Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the decision to freeze the Local Housing Allowance in cash terms on the ability of recipients to cover their rental costs.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
In April 2020 Local Housing Allowance rates were increased to the 30th percentile of local rents. This investment of nearly £1 billion provided 1.5 million claimants with an average £600 more housing support in 2020/21 than they would otherwise have received.
LHA rates have been maintained at the same cash level for 2021/22 rather than reverting to previous rates which were much less generous. This provides a reasonable amount of support and ensures that all claimants who benefitted from the increased levels of housing support will continue to do so.
For those who require additional support with housing costs Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) are available. Since 2011 we have provided over £1 billion in DHP funding. We have allocated a further £140 million for Discretionary Housing Payments for 2021/22 in England and Wales.
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the source of the statistic that around 60 per cent of Universal Credit payments go to the main carer, which is stated in their response to the report from the Joint Committee on the Draft Domestic Abuse Bill, published on 16 July 2019 (CP 137).
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
Since Summer 2019, the online claim process has featured messaging that encourages joint claimants to select the bank account of the main carer when choosing where Universal Credit payments should be paid to. This seeks to balance encouragement of positive financial management behaviours, whilst also allowing claimants to choose how to best manage their own finances.
It is not currently possible to reliably identify whether payment has been made to the main carer in couples with children. While we have analysed data on payments to male and female members of couples (as below), we cannot yet confidently identify the main carer. It has not been possible to draw robust conclusions based on this limited evidence. Further work is planned.
The ‘Universal Credit Statistical Ad Hoc: Gender of bank account holders on Universal Credit’, published January 2019, shows that for couple claimants where the gender of the account holder could be identified, 59% of accounts are held by a female with 41% held by a male. This is the source of the statistic stated in the Government’s response to the report from the Joint Committee on the Draft Domestic Abuse Bill, that ‘around 60 per cent of Universal Credit payments go to the main carer, usually a woman’, although I regret that response should more accurately have said that ‘around 60 per cent of Universal Credit couple payments go to the woman, usually the main carer.’
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the commitment made in their response to the report from the Joint Committee on the Draft Domestic Abuse Bill, published on 16 July 2019 (CP 137), what steps they have taken to review the effectiveness of the policy to encourage Universal Credit claimants to nominate the main carer's bank account for payment.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
Since Summer 2019, the online claim process has featured messaging that encourages joint claimants to select the bank account of the main carer when choosing where Universal Credit payments should be paid to. This seeks to balance encouragement of positive financial management behaviours, whilst also allowing claimants to choose how to best manage their own finances.
It is not currently possible to reliably identify whether payment has been made to the main carer in couples with children. While we have analysed data on payments to male and female members of couples (as below), we cannot yet confidently identify the main carer. It has not been possible to draw robust conclusions based on this limited evidence. Further work is planned.
The ‘Universal Credit Statistical Ad Hoc: Gender of bank account holders on Universal Credit’, published January 2019, shows that for couple claimants where the gender of the account holder could be identified, 59% of accounts are held by a female with 41% held by a male. This is the source of the statistic stated in the Government’s response to the report from the Joint Committee on the Draft Domestic Abuse Bill, that ‘around 60 per cent of Universal Credit payments go to the main carer, usually a woman’, although I regret that response should more accurately have said that ‘around 60 per cent of Universal Credit couple payments go to the woman, usually the main carer.’
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much it would cost to write-off overpayment tax credit debt accrued by Universal Credit claimants (1) in total, and (2) for the time periods of (a) 12 months and under, (b) 12 months to under 36 months, (c) 36 months and above; and in each case how many claimants would have their overpayment tax credit debt written off.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) does not store information in a format entirely commensurate with the question, but I can confirm that approximately £3 billion Tax Credit debt associated to Universal Credit claimants has been transferred to DWP. This debt relates to 2.4 million claimants, some of whom could appear more than once in this total. The following table breaks this down and shows how much has been recovered to date.
Tax Credit debt transferred to date
Financial Year | Customer Count | Values | Total Recoveries |
2016-17 | 110.8k | £147.933m | £6.261m |
2017-18 | 155.8k | £190.472m | £37.987m |
2018-19 | 531.3k | £676.984m | £109.091m |
2019-20 | 724.5k | £964.170m | £213.693m |
2020-21 | 593.0k | £679.055m | £206.041m |
2021-22 YTD | 285.4k | £364.141m | £61.838m |
Totals | 2400.8k | £3,022.76m | £634.910m |
During the same period, the Department wrote off £9.4 million Tax Credit debt for approximately 5,700 customers. The latest HMRC forecasts suggest that a further £2.4 billion is due to migrate to DWP Debt Management for future recovery. Therefore, based on the value of debt transferred to date and the forecast of further debt that will transfer, if all Tax Credits debt associated to UC claimants was written off it would cost in the region of £5.4 billion associated to approximately 4 million customers.
The Department has a duty to protect public funds and an obligation to ensure that overpaid benefit payments are recovered in accordance with the appropriate social security legislation.
The Department seeks to recover benefit overpayments as quickly as possible without creating any undue financial hardship to the claimant. The rate of deduction is determined by legislation and can only be calculated once other higher priority deductions have been taken into account. The maximum deduction that can be taken from someone’s UC Standard Allowance was reduced to 25 per cent in April 2021.
We want to ensure that repayment of all debt owed to the Department is sustainable and takes into account the customer’s ability to pay. Claimants are encouraged to contact DWP if they are unable to afford the rate of recovery. The recovery rate of Tax Credit overpayments can be reduced where a claimant is experiencing financial hardship.
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Stedman-Scott on 13 February 2020 (HL1489), when they expect to publish their literature review of the factors driving the use of food banks.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The Department reallocated resources to prioritise work to help the COVID-19 effort. This caused delays to some work, including this literature review. The review summarises publicly available information and does not contain any new research carried out by the Department.
The Department has recently published new data from the Family Resources Survey on household food security, giving us a better understanding of who is most at risk. This underlines how seriously we take the issue of food insecurity.
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government (1) how many, and (2) what proportion of, couples with children claiming Universal Credit since July 2019 have nominated the main carer's bank account for payment.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
Analysis of the proportion of first payments that go to the main carer has been carried out. However, it is not possible to draw robust conclusions based on the limited evidence available
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government (1) how many, and (2) what proportion of, new universal credit payments have deductions as a result of repayment of (a) budgeting loans and advances, (b) universal credit advances, (c) universal credit overpayments, and (d) tax credit overpayments, in each month from March 2019 to the most recent month for which data are available.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
We carefully balance our duty to the taxpayer to recover overpayments with our support for claimants. Safeguards are in place to ensure deductions are manageable; from 12 April 2021, we further reduced the cap on deductions from Universal Credit awards to 25 per cent and lengthened the payback period from 12 months to 24 meaning in effect someone can receive 25 payments over 24 months, giving them more flexibility over the payments of their UC award. This will also allow claimants to retain more of their award, giving additional financial security.
New Claims Advances are available which allows claimants to receive up to 100 per cent of their estimated UC payment upfront. Advances are designed to ensure that the most vulnerable claimants receive the money they need to live on during their transition to UC. Claimants have the option to spread twenty-five UC payments over twenty-four months, giving them more flexibility over the payments of their UC award.
From 3rd April 2020, deductions from Universal Credit for some government debt, such as Tax Credits, benefit overpayments and Social Fund Loans were suspended for 3 months, which resulted in many claimants seeing an increase in the amount they received while allowing staff to prioritise processing the unprecedented number of new benefits claims.
Customers can contact the Department if they are experiencing financial hardship in order to discuss a reduction in their rate of repayment, depending on financial circumstances.
The information requested is provided in the attached spreadsheet.
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many claimants are in receipt of (1) income-related Employment and Support Allowance, (2) income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, (3) Income Support, and (4) Housing Benefit; and how many claimants of each of those awards receive a Severe Disability Premium.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The statistics are shown in the following table:
Number of people in receipt of income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA), Income Support and Housing Benefit, and estimates of the number of those receiving Severe Disability Premium (SDP), February 2020, Great Britain
| Recipients1 | SDP recipients2 |
All income-related ESA | 1,445,400 | 515,000 |
All income-based JSA | 119,300 | 7,000 |
Income Support | 319,600 | 16,000 |
Housing Benefit | 3,218,600 | .. |
Sources: Stat-Xplore, DWP Work and Pensions 5 per cent Sample, DWP 100 per cent Work and Pensions Longitudinal Study (WPLS) data, and 100 per cent Jobseekers Allowance Payment System Atomic Data Store
Notes:
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they expect to publish poverty statistics based on the measures recommended in the report by the Social Metrics Commission A new measure of poverty for the UK, published in September 2018; and, in preparing these statistics, whether they are incorporating the proposals of that report that indicators of the lived experience of poverty should not be included as part of the central measure used to assess the number of people in poverty.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
With re-prioritisation of workloads during Covid-19, this project was paused. We will provide an update on this work in due course.