitor the impact on disabled people using existing and new data sources, whilst ensuring that they are able to access the support they need.</p> answering member constituency North Swindon answering member printed Justin Tomlinson question first answered 08/03/2021 17:58:43 answering member 4105 label Biography information for Justin Tomlinson
	tabling member	4086 label Biography information for Alun Cairns

1279757

	registered interest
	date	25/01/2021
	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: Disability
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	What assessment she has made of the adequacy of benefit rates for disabled people on legacy benefits.
	tabling member constituency	Arfon
	tabling member printed	Hywel Williams
	uin	911294
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 25/01/2021 answer text <p>We will spend over £55 billion this year (2020/21) on benefits to support people with health conditions and disabilities. This will increase by £1.6 billion to £57 billion in 2021/22.</p> answering member constituency North Swindon answering member printed Justin Tomlinson question first answered 25/01/2021 16:45:43 answering member 4105 label Biography information for Justin Tomlinson
	tabling member	1397 label Biography information for Hywel Williams