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

1700077

registered interest
date	12/04/2024
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	Members: Correspondence
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when he plans to respond to the correspondence of (a) 28 December 2023, (b) 25 January and (c) 22 February 2024 from the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare, relating to delays in actioning Pension Credit.
tabling member constituency	Weston-super-Mare
tabling member printed	John Penrose
uin	20948
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/04/2024 answer text <p>Departmental officials replied to your correspondence of 28 December 2023 and 25 January on 16 January and 21 February respectively. I replied to the hon. Member’s letter of 22 February on 22 April.</p> answering member constituency Blackpool North and Cleveleys answering member printed Paul Maynard question first answered 22/04/2024 14:08:01 answering member 3926 label Biography information for Paul Maynard
tabling member	1584 label Biography information for John Penrose

1700263

registered interest
date	12/04/2024
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	Carer's Allowance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the earnings threshold for Carer's Allowance in-line with the National Living Wage for financial year 2024-25.
tabling member constituency	Lewisham, Deptford
tabling member printed	Vicky Foxcroft
uin	21148
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/04/2024 answer text <p>The weekly earnings limit for Carer’s Allowance has just increased from £139 to £151 net earnings per week, in line with the increase Average Weekly Earnings of 8.5%. Successive Governments have taken the same approach to the Carer’s Allowance earnings limit and increased it when it is warranted and affordable. The earnings limit has increased by one half since 2010.</p> answering member constituency Mid Sussex answering member printed Mims Davies question first answered 22/04/2024 14:17:48 answering member 4513 label Biography information for Mims Davies
tabling member	4491 label Biography information for Vicky Foxcroft

1700264

registered interest
date	12/04/2024
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	Carer's Allowance: Students
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of awarding Carer’s Allowance to unpaid carers that are studying (a) 21 hours and (b) more than 21 hours per week.
tabling member constituency	Lewisham, Deptford
tabling member printed	Vicky Foxcroft
uin	21149
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/04/2024 answer text <p>This Government recognises and appreciates the vital contribution made by all informal carers.</p><p> </p><p>We think it is right that people in full-time education should be supported by the educational maintenance system, via its range of loans and grants, rather than the social security benefit system. That is why, as a general principle, full-time students are usually precluded from entitlement to income-related and income-maintenance benefits, including Carer’s Allowance. Part-time students may be able to claim Carer’s Allowance though. This reflects long-standing principles of the benefit system and we have no plans to change these rules.</p><p> </p><p>Department for Work and Pensions officials work very closely with their Department for Education and Department of Health and Social Care counterparts to ensure that young carers get the help and support they need.</p> answering member constituency Mid Sussex answering member printed Mims Davies grouped question UIN 21150 question first answered 22/04/2024 14:20:16 answering member 4513 label Biography information for Mims Davies
tabling member	4491 label Biography information for Vicky Foxcroft

1700265

registered interest
date	12/04/2024
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	Carer's Allowance: Students
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of awarding Carer’s Allowance to unpaid carers between the ages of 16-18 that are studying (a) 21 hours and (b) more than 21 hours per week.
tabling member constituency	Lewisham, Deptford
tabling member printed	Vicky Foxcroft
uin	21150
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/04/2024 answer text <p>This Government recognises and appreciates the vital contribution made by all informal carers.</p><p> </p><p>We think it is right that people in full-time education should be supported by the educational maintenance system, via its range of loans and grants, rather than the social security benefit system. That is why, as a general principle, full-time students are usually precluded from entitlement to income-related and income-maintenance benefits, including Carer’s Allowance. Part-time students may be able to claim Carer’s Allowance though. This reflects long-standing principles of the benefit system and we have no plans to change these rules.</p><p> </p><p>Department for Work and Pensions officials work very closely with their Department for Education and Department of Health and Social Care counterparts to ensure that young carers get the help and support they need.</p> answering member constituency Mid Sussex answering member printed Mims Davies grouped question UIN 21149 question first answered 22/04/2024 14:20:16 answering member 4513 label Biography information for Mims Davies
tabling member	4491 label Biography information for Vicky Foxcroft

1700266

registered interest
date	12/04/2024
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	Pensioners: Carer's Allowance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of awarding the full Carer's Allowance to unpaid carers that are in receipt of the state pension.
tabling member constituency	Lewisham, Deptford
tabling member printed	Vicky Foxcroft
uin	21151
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/04/2024 answer text <p>Although there is no upper age limit to claiming Carer’s Allowance, it cannot normally be paid with the State Pension. It has been a long held feature of the UK’s benefit system, under successive Governments, that where someone is entitled to two benefits for the same contingency, then whilst there may be entitlement to both benefits, only one will be paid to avoid duplication for the same need. Although entitlement to State Pension and Carer’s Allowance arise in different circumstances they are nevertheless designed for the same contingency – as an income replacement. Carer’s Allowance replaces income where the carer has given up the opportunity of full-time employment in order to care for a severely disabled person, while State Pension replaces income in retirement. For this reason, social security rules operate to prevent them being paid together, to avoid duplicate provision for the same need.</p><p>However, if a carer’s State Pension is less than Carer's Allowance, State Pension is paid and topped up with Carer's Allowance to the basic weekly rate of Carer's Allowance which is currently £81.90.</p><p>Where Carer’s Allowance cannot be paid, the person will keep underlying entitlement to the benefit. This gives access to the additional amount for carers in Pension Credit of £45.60 a week and potentially other means-tested support. Around 100,000 people are receiving the Carer Premium with their Pension Credit. And even if a pensioner’s income is above the limit for Pension Credit, they may still be able to receive Housing Benefit.</p> answering member constituency Mid Sussex answering member printed Mims Davies question first answered 22/04/2024 14:22:05 answering member 4513 label Biography information for Mims Davies
tabling member	4491 label Biography information for Vicky Foxcroft

1700267

registered interest
date	12/04/2024
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	Carer's Allowance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the Carer’s Allowance to £93 per week.
tabling member constituency	Lewisham, Deptford
tabling member printed	Vicky Foxcroft
uin	21152
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/04/2024 answer text <p>This Government continues to protect the value of benefits paid to carers whilst also spending record amounts in real terms.</p><p>The level of Carer’s Allowance is protected by uprating it each April in line with inflation as measured by the CPI for the previous September. The purpose of benefit uprating is to ensure that the value of benefits stays in line with the general level of prices. From April 2024, the Carer’s Allowance payment was increased to £81.90. Since 2010, the rate of Carer’s Allowance has increased from £53.90 to £81.90 a week, providing an additional £1,500 a year for carers.</p><p>Real terms expenditure on Carer’s Allowance in 2024/25 is forecast to be £4.1 billion. Between 2024/25 and 2028/29 real terms expenditure on Carer’s Allowance is forecast to rise by 12% - around £500 million. By 2028/29, the Government is forecast to spend just over £4.5 billion a year on Carer’s Allowance.</p><p /><p>As well as Carer’s Allowance, carers have access to the full range of social security benefits. For example, carers on Universal Credit can receive around an additional £2,400 a year through the Carer Element.</p><p><strong> </strong></p> answering member constituency Mid Sussex answering member printed Mims Davies question first answered 22/04/2024 14:22:27 answering member 4513 label Biography information for Mims Davies
tabling member	4491 label Biography information for Vicky Foxcroft

1700289

registered interest
date	12/04/2024
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, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of (a) allowing people that are moving from legacy benefits to Universal Credit to use a countersignature as proof of ID and (b) opening Job Centres on (i) evenings and (ii) weekends for people who are in full-time employment.
tabling member constituency	Wansbeck
tabling member printed	Ian Lavery
uin	21040
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/04/2024 answer text <p>Countersignatures or vouching can be used to verify an identity as an exception where the customer does not have any other method to prove who they are. This method is more time consuming for both the customer and agent and we have found that the majority of our customers can meet the identify verification criteria.</p><p> </p><p>A number of our Jobcentres across the network already offer a Saturday service. We do not offer evening appointments, but it is important to emphasise that we have a number of different mechanisms through which customers can access our services; for example, through our Universal Credit (UC) system which is a digital platform where customers can leave messages on their journal to update UC agents on their current circumstances. A number of our service lines also offer telephony services into the evening.</p> answering member constituency Bury St Edmunds answering member printed Jo Churchill question first answered 22/04/2024 15:38:05 answering member 4380 label Biography information for Jo Churchill
tabling member	4139 label Biography information for Ian Lavery

1700323

registered interest
date	12/04/2024
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	Carer's Allowance: Overpayments
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many overpayments of carer’s allowance of (a) £0.01 - £500, (b) £500.01 - £1,000, (c) £1,000.01 - £5,000, (d) £5,000.01 - £20,000 and (e) more than £20,000 were made in the (i) 2021-22, (ii) 2022-23 and (iii) 2023-24 financial years.
tabling member constituency	Wirral West
tabling member printed	Margaret Greenwood
uin	21072
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 19/04/2024 answer text <p>Claimants have a responsibility to ensure they are entitled to benefits they claim and to inform the DWP of any changes in their circumstances that could impact their award. For Carer’s Allowance, eligibility is partly dependent upon claimants earning £151 or less a week after tax, National Insurance and allowable expenses.</p><p> </p><p>Where overpayments do occur, the Department has a duty to the taxpayer to protect public funds and to ask for money to be paid back. However, we seek to do so without causing excessive hardship. We remain committed to working with anyone who is struggling with their repayment terms and will always look to negotiate sustainable and affordable repayment plans.</p><p> </p><p>Our most recent statistics show that Carer's Allowance overpayments relating to earnings/employment represents 2.1% of our £3.3bn Carer’s Allowance expenditure.</p><p> </p><p>The information requested has been provided in the table below.</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p><strong>Carer’s Allowance Debt Value Grouping</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>2021/22</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>2022/23</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>2023/24</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p>£0.01 - £500.00</p></td><td><p>26.4k</p></td><td><p>20.3k</p></td><td><p>28.0k</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>£500.01 - £1000.00</p></td><td><p>12.2k</p></td><td><p>11.4k</p></td><td><p>11.9k</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>£1000.01 - £5000.00</p></td><td><p>18.4k</p></td><td><p>16.4k</p></td><td><p>18.6k</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>£5000.01 - £20,000.00</p></td><td><p>2.9k</p></td><td><p>1.3k</p></td><td><p>1.3k</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Over £20,000.00</p></td><td><p>0.1k</p></td><td><p>0.1k</p></td><td><p>0.0k</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Total</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>60.1k</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>49.5k</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>59.9k</strong></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p><strong> </strong></p><p>The above data has been sourced from internal DWP management information, which is intended only to help the Department to manage its business. It is not intended for publication and has not been subject to the same quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong> </strong></p> answering member constituency Blackpool North and Cleveleys answering member printed Paul Maynard question first answered 19/04/2024 11:33:45 answering member 3926 label Biography information for Paul Maynard
tabling member	4400 label Biography information for Margaret Greenwood

1700324

registered interest
date	12/04/2024
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	Carer's Allowance: Overpayments
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many debts of overpayments of Carer's Allowance his Department was seeking to recover in value brackets (a) £0.01 - £500, (b) £500.01 - £1,000, (c) £1,000.01 - £5,000, (d) £5,000.01 - £20,000 and (e) over £20,000 as of 6 April 2024.
tabling member constituency	Wirral West
tabling member printed	Margaret Greenwood
uin	21073
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 19/04/2024 answer text <p>Claimants have a responsibility to ensure they are entitled to benefits they claim and to inform the DWP of any changes in their circumstances that could impact their award. For Carer’s Allowance, eligibility is partly dependent upon claimants earning £151 or less a week after tax, National Insurance and allowable expenses.</p><p> </p><p>Where overpayments do occur, the Department has a duty to the taxpayer to protect public funds and to ask for money to be paid back. However, we seek to do so without causing excessive hardship. We remain committed to working with anyone who is struggling with their repayment terms and will always look to negotiate sustainable and affordable repayment plans.</p><p> </p><p>Our most recent statistics show that Carer's Allowance overpayments relating to earnings/employment represents 2.1% of our £3.3bn Carer’s Allowance expenditure.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The information requested has been provided in the table below.</p><p /><table><tbody><tr><td><p><strong>Carer’s Allowance Debt Value Grouping</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>Volume of Carer’s Allowance Debts</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p>£0.01 - £500.00</p></td><td><p>61.9k</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>£500.01 - £1000.00</p></td><td><p>29.7k</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>£1000.01 - £5000.00</p></td><td><p>53.2k</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>£5000.01 - £20,000.00</p></td><td><p>11.3k</p></td></tr><tr><td><p>Over £20,000.00</p></td><td><p>0.3k</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Total</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>156.3k</strong></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p><strong> </strong></p><p>The above data has been sourced from internal DWP management information, which is intended only to help the Department to manage its business. It is not intended for publication and has not been subject to the same quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics.</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p>Data is taken as a snapshot as at 03/04/2024, the closest date we can obtain to 06/04/2024.</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong> </strong></p> answering member constituency Blackpool North and Cleveleys answering member printed Paul Maynard question first answered 19/04/2024 11:37:23 answering member 3926 label Biography information for Paul Maynard
tabling member	4400 label Biography information for Margaret Greenwood

1700325

registered interest
date	12/04/2024
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	Carer's Allowance: Overpayments
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many overpayments of Carer’s Allowance there have been in relation to the earnings conditions in each of the last three years.
tabling member constituency	Wirral West
tabling member printed	Margaret Greenwood
uin	21074
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 19/04/2024 answer text <p>Claimants have a responsibility to ensure they are entitled to benefits they claim and to inform the DWP of any changes in their circumstances that could impact their award. For Carer’s Allowance, eligibility is partly dependent upon claimants earning £151 or less a week after tax, National Insurance and allowable expenses.</p><p> </p><p>Where overpayments do occur, the Department has a duty to the taxpayer to protect public funds and to ask for money to be paid back. However, we seek to do so without causing excessive hardship. We remain committed to working with anyone who is struggling with their repayment terms and will always look to negotiate sustainable and affordable repayment plans.</p><p> </p><p>Our most recent statistics show that Carer's Allowance overpayments relating to earnings/employment represents 2.1% of our £3.3bn Carer’s Allowance expenditure.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The information requested has been provided in the table below.</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p><strong>Financial Year</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>2021/22</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>2022/23</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>2023/24</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Volume of Carer’s Allowance (CA) Debts</strong></p></td><td><p>36.1k</p></td><td><p>30.7k</p></td><td><p>34.5k</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p><strong> </strong></p><p>The above data has been sourced from internal DWP management information, which is intended only to help the Department to manage its business. It is not intended for publication and has not been subject to the same quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong> </strong></p> answering member constituency Blackpool North and Cleveleys answering member printed Paul Maynard question first answered 19/04/2024 11:40:39 answering member 3926 label Biography information for Paul Maynard
tabling member	4400 label Biography information for Margaret Greenwood