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1329075

	registered interest
	date	27/05/2021
	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
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the High Court's ruling in January 2021, what steps her Department is taking to amend or remove the proof of payment mechanism for assessing and paying the childcare costs element of universal credit.
	tabling member constituency	Arfon
	tabling member printed	Hywel Williams
	uin	8556
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 07/06/2021 answer text <p>The Department has been granted permission to appeal. It is therefore not appropriate to comment at this time. It should be noted there are no changes to the current processes and the legislation remains the same.</p><p> </p><p>The policy of reimbursing actual childcare costs paid has, as intended, resulted in a significantly lower level of fraud and error than in the legacy system, which was based on projected costs.</p><p> </p><p>Eligible claimants can claim up to 85% of their registered childcare costs each month compared to 70% in legacy benefits.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 07/06/2021 15:30:13 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	1397 label Biography information for Hywel Williams

1172921

	registered interest
	date	23/01/2020
	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	Social Security Benefits: Wales
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans she has to undertake an impact assessment of the two-child limit on faith groups in Wales.
	tabling member constituency	Arfon
	tabling member printed	Hywel Williams
	uin	7122
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 28/01/2020 answer text <p>The Government’s view is that providing support for a maximum of two children or qualifying young persons in Universal Credit and Child Tax Credits, ensures fairness between claimants on the one hand and, on the other, those taxpayers who support themselves solely through work.</p><p> </p><p>We recognise that some claimants are not able to make the same choices about the number of children in their family, which is why exceptions have been put in place to protect certain groups. On migration to Universal Credit, families’ existing entitlement will be protected.</p><p> </p><p>The Department has published an Impact Assessment which noted ethnic minority households may be more affected by the policy. This is because on average, they are more likely to have larger families and be in receipt of Child Tax Credits and Universal Credit. However, the Department does not collect sufficiently robust data on our claimants’ ethnic or religious backgrounds to facilitate a more detailed assessment of the policy’s impact on specific ethnic or religious groups.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p>The Government has assessed the impact of the policy from an equality and human rights perspective, meeting our obligations under the Public Sector Equality Duty, and ensuring compliance with the Human Rights Act 1998, the Equality Act 2010 and the UN Convention on the rights of children.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince grouped question UIN 7121 question first answered 28/01/2020 17:37:37 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	1397 label Biography information for Hywel Williams

1172920

	registered interest
	date	23/01/2020
	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	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 assessment she has made of the effect of the two-child limit on BAME communities.
	tabling member constituency	Arfon
	tabling member printed	Hywel Williams
	uin	7121
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 28/01/2020 answer text <p>The Government’s view is that providing support for a maximum of two children or qualifying young persons in Universal Credit and Child Tax Credits, ensures fairness between claimants on the one hand and, on the other, those taxpayers who support themselves solely through work.</p><p> </p><p>We recognise that some claimants are not able to make the same choices about the number of children in their family, which is why exceptions have been put in place to protect certain groups. On migration to Universal Credit, families’ existing entitlement will be protected.</p><p> </p><p>The Department has published an Impact Assessment which noted ethnic minority households may be more affected by the policy. This is because on average, they are more likely to have larger families and be in receipt of Child Tax Credits and Universal Credit. However, the Department does not collect sufficiently robust data on our claimants’ ethnic or religious backgrounds to facilitate a more detailed assessment of the policy’s impact on specific ethnic or religious groups.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p>The Government has assessed the impact of the policy from an equality and human rights perspective, meeting our obligations under the Public Sector Equality Duty, and ensuring compliance with the Human Rights Act 1998, the Equality Act 2010 and the UN Convention on the rights of children.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince grouped question UIN 7122 question first answered 28/01/2020 17:37:37 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	1397 label Biography information for Hywel Williams

1172919

	registered interest
	date	23/01/2020
	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	Poverty: Children
	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 effect of the two-child limit on child poverty in (a) each Welsh local authority and (b) each Welsh parliamentary constituency.
	tabling member constituency	Arfon
	tabling member printed	Hywel Williams
	uin	7120
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 28/01/2020 answer text <p>National Statistics on the percentage of children in low income households are published annually in the “Households Below Average Income” publication and the latest year for which information is available is 2017/18. As the two-child limit policy was introduced in April 2017 there is insufficient data to assess any impacts of the policy on low income. Also estimates for the percentage of children in low income households are not available at local authority or parliamentary constituency level in this publication because the survey sample sizes are too small to support the production of robust estimates at this geography. For these two reasons it is not possible to evaluate the impacts of specific policies on poverty for these areas.</p><p> </p><p>Data relating to the operation of the policy in Wales can be found in the latest annual statistics release which was published on 31 July 2019 and covers the period up to 2 April 2019. This data can be found here: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/child-tax-credit-and-universal-credit-claimants-statistics-related-to-the-policy-to-provide-support-for-a-maximum-of-2-children-april-2019" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/child-tax-credit-and-universal-credit-claimants-statistics-related-to-the-policy-to-provide-support-for-a-maximum-of-2-children-april-2019</a></p><p> </p><p>We have committed to further annual releases.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 28/01/2020 17:37:15 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	1397 label Biography information for Hywel Williams

1216968

	registered interest
	date	23/06/2020
	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	Housing Benefit: Social Rented Housing
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of reviewing her Department's spare room subsidy policy as part of the Government's response to the covid-19 outbreak.
	tabling member constituency	Arfon
	tabling member printed	Hywel Williams
	uin	63233
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 29/06/2020 answer text <p>There are no current plans to amend the removal of the spare room subsidy policy in response to covid-19. The policy already allows for the provision of an additional bedroom in certain circumstances, such as to support the needs of disabled people as well as exempting households in receipt of pension age Housing Benefit.</p><p> </p><p>If a claimant’s ability to mitigate any shortfall between their housing support and rent has changed, Discretionary Housing Payments can be considered by their local authority. We announced last year an additional £40 million for Discretionary Housing Payments for 2020/21 in England and Wales.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 29/06/2020 16:16:39 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	1397 label Biography information for Hywel Williams

1198841

	registered interest
	date	01/06/2020
	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	Means-tested 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 appropriateness of the savings thresholds for (a) universal credit, (b) pension credit, (c) income-based jobseekers allowance, (d) income-related employment and support allowance, (e) housing benefit and (f) income support.
	tabling member constituency	Arfon
	tabling member printed	Hywel Williams
	uin	51623
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 23/06/2020 answer text <p>The capital limits are kept under continual review. However, they can be increased only when priorities and resources allow. The Government does not intend to increase the threshold at this time.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 23/06/2020 16:45:10 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince previous answer version 25862 answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	1397 label Biography information for Hywel Williams

1198838

	registered interest
	date	01/06/2020
	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	Means-tested Benefits
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants for (a) universal credit, (b) pension credit, (c) income-based jobseeker's allowance, (d) income-related employment and support allowance, (e) housing benefit and (f) income support have had their payments reduced due to reaching the savings threshold since March 2020.
	tabling member constituency	Arfon
	tabling member printed	Hywel Williams
	uin	51622
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 04/06/2020 answer text <p>The information requested is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.    <strong> </strong></p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 04/06/2020 15:36:22 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	1397 label Biography information for Hywel Williams

1195135

	registered interest
	date	12/05/2020
	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	Universal Credit: 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 amending the eligibility criteria for backdating universal credit payments to include people affected by the covid-19 outbreak.
	tabling member constituency	Arfon
	tabling member printed	Hywel Williams
	uin	45964
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 19/05/2020 answer text <p>As Universal Credit claims can be made online or, where needed, by calling the Universal Credit helpline, most claims will not require backdating. However, backdating, up to a maximum of one month, is available where the circumstances are such that someone could not reasonably have been expected to claim earlier including due to illness, disability or an official computer system failure.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 19/05/2020 13:42:31 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince previous answer version 22281 answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	1397 label Biography information for Hywel Williams

1195133

	registered interest
	date	12/05/2020
	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	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 people who requested a mandatory reconsideration of their universal credit claim before the covid-19 outbreak are awaiting the outcome; what the average wait is for universal credit mandatory reconsiderations; and what steps she is taking to ensure that people are supported while waiting for the outcome of those reconsiderations.
	tabling member constituency	Arfon
	tabling member printed	Hywel Williams
	uin	45963
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 29/05/2020 answer text <p>5% of the Mandatory Reconsiderations recorded prior to the CV19 outbreak are awaiting a decision.</p><p> </p><p>Where a decision has been made, the average time to reach a decision is 26 calendar days.</p><p> </p><p>Benefit claimants may also be eligible for assistance from their local Council through Local Welfare Support schemes. Councils will be able to use funding from the new £500 million Hardship Fund to provide further discretionary support to vulnerable people through other support arrangements such as Local Welfare Schemes.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 29/05/2020 14:48:39 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince previous answer version 22280 answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	1397 label Biography information for Hywel Williams

1193663

	registered interest
	date	06/05/2020
	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	Universal Credit: Telephone Services
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reason the opening times of the universal credit helpline have changed; and if she will ensure that the (a) UK Government and (b) universal credit websites are updated with the new information.
	tabling member constituency	Arfon
	tabling member printed	Hywel Williams
	uin	43840
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/05/2020 answer text <p>Since the start of the pandemic, we have received unprecedented levels of claims for Universal Credit. This was accompanied by a significant increase in call volumes which was impacting our ability to support customers, particularly those making new claims.</p><p>To enable our people to pay customers their benefit, we implemented a temporary pause to the handling of general queries through the telephony service at the beginning and end of the day. The purpose of this change was to allow case managers to focus on progressing claims during these times.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p>New claim appointments and new claims by phone remained open as usual.</p><p> </p><p>At the moment, people making new claims for Universal Credit do not in fact need to call the Department as part of the process and we have communicated that widely. Once they have completed their online application we will call them if we need to check any of the information they have given us.</p><p>The Universal Credit helpline returned to our normal operating hours from 11 May (8am-6pm, Monday to Friday).</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 15/05/2020 10:37:59 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince previous answer version 20796 answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	1397 label Biography information for Hywel Williams