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1296779

registered interest
date	02/03/2021
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	Work Capability Assessment
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the number of (a) universal credit and (b) employment support allowance claimants who were not (i) offered and (ii) deemed suitable for a a virtual or telephone Work Capability Assessment during 2020.
tabling member constituency	Enfield, Southgate
tabling member printed	Bambos Charalambous
uin	161833
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 10/03/2021 answer text <p>The data you have requested is not available.</p><p> </p><p>Face to face assessments for health and disability benefits are currently suspended in line with public health advice. We continue to complete paper-based assessments and make recommendations based on the written evidence available, as often as we are able to.</p><p> </p><p>Where a case cannot be progressed by a paper-based assessment, a telephone assessment will be conducted, where appropriate to do so. Telephone assessments were introduced during the pandemic, as part of the Covid-19 response and we are working hard to increase the number of people able to participate in these assessments. We also undertake some video assessments, where appropriate.</p><p>The suspension of face to face assessments is regularly reviewed in line with the latest public health guidance and will recommence as soon as it is safe to do so. Claimants who cannot be assessed by telephone or video because of their health condition will be prioritised when we are able to safely resume face to face assessments.</p> answering member constituency North Swindon answering member printed Justin Tomlinson question first answered 10/03/2021 13:30:17 answering member 4105 label Biography information for Justin Tomlinson
tabling member	4610 label Biography information for Bambos Charalambous

1296780

registered interest
date	02/03/2021
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: Work Capability Assessment
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	If she will make it her policy to allow virtual or telephone Work Capability Assessments for (a) universal credit and (b) employment support allowance claimants including those who (i) need an interpreter (including BSL), (ii) have hearing difficulties, (iii) have speech difficulties, (iv) have learning disabilities and (v) suicidal ideation or behaviour and a history of self harm to make the process equivalent to that for personal independence payments.
tabling member constituency	Enfield, Southgate
tabling member printed	Bambos Charalambous
uin	161834
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 09/03/2021 answer text <p>The assessment criteria for Personal Independence Payment are very different to those for the Work Capability Assessment (WCA), which assesses whether claimants to Employment and Support Allowance, and Universal Credit have limited capability for work.</p><p> </p><p>We are aware that there are some claimants who are unable to undertake a WCA telephone assessment because of their health condition and we are currently developing ways in which we can support these individuals. We are continuing to assess as many people as we are able to on paper evidence, using this route as often as possible. We are also undertaking some video assessments, where appropriate.</p><p> </p><p>Individuals invited for a telephone assessment are encouraged to inform their assessment provider of any additional requirements they may have, and the provider will endeavour to meet any reasonable requests. This is explained to the individual in the initial invitation letter for all telephone assessments. For example, companions are able to join a telephone assessment, as they could for a face to face assessment.</p><p> </p><p>Claimants who we are unable to assess by telephone or video because of their health condition will be prioritised when we are able to safely resume face-to-face assessments.</p> answering member constituency North Swindon answering member printed Justin Tomlinson grouped question UIN 160754 question first answered 09/03/2021 15:49:44 answering member 4105 label Biography information for Justin Tomlinson
tabling member	4610 label Biography information for Bambos Charalambous

1296816

registered interest
date	02/03/2021
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	Personal Independence Payment
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 ensure her Department contacts each person due a backdated personal independent payment.
tabling member constituency	Lewisham, Deptford
tabling member printed	Vicky Foxcroft
uin	161810
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 10/03/2021 answer text <p>Our progress update on the MH and RJ administrative exercise published on 25th February 2021 gives the number of cases that have been cleared following a review – approaching 1 million cases for both the MH and RJ Upper Tribunal decisions.</p><p> </p><p>Through continuous monitoring of the exercise, we have been identifying claimants most likely to benefit, so that we can focus on paying these claimants backdated payments more quickly. We are writing to other claimants, explaining how we apply the Upper Tribunal decisions and letting them know they can get in touch with us if they think they are affected, and we will review their claim.</p><p> </p><p>We have dedicated substantial resource to checking claims and are committed to ensuring that everyone with a health condition or disability gets the support they are entitled to.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency North Swindon answering member printed Justin Tomlinson question first answered 10/03/2021 13:33:46 answering member 4105 label Biography information for Justin Tomlinson
tabling member	4491 label Biography information for Vicky Foxcroft

1296817

registered interest
date	02/03/2021
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	Personal Independence Payment
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 reasons for the disparity between the equality impact assessment estimated 16 per cent of claimants due a backdated personal independence payment following the MH and RJ decisions and the number of people who have received those payments to date.
tabling member constituency	Lewisham, Deptford
tabling member printed	Vicky Foxcroft
uin	161811
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 09/03/2021 answer text <p>Our published estimates were for the MH legal judgment only. They were produced before knowing the full detail of which claimants would be eligible for additional payments. We were clear that these estimates were very likely to change once the guidance implementing the judgment was produced and data was gathered from the administrative exercise to implement it.</p> answering member constituency North Swindon answering member printed Justin Tomlinson question first answered 09/03/2021 16:00:01 answering member 4105 label Biography information for Justin Tomlinson
tabling member	4491 label Biography information for Vicky Foxcroft

1296818

registered interest
date	02/03/2021
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	Personal Independence Payment: Death
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether it is her Department's policy that a deceased claimant's next of kin are entitled to their backdated personal independence payments following the MH and RJ decisions.
tabling member constituency	Lewisham, Deptford
tabling member printed	Vicky Foxcroft
uin	161812
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 09/03/2021 answer text <p>At the beginning of the administrative exercise the department had a dedicated resource for cases where the claimant was deceased to ensure their next of kin received payments as quickly as possible. Since then, regular checks are carried out for deceased claimants and these cases are prioritised for review.</p> answering member constituency North Swindon answering member printed Justin Tomlinson question first answered 09/03/2021 15:57:02 answering member 4105 label Biography information for Justin Tomlinson
tabling member	4491 label Biography information for Vicky Foxcroft

1296907

registered interest
date	02/03/2021
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	Disability: Coronavirus
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 extent of the financial effect of the covid-19 outbreak on disabled people.
tabling member constituency	Oldham East and Saddleworth
tabling member printed	Debbie Abrahams
uin	161760
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, injecting billions into the welfare system. 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><p>We are ensuring that disabled people continue to have access to disability benefits and other financial support, the food and essential goods that they need, as well as accessible communications and guidance during the COVID-19 outbreak. The Government continues to support disabled employees to access assistive technology and other forms of support they need to remain in work.</p><p> </p><p>Access to Work prioritises applications from disabled people who have a job to start within 4 weeks of their application. Recognising the impact of COVID-19 has had on disabled people, Access to Work has expanded the prioritisation to include those in the Clinically Extremely Vulnerable group, keyworkers and introduced a new more flexible package of support to enable flex to work from more than one location, the workplace and home.</p><p> </p><p>The disability benefits are not means–tested, non-contributory and thus paid regardless of any income or savings. They are also tax-free and worth up to £151.40 a week. PIP and DLA were not subject to the benefits freeze and were most recently uprated by 1.7 per cent from 6 April 2020.</p><p>The Government has introduced temporary measures to support those hardest hit, including the furlough scheme, self-employed income support scheme, and the £20 UC uplift. We spend over £55 billion a year on benefits to support disabled people and people with health conditions – This is around 2.6% of GDP. We have (up until the 20/21 year):</p><p>o Increased Employment and Support Allowance for people with the greatest needs – with the Support Group rate up by around £870 per year since 2010.</p><p>o Increased the higher rate of Attendance Allowance for people over State Pension Age who need someone to care for them – meaning around an additional £923 a year for disabled people since 2010.</p><p>o Increased Carer’s Allowance for those people who care for someone – meaning nearly an additional £700 a year for carers since 2010.</p><p>o Increased the rate of DLA paid to the most disabled children by over £130 a month since 2010, and spending more than ever on DLA for disabled children.</p><p>o Increased the enhanced rates of PIP which helps people meet the on-going costs of their disability – up by over £880 a year since its introduction in 2013.</p><p>o And there is a higher proportion of people on the top rates of Personal Independence Payment than there were on DLA – 33 per cent vs 15 per cent.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p> answering member constituency North Swindon answering member printed Justin Tomlinson question first answered 08/03/2021 17:36:00 answering member 4105 label Biography information for Justin Tomlinson
tabling member	4212 label Biography information for Debbie Abrahams

1296928

registered interest
date	02/03/2021
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: Mental Health
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 potential effect of the benefits payments process on claimants’ mental health.
tabling member constituency	Newport West
tabling member printed	Ruth Jones
uin	161866
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 09/03/2021 answer text <p>We continually review our processes to ensure that benefits payments are accessible and supportive to all customers, including those with mental health conditions. We introduced mental health training in 2017 to better equip staff to signpost vulnerable customers to experts who are qualified to support them, especially when people are making new claims or being re-assessed for existing claims.</p> answering member constituency North Swindon answering member printed Justin Tomlinson question first answered 09/03/2021 15:54:42 answering member 4105 label Biography information for Justin Tomlinson
tabling member	4716 label Biography information for Ruth Jones

1296992

registered interest
date	02/03/2021
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	Employment: Epilepsy
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 increase the number of people with epilepsy entering employment.
tabling member constituency	Lancaster and Fleetwood
tabling member printed	Cat Smith
uin	161806
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 10/03/2021 answer text <p>The Government has put in place a range of measures to support disabled people and people with long term health conditions, including those with epilepsy, to enter and stay in work. During the Covid-19 outbreak, we have made changes to ensure disabled people have still been able to access specialist employment support<strong>. </strong></p><p> </p><p>We have two large-scale nationally contracted programmes that support disabled people:</p><p> </p><ul><li>The Work and Health Programme was launched in 2017 throughout England and Wales for people who expect to find work within 12 months. It enables participants to receive coordinated and person-centred support from local services, and provides targeted support for disabled people, as defined in the Equality Act 2010, who can volunteer to join the programme at any time. It also provides extra tailored support to find employment for other groups, including long term unemployed people.</li></ul><p> </p><ul><li>IPES launched with the first referrals on 2 December 2019 and is now in place across England and Wales. It is a voluntary programme designed to help disabled people with more complex needs or barriers, who want to work but also require specialist support to achieve their goal of sustained employment. This includes people with Autistic Spectrum conditions, mental health issues, substance abuse, or history of sensory impairments, learning difficulties or recurring and fluctuating health conditions. IPES is expected to provide support for around 2,500 starts a year for four years, totalling 10,000 on the programme.</li></ul><p> </p><p>During the Covid-19 pandemic, we provided this support remotely and made these programmes easier to access by allowing self-referrals as well as referrals through work coaches.</p><p> </p><p>Additionally, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we introduced the Work and Health Programme Job Entry: Targeted Support (JETS) which went live across Wales and England this Autumn and provides light touch employment support which will complement the provision already available for disabled people under the Work and Health Programme. We will protect funding and capacity for helping disabled people and priority disadvantaged groups.</p><p> </p><p>Alongside provision aimed at individuals, we continue to support employers to attract, recruit, retain and develop disabled people in the workplace through the Disability Confident scheme. The scheme was designed as a journey with three levels. All employers start at Level 1, progressing through the scheme at their own pace.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p /> answering member constituency North Swindon answering member printed Justin Tomlinson question first answered 10/03/2021 17:27:23 answering member 4105 label Biography information for Justin Tomlinson
tabling member	4436 label Biography information for Cat Smith