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1239452

	registered interest
	date	30/09/2020
	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, how many times the universal credit service has been unavailable since 23 March 2020; and for what reasons that service was unavailable on each of those occasions.
	tabling member constituency	Weaver Vale
	tabling member printed	Mike Amesbury
	uin	97714
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/10/2020 answer text <p>There have been over 3 million Universal Credit claims made since mid-March; six times the volume that the Department would typically receive. Despite that surge, the system is standing up to the challenge and demonstrating that resilience and scalability are integral parts its design, whilst maintaining high levels of payment timeliness.</p><p>There have been no unplanned outages of the Universal Credit online service since March 2020.</p><p /><p /> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince grouped question UIN 97715 question first answered 08/10/2020 14:43:43 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	4667 label Biography information for Mike Amesbury

1239453

	registered interest
	date	30/09/2020
	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 her Department has made of the capacity of the universal credit service to cope with demand for new online claims in the period since 23 March 2020; and what steps her Department is taking to minimise periods of unavailability of that service.
	tabling member constituency	Weaver Vale
	tabling member printed	Mike Amesbury
	uin	97715
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/10/2020 answer text <p>There have been over 3 million Universal Credit claims made since mid-March; six times the volume that the Department would typically receive. Despite that surge, the system is standing up to the challenge and demonstrating that resilience and scalability are integral parts its design, whilst maintaining high levels of payment timeliness.</p><p>There have been no unplanned outages of the Universal Credit online service since March 2020.</p><p /><p /> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince grouped question UIN 97714 question first answered 08/10/2020 14:43:43 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	4667 label Biography information for Mike Amesbury

1251906

	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	Redundancy: 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 his Department has made of the need to provide financial support for employees made redundant before 23 September 2020 who cannot be furloughed and are not entitled to any statutory redundancy payment.
	tabling member constituency	Weaver Vale
	tabling member printed	Mike Amesbury
	uin	92004
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 23/11/2020 answer text <p>Universal Credit is in place to support claimants in difficult 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.</p><p>Our long-term ambition is to level up across the country and continue to tackle poverty through our reformed welfare system that works with the labour market to encourage people to move into and progress in work wherever possible.</p><p> </p><p>Our £30bn Plan for Jobs is the first step on the ladder to achieving this and will support economic recovery through new schemes including Kickstart and Job Entry Targeted Support.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 23/11/2020 16:31:07 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	4667 label Biography information for Mike Amesbury

1251910

	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	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 her Department has made of the need to remove the five-week wait for universal credit for employees made redundant prior to 23 September 2020 and who are not eligible for statutory redundancy pay.
	tabling member constituency	Weaver Vale
	tabling member printed	Mike Amesbury
	uin	92005
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 23/11/2020 answer text <p>Nobody in need has to wait for a payment under Universal Credit (UC). UC New Claim Advances allow eligible claimants to receive up to 100% of their estimated Universal Credit payment upfront within a few days. Claimants will receive their annual award over 13 payments during their first year, instead of 12. They are paid quickly and can be applied for online or over the phone. These upfront payments can be spread across two years instead of one from October 2021, as announced in the 2020 Budget.</p><p><strong> </strong></p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 23/11/2020 16:08:41 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	4667 label Biography information for Mike Amesbury

1287174

	registered interest
	date	19/02/2021
	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, what assessment her Department has made of the potential effect of including discretionary and hardship payments as income for the purposes of universal credit on people in receipt of that payment.
	tabling member constituency	Weaver Vale
	tabling member printed	Mike Amesbury
	uin	155368
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 01/03/2021 answer text <p>No assessment has been made.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 01/03/2021 15:52:11 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	4667 label Biography information for Mike Amesbury

1345235

	registered interest
	date	08/07/2021
	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: Overpayments
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much her Department recovered from overpayments that were as a result of her Department's and not the claimant's error in each month in the most recent period for which figures are available; and what the average amount of overpayment due to her Department's error was recovered from each such claimant.
	tabling member constituency	Weaver Vale
	tabling member printed	Mike Amesbury
	uin	29888
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 19/07/2021 answer text <p>In the last month for which figures are available DWP paid out almost £3.5bn in Universal Credit and it should be noted that fraud and error in the benefits system remains low, with 95% of benefits, worth more than £200bn. paid correctly in 2020/21. Official Error overpayments remained at 0.4% of benefit expenditure last year, with UC Official Error Overpayments falling from 1.3% to 0.9%.</p><p> </p><p>Deductions from UC are now capped at 25% (as of April 2021) having previously been 30%. Where requested deductions exceed the 25% maximum, or there is insufficient UC in payment for all deductions to be made, a priority order is applied, which determines the order in which items should be deducted. ‘Last resort’ deductions, such as rent or fuel costs, are at the top of the priority order, ensuring that claimant welfare is prioritised, followed by social obligation deductions, such as fines and child maintenance, and finally benefit debt, such as Social Fund loans and benefit overpayments.</p><p> </p><p>Anyone with overpayment deductions who does experience financial hardship is encouraged to contact the Department’s Debt Management unit. Where a person cannot afford the proposed rate of these deductions, a lower amount can be negotiated.</p><p> </p><p>Deductions in respect of UC Official Error debt for the last 6 months are shown below:</p><p> </p><table><tbody><tr><td><p><strong>Month</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>Value of in month recovery where debt category is official error</strong></p></td><td><p><strong>Average recovery per Customer in Month</strong></p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Jan-21</strong></p></td><td><p>£12,470,549</p></td><td><p>£67.47</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Feb-21</strong></p></td><td><p>£14,464,840</p></td><td><p>£67.15</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Mar-21</strong></p></td><td><p>£16,444,768</p></td><td><p>£70.11</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Apr-21</strong></p></td><td><p>£16,524,866</p></td><td><p>£69.95</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>May-21</strong></p></td><td><p>£13,563,717</p></td><td><p>£65.02</p></td></tr><tr><td><p><strong>Jun-21</strong></p></td><td><p>£14,584,640</p></td><td><p>£63.44</p></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p>* The data shown in the above table is taken from operational data systems, and is not intended for publication. Therefore, the data itself is not quality assured to the standard of published Official Statistics and National Statistics.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 19/07/2021 15:38:13 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	4667 label Biography information for Mike Amesbury

1345265

	registered interest
	date	08/07/2021
	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: 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 direct earnings attachments her Department has put in place in each year since the Welfare Reform Act 2012 enabled recovery of overpayments as a result of errors made by her Department rather than the claimant; and what estimate she has made of the amount that has been overpaid in error by her Department in each year since 2012.
	tabling member constituency	Weaver Vale
	tabling member printed	Mike Amesbury
	uin	29889
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 16/07/2021 answer text <p>It is not possible to produce a historical time series for this specific data request regarding Direct Earnings Attachments (DEA). However, I can confirm that there are 15,000 DWP debtors with an official error debt who currently have a DEA in place.</p><p> </p><p>This data is taken from operational data systems, and is not intended for publication. Therefore, the data itself is not quality assured to the standard of published Official Statistics and National Statistics.</p><p>It should be noted that, during a period when we have faced the unprecedented challenges posed by COVID-19, fraud and error in the benefits system remains low, with 95% of benefits, worth more than £200bn paid correctly in 2020/21. Official Error overpayments remained at 0.4% of benefit expenditure last year, with UC Official Error Overpayments falling from 1.3% to 0.9%.</p><p>DWP’s primary method of debt recovery is by deduction from any on-going benefit that mightbe in payment, with limits on the amount we can deduct from income related benefits being set out in legislation.</p><p> </p><p>Where recovery from ongoing benefit entitlement is not possible, DWP will seek to agree a voluntary repayment plan with the debtor, taking into account their personal circumstances and the amount they can reasonably afford to repay each month.</p><p>Where a person fails to agree a voluntary repayment plan, we can apply a Direct Earnings Attachment (DEA) which allows deductions to be taken directly from a person’s earnings, bu this would only be after DWP had made all reasonable efforts to pursue recovery via a voluntary repayment plan.</p><p>Estimates of the amount that has been overpaid in error by DWP are published annually and can be found by following the links at <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/fraud-and-error-in-the-benefit-system" target="_blank">Fraud and error in the benefit system - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)</a>.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 16/07/2021 13:38:16 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	4667 label Biography information for Mike Amesbury

1403999

	registered interest
	date	18/01/2022
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Children: Day Care
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment his Department has made over the number of women at risk of unemployment due to (a) lack of available childcare spaces and (c) the rising costs for childcare.
	tabling member constituency	Weaver Vale
	tabling member printed	Mike Amesbury
	uin	106865
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 25/01/2022 answer text <p>In terms of the availability of childcare spaces, we know from findings from the 2021 Childcare and early years providers survey that there is some spare capacity in the system. 7 in 10 (70 per cent) group-based providers reported having spare places in their full day provision and almost half of childminders (49%) reported having spare capacity on average across the week. The survey can be found here: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childcare-and-early-years-providers-survey-2021" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childcare-and-early-years-providers-survey-2021</a>.</p><p>We continue to monitor sufficiency of childcare and liaise regularly with local authorities through telephone calls and regular surveys. They are not currently reporting any substantial sufficiency or supply issues and we have not seen a substantial number of parents unable to secure a childcare place, either this term or since early years providers re-opened fully on 1 June 2020.</p><p>This government is committed to making childcare more affordable and more accessible. In terms of the costs of childcare, this includes 15 hours free early education for all three and four year olds and disadvantaged two year olds, as well as an additional 15 hours for eligible working parents (also known as ‘30 hours’), which can help save families over £6,000 per child a year.</p><p>The tax-free childcare offer is also available for working families. This scheme means that for every £8 parents pay their provider via an online account, the government will pay £2, up to a maximum contribution of £2,000 per child each year (up to £500 every 3 months).</p><p>Additionally, Universal Credit childcare reimburses up to 85% of childcare costs for working parents on a low income. This is subject to a monthly limit of £646 for one child or £1,108 for two or more children, payable in arrears</p><p>Findings from the department’s parent survey (published in December 2019) highlights the positive impact the 30 hours free childcare entitlements can have on parents’ working patterns, with a third (33%) of parents saying that in the absence of 30 hours they would be working fewer hours and the majority of parents (70%) reporting that 30 hours had given them more flexibility in the hours they could work. It also showed that a small but notable proportion of mothers reported that accessing the 30 hours had led them to enter work (6%) or increase their hours (17%). The survey can be found here: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childcare-and-early-years-survey-of-parents-2019" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childcare-and-early-years-survey-of-parents-2019</a>.</p><p>The department continues to explore what more can be done to help parents access childcare which suits their lives, including out of hours childcare or before or after school. We are committed to working together across government to make our current suite of offers work as effectively as possible and ensure it delivers for those parents who need it.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 25/01/2022 15:51:27 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	4667 label Biography information for Mike Amesbury

1422703

	registered interest
	date	18/02/2022
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Children in Care: Safety
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the safety of children in local authority care; and if his Department will take steps to ensure the safety of children by ensuring that (a) all settings are regulated by Ofsted, (b) children are not placed in care outside their local authority area due to lack of appropriate placements and (c) children are cared for by more than two staff members at any one time.
	tabling member constituency	Weaver Vale
	tabling member printed	Mike Amesbury
	uin	125463
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 28/02/2022 answer text <p>Local authorities have statutory duties to meet the needs of children they look after, and to keep them safe. The government is committed to ensuring that all placements provide children and young people with the care and support they need.</p><p>The vast majority of looked after children live with foster carers or in a children’s homes. Foster carers and children’s’ homes are already subject to robust regulatory checks and balances by Ofsted, to ensure that they meet the needs of children they accommodate and keep them safe. A growing number of older children live in supported accommodation, often termed ‘unregulated provision’ because it is not currently registered and inspected by Ofsted.</p><p>The department will invest over £142 million across the next three years to fund the introduction of new mandatory national standards, Ofsted registration and inspection for these providers. This will mean that all placements that accommodate looked after children and care leavers up to 18 will now be regulated by Ofsted.</p><p>Where local authorities place a young person out of area, there are clear statutory requirements in place to safeguard young people. These require the placing authority to inform the host authority before confirming the placement and to check whether the host authority is aware of any concerns about the setting. The statutory responsibilities for looked after children remain with the placing local authority and Director of Children’s Services who must approve all distant placements, and Ofsted can challenge where they believe a poor decision has been made.</p><p>In October 2021, my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced £259 million capital funding which will provide high quality homes for some of our most vulnerable young people, keeping them closer to families, schools, and health services.</p><p>When local authorities make a placement decision, they are responsible for ensuring the placement is suitable. This includes ensuring staff who will be looking after the child at the setting are appropriately trained and have the skills needed to meet the needs of the child and keep them safe. It is not in accordance with the law to place a looked after child in a setting that does not meet their needs and keep them safe, and it is unacceptable for any child or young person to be placed in such a setting.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 28/02/2022 17:53:34 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	4667 label Biography information for Mike Amesbury

1437129

	registered interest
	date	01/03/2022
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Children: Social Services
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Local Government Association's projection that the cost of children’s social care will increase by an estimated £600 million each year until 2024-25, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of that increase; and what steps his Department is taking to support local authorities to meet that extra cost.
	tabling member constituency	Weaver Vale
	tabling member printed	Mike Amesbury
	uin	132353
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/03/2022 answer text <p>The department recognises the challenges local authorities are facing. In recent years, the government have boosted real-term funding to local, including creating the social care grant which has increased significantly from £410 million in 2019 to £1.7 billion this year and will continue to increase in the financial year 2022-23.</p><p>Next financial year (2022-23), the government is providing over £630 million additional funding into the social care grant, bringing the grant total to £2.4 billion. The department is also providing a one-off services grant in the 2022-23 financial year worth over £800 million that can be used for all services, including children’s social care.</p><p>In total, local authorities will have access to £54.1 billion for the 2022-23 financial year, an increase of up to £3.7 billion on the previous financial year 2021-22.</p><p>Further, the government has provided an additional £200 million for Supporting Families announced at the Budget and Spending Round 2021. This represents around a 40% real-terms uplift in funding for the programme by the 2024-25 financial year, taking total planned investment across the next three years to £695 million.</p> answering member constituency Colchester answering member printed Will Quince question first answered 08/03/2022 13:14:39 answering member 4423 label Biography information for Will Quince
	tabling member	4667 label Biography information for Mike Amesbury