Show Search Form

Search Results

registered interest	true false
date	exactly: or between: and
answering body
answering dept id
answering dept short name
answering dept sort name
hansard heading
house id
legislature	pref label
question text
tabling member constituency
tabling member printed
uin
answer	is ministerial correction true false date of answer exactly: or between: and answer text answering member constituency answering member printed grouped question UIN question first answered answering member label
tabling member	label

Search

1505327

registered interest
date	06/09/2022
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	Jobcentres: Email and Internet
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make it her policy to introduce either (a) direct email addresses or (b) a contact webform to allow claimants of social security benefits other than Universal Credit to (i) notify their local Job Centre Plus office of a change of circumstances and (ii) request a call back from a benefits advisor.
tabling member constituency	St Albans
tabling member printed	Daisy Cooper
uin	48497
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 16/09/2022 answer text <p>DWP is currently working with Digital colleagues to develop a contact webform for customers to notify changes of circumstances regarding their benefits.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Macclesfield answering member printed David Rutley question first answered 16/09/2022 13:34:49 answering member 4033 label Biography information for David Rutley
tabling member	4769 label Biography information for Daisy Cooper

1504934

registered interest
date	05/09/2022
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	Cost of Living Payments: Universal Credit
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the impact of the decision taken that Universal Credit claimants will not be eligible for the cost of living payment if they had their Universal Credit award reduced to zero by the minimum income floor and did not receive a Universal Credit payment during the qualifying month; and if her Department will publish statistics to show how many claimants will be affected by that policy.
tabling member constituency	Belfast South
tabling member printed	Claire Hanna
uin	47699
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 16/09/2022 answer text <p>No assessment has been made,</p><p>We have deliberately kept the rules for these payments as simple as possible. This is the only way we can ensure that we can develop the systems and processes required to make these payments. The cost-of-living payment is being made in two payments which have different qualifying periods, this will mean that some people may not receive the first payment but may receive the second payment.</p><p> </p><p>Information showing the number of claimants that may be affected by this Policy is not readily available, and this would only be possible at a disproportionate cost.</p><p> </p><p>Should people find that they need further support, they may wish to approach their Local Authority to ask about support under the Household Support Fund. For further information please see <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/cost-of-living-payment" target="_blank">Cost of Living Payment - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)</a></p><p> </p><p>The following PQ regarding the MIF and Universal Credit may be of interest <a href="https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2022-07-13/36138/" target="_blank">Written questions and answers- Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament</a></p> answering member constituency Macclesfield answering member printed David Rutley question first answered 16/09/2022 13:57:18 answering member 4033 label Biography information for David Rutley
tabling member	4827 label Biography information for Claire Hanna

1504935

registered interest
date	05/09/2022
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	Cost of Living Payments: Universal Credit
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department made before introducing the Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill of the potential impact on Universal Credit claimants, including those working in the performing arts and entertainment industries who have fluctuating earnings, of the policy that Universal Credit claimants would not be eligible for the cost of living payment if they had their Universal Credit award reduced to zero by the minimum income floor and did not receive a Universal Credit payment during the qualifying month.
tabling member constituency	Belfast South
tabling member printed	Claire Hanna
uin	47700
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 16/09/2022 answer text <p>No assessment has been made.</p><p>We have deliberately kept the rules for these payments as simple as possible. This is the only way we can ensure that we can develop the systems and processes required to make these payments. The cost-of-living payment is being made in two payments which have different qualifying periods, this will mean that some people may not receive the first payment but may receive the second payment.</p><p> </p><p>Should people find that they need further support, they may wish to approach their Local Authority to ask about support under the Household Support Fund. For further information please see <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/cost-of-living-payment" target="_blank">Cost of Living Payment - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)</a></p><p> </p><p>The following PQ regarding the MIF and Universal Credit may be of interest <a href="https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2022-07-13/36138/" target="_blank">Written questions and answers - Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament</a></p> answering member constituency Macclesfield answering member printed David Rutley question first answered 16/09/2022 13:51:54 answering member 4033 label Biography information for David Rutley
tabling member	4827 label Biography information for Claire Hanna

1504936

registered interest
date	05/09/2022
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	Cost of Living Payments: Universal Credit
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 19 July 2022 to Question 36138 on Cost of Living Payments, how many Universal Credit claimants who had the minimum income floor applied to them during the qualifying period for the first round of cost of living payments; and how many claimants (a) had a zero payment, (b) earned below the minimum income floor and (c) earned above the minimum income floor.
tabling member constituency	Belfast South
tabling member printed	Claire Hanna
uin	47701
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/09/2022 answer text <p>During the qualifying period for the first Cost of Living Payment there were 67,350 gainfully self-employed Universal Credit claimants subject to the minimum income floor. Of these:</p><p>a) 8,820 had a zero payment.</p><p>b) 33,520 earned below the minimum income floor.</p><p>c) 33,830 earned above the minimum income floor.</p><p> </p><p>Numbers with a zero payment (a) are not excluded from numbers above (b) or below (c) the minimum income floor.</p><p /><p>Note: the figures in (a), (b) and (c) do not sum to the total number of gainfully self-employed as some individuals will have a zero payment and earn above or below the minimum income floor.</p><p> </p><p>These figures are from internal Management Information subject to retrospective changes and are rounded to the nearest 10.</p> answering member constituency Macclesfield answering member printed David Rutley question first answered 15/09/2022 16:22:22 answering member 4033 label Biography information for David Rutley
tabling member	4827 label Biography information for Claire Hanna

1504937

registered interest
date	05/09/2022
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	Cost of Living Payments: Self-employed
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 19 July 2022 to Question 36137 on Cost of Living Payments: Self-employed, how many gainfully self-employed claimants who (a) were in a start-up period and (b) were otherwise exempt from the minimum income floor.
tabling member constituency	Belfast South
tabling member printed	Claire Hanna
uin	47702
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/09/2022 answer text <p>During the qualifying period for the first Cost of Living Payment there were 219,340 gainfully self-employed Universal Credit claimants in a start-up period.</p><p>It is not possible to provide the number of claimants who were otherwise exempt from the minimum income floor, as to do so would incur disproportionate cost.</p><p> </p><p>This figure is from internal Management Information subject to retrospective changes and is rounded to the nearest 10.</p> answering member constituency Macclesfield answering member printed David Rutley question first answered 15/09/2022 16:26:24 answering member 4033 label Biography information for David Rutley
tabling member	4827 label Biography information for Claire Hanna

1503543

registered interest
date	02/09/2022
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: Debts
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make it her policy to pause deductions from benefit payments which aim to recover a claimant's debts.
tabling member constituency	Warrington North
tabling member printed	Charlotte Nichols
uin	45229
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 13/09/2022 answer text <p>Whilst there are currently no plans to suspend recovery of benefit debts, DWP remains committed to working with anyone who is struggling with benefit debt repayments.</p><p> </p><p>In April 2021, we reduced the cap on standard deductions to 25% of a claimant’s Universal Credit Standard Allowance. This followed an earlier reduction from 40% to 30% in October 2019.</p><p> </p><p>Where a person feels they cannot afford the proposed rate of recovery, and the debt has not arisen as a result of fraud, they are encouraged to contact DWP’s Debt Management team to discuss a temporary reduction in their rate of repayment.</p> answering member constituency Macclesfield answering member printed David Rutley question first answered 13/09/2022 17:03:39 answering member 4033 label Biography information for David Rutley
tabling member	4799 label Biography information for Charlotte Nichols

1503616

registered interest
date	02/09/2022
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 steps her Department is taking to tackle child poverty in Barking constituency.
tabling member constituency	Barking
tabling member printed	Dame Margaret Hodge
uin	45171
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/09/2022 answer text <p>No specific assessment has been made relating to Barking constituency. However, the latest statistics on the number and proportion of children who are in low income families by local area, covering the seven years, 2014/15 to 2020/21, can be found in the annual publication: Children in low income families: local area statistics 2014 to 2021 - <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-in-low-income-families-local-area-statistics-2014-to-2021" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-in-low-income-families-local-area-statistics-2014-to-2021</a>“</p><p> </p><p>This Government is committed to reducing child poverty and supporting low-income families, and believes work is the best route out of poverty.  While we keep all our policies under continuous review, our clear priority with 1.27 million vacancies across the UK is to support parents to move into and to progress in work wherever possible. This approach is based on clear evidence about the importance of parental employment - particularly where it is full-time – in substantially reducing the risks of child poverty and in improving long-term outcomes for families and children.</p><p> </p><p>The latest available data on in-work poverty shows that in 2019/20, children in households where all adults were in work were around six times less likely to be in absolute poverty (before housing costs) than children in a household where nobody works. In 2020/21, there were 200,000 fewer children in absolute poverty before housing costs than in 2009/10.</p><p /><p>To help parents into work, our Plan for Jobs continues to provide broad ranging support for all jobseekers with our Sector Based Work Academy Programmes (SWAP), Job Entry Targeted Support and Restart scheme. Through a staged roll-out, which started in April 2022, around 2.1m low-paid benefit claimants will be eligible for extended support through our Jobcentres to progress into higher-paid work. This is on top of the support already provided by increasing the National Living Wage to £9.50 per hour, giving nearly 1.7 million families an extra £1,000 a year (on average) through our changes to the Universal Credit taper and work allowances; and the Universal Credit childcare offer which allows working parents to claim back up to 85% of their registered childcare costs each month (up to a maximum cap).</p><p> </p><p>In recent years, we have helped hundreds of thousands of Universal Credit claimants to keep more of their benefit income by reducing the standard deductions cap from 40% to 30% of the Standard Allowance in October 2019, and again, to 25% in April 2021. From 1st April 2022, a temporary change also means that for 12 months, only benefit claimants themselves can ask DWP to pay their energy bills (on going consumption) directly from their benefit or alter an existing arrangement. This ensures claimants are fully empowered to make decisions about how significant amounts of their benefit are spent.</p><p /><p>The government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living and has taken further decisive action to support people with their energy bills. The new “Energy Price Guarantee” will mean a typical UK household will now pay up to an average £2,500 a year on their energy bill for the next two years from 1 October, saving the average household in Great Britain at least £1,000 from October. This is in addition to the over £37bn of cost-of-living support announced earlier this year which includes the £400 non-repayable discount to eligible households provided through the Energy Bills Support Scheme.</p><p> </p><p>This includes an additional £500 million to help households with the cost of essentials, on top of what has already been provided since October 2021, bringing the total funding for this support to £1.5 billion. In England, the current Household Support Fund is already providing £421m of support for the period 1 April – 30 September 2022, at least a third (£140m) will be spent on families with children. London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Council has been allocated £2,162,051.52.</p> answering member constituency Macclesfield answering member printed David Rutley grouped question UIN 45272 45373 question first answered 15/09/2022 15:11:11 answering member 4033 label Biography information for David Rutley
tabling member	140 label Biography information for Dame Margaret Hodge

1503631

registered interest
date	02/09/2022
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 recent assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of its policies in tackling child poverty in Barking constituency.
tabling member constituency	Barking
tabling member printed	Dame Margaret Hodge
uin	45272
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/09/2022 answer text <p>No specific assessment has been made relating to Barking constituency. However, the latest statistics on the number and proportion of children who are in low income families by local area, covering the seven years, 2014/15 to 2020/21, can be found in the annual publication: Children in low income families: local area statistics 2014 to 2021 - <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-in-low-income-families-local-area-statistics-2014-to-2021" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-in-low-income-families-local-area-statistics-2014-to-2021</a>“</p><p> </p><p>This Government is committed to reducing child poverty and supporting low-income families, and believes work is the best route out of poverty.  While we keep all our policies under continuous review, our clear priority with 1.27 million vacancies across the UK is to support parents to move into and to progress in work wherever possible. This approach is based on clear evidence about the importance of parental employment - particularly where it is full-time – in substantially reducing the risks of child poverty and in improving long-term outcomes for families and children.</p><p> </p><p>The latest available data on in-work poverty shows that in 2019/20, children in households where all adults were in work were around six times less likely to be in absolute poverty (before housing costs) than children in a household where nobody works. In 2020/21, there were 200,000 fewer children in absolute poverty before housing costs than in 2009/10.</p><p /><p>To help parents into work, our Plan for Jobs continues to provide broad ranging support for all jobseekers with our Sector Based Work Academy Programmes (SWAP), Job Entry Targeted Support and Restart scheme. Through a staged roll-out, which started in April 2022, around 2.1m low-paid benefit claimants will be eligible for extended support through our Jobcentres to progress into higher-paid work. This is on top of the support already provided by increasing the National Living Wage to £9.50 per hour, giving nearly 1.7 million families an extra £1,000 a year (on average) through our changes to the Universal Credit taper and work allowances; and the Universal Credit childcare offer which allows working parents to claim back up to 85% of their registered childcare costs each month (up to a maximum cap).</p><p> </p><p>In recent years, we have helped hundreds of thousands of Universal Credit claimants to keep more of their benefit income by reducing the standard deductions cap from 40% to 30% of the Standard Allowance in October 2019, and again, to 25% in April 2021. From 1st April 2022, a temporary change also means that for 12 months, only benefit claimants themselves can ask DWP to pay their energy bills (on going consumption) directly from their benefit or alter an existing arrangement. This ensures claimants are fully empowered to make decisions about how significant amounts of their benefit are spent.</p><p /><p>The government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living and has taken further decisive action to support people with their energy bills. The new “Energy Price Guarantee” will mean a typical UK household will now pay up to an average £2,500 a year on their energy bill for the next two years from 1 October, saving the average household in Great Britain at least £1,000 from October. This is in addition to the over £37bn of cost-of-living support announced earlier this year which includes the £400 non-repayable discount to eligible households provided through the Energy Bills Support Scheme.</p><p> </p><p>This includes an additional £500 million to help households with the cost of essentials, on top of what has already been provided since October 2021, bringing the total funding for this support to £1.5 billion. In England, the current Household Support Fund is already providing £421m of support for the period 1 April – 30 September 2022, at least a third (£140m) will be spent on families with children. London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Council has been allocated £2,162,051.52.</p> answering member constituency Macclesfield answering member printed David Rutley grouped question UIN 45171 45373 question first answered 15/09/2022 15:11:11 answering member 4033 label Biography information for David Rutley
tabling member	140 label Biography information for Dame Margaret Hodge

1503710

registered interest
date	02/09/2022
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, whether her Department has plans to (a) create measures that target families with children in poverty and (b) reassess universal credit deductions that affect children living in poverty.
tabling member constituency	Barking
tabling member printed	Dame Margaret Hodge
uin	45373
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/09/2022 answer text <p>No specific assessment has been made relating to Barking constituency. However, the latest statistics on the number and proportion of children who are in low income families by local area, covering the seven years, 2014/15 to 2020/21, can be found in the annual publication: Children in low income families: local area statistics 2014 to 2021 - <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-in-low-income-families-local-area-statistics-2014-to-2021" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-in-low-income-families-local-area-statistics-2014-to-2021</a>“</p><p> </p><p>This Government is committed to reducing child poverty and supporting low-income families, and believes work is the best route out of poverty.  While we keep all our policies under continuous review, our clear priority with 1.27 million vacancies across the UK is to support parents to move into and to progress in work wherever possible. This approach is based on clear evidence about the importance of parental employment - particularly where it is full-time – in substantially reducing the risks of child poverty and in improving long-term outcomes for families and children.</p><p> </p><p>The latest available data on in-work poverty shows that in 2019/20, children in households where all adults were in work were around six times less likely to be in absolute poverty (before housing costs) than children in a household where nobody works. In 2020/21, there were 200,000 fewer children in absolute poverty before housing costs than in 2009/10.</p><p /><p>To help parents into work, our Plan for Jobs continues to provide broad ranging support for all jobseekers with our Sector Based Work Academy Programmes (SWAP), Job Entry Targeted Support and Restart scheme. Through a staged roll-out, which started in April 2022, around 2.1m low-paid benefit claimants will be eligible for extended support through our Jobcentres to progress into higher-paid work. This is on top of the support already provided by increasing the National Living Wage to £9.50 per hour, giving nearly 1.7 million families an extra £1,000 a year (on average) through our changes to the Universal Credit taper and work allowances; and the Universal Credit childcare offer which allows working parents to claim back up to 85% of their registered childcare costs each month (up to a maximum cap).</p><p> </p><p>In recent years, we have helped hundreds of thousands of Universal Credit claimants to keep more of their benefit income by reducing the standard deductions cap from 40% to 30% of the Standard Allowance in October 2019, and again, to 25% in April 2021. From 1st April 2022, a temporary change also means that for 12 months, only benefit claimants themselves can ask DWP to pay their energy bills (on going consumption) directly from their benefit or alter an existing arrangement. This ensures claimants are fully empowered to make decisions about how significant amounts of their benefit are spent.</p><p /><p>The government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living and has taken further decisive action to support people with their energy bills. The new “Energy Price Guarantee” will mean a typical UK household will now pay up to an average £2,500 a year on their energy bill for the next two years from 1 October, saving the average household in Great Britain at least £1,000 from October. This is in addition to the over £37bn of cost-of-living support announced earlier this year which includes the £400 non-repayable discount to eligible households provided through the Energy Bills Support Scheme.</p><p> </p><p>This includes an additional £500 million to help households with the cost of essentials, on top of what has already been provided since October 2021, bringing the total funding for this support to £1.5 billion. In England, the current Household Support Fund is already providing £421m of support for the period 1 April – 30 September 2022, at least a third (£140m) will be spent on families with children. London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Council has been allocated £2,162,051.52.</p> answering member constituency Macclesfield answering member printed David Rutley grouped question UIN 45171 45272 question first answered 15/09/2022 15:11:12 answering member 4033 label Biography information for David Rutley
tabling member	140 label Biography information for Dame Margaret Hodge

1503924

registered interest
date	02/09/2022
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	Refugees: Ukraine
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent discussions she has had with relevant stakeholders on providing support to Ukrainian refugees to help find employment.
tabling member constituency	Hitchin and Harpenden
tabling member printed	Bim Afolami
uin	45550
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/09/2022 answer text <p>DWP Ministers meet regularly with their counterparts in the Home Office to discuss the ongoing support being provided to those fleeing the conflict in Ukraine.</p><p> </p><p>Ukrainian evacuees on either Homes for Ukraine or the Family Scheme have immediate access to the full range of DWP employment support and services at the point of a successful claim to benefit.</p><p> </p><p>DWP Work Coaches are supporting individuals to identify suitable roles and access appropriate training through our Sector based work academies and other provision, including English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) training, and support through the range of Plan for Jobs provision.</p><p> </p><p>A large number of employers have come forward in response to the situations in Afghanistan and Ukraine with job vacancies which are open to any potential applicant. These vacancies are shared across the Job Centre network and with Refugee Employment Network (REN) a charity who support organizations who help refugees find work.</p><p> </p><p>Support from Advanced Customer Support Senior Leaders and Visiting Officers is also available where complex needs are identified.</p> answering member constituency Macclesfield answering member printed David Rutley question first answered 14/09/2022 13:07:22 answering member 4033 label Biography information for David Rutley
tabling member	4639 label Biography information for Bim Afolami