Asked by: Lord Jones of Cheltenham (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to take the Consumer Price Index into account when calculating the state pension for 2022–23.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The Government has introduced the Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill which will enable State Pensions (the basic State Pension, the new State Pension and Pension Credit) to be uprated for 2022/23 only by at least the higher of the increase in prices or 2.5%.
Decisions on up-rating for all pensions and benefit rates are made in the Autumn as part of the up-rating review by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and announced ahead of the up-rating of benefits in April 2022. The conventional measure of price increases used for up-rating is September to September Consumer Price Index, this is released in October.
Asked by: Lord Jones of Cheltenham (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to produce an equivalent list to the EU Restricted Substance List for the UK.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), as the Agency for the UK Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals, publishes a list of those chemicals subject to restrictions on their own, in mixtures or in articles. This list can be found on the HSE website at https://www.hse.gov.uk/reach/restrictions.htm.
Asked by: Lord Jones of Cheltenham (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the level of the basic state pension paid in the UK; and what assessment they have made of how this compares with the levels of state pensions in EU member states.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The full rate of the basic State Pension for people who reached State Pension age before 6 April 2016 is £137.60 per week. These individuals may also have some earnings-related additional State Pension, occupational or private pension income (enabled by the UK National Insurance system). For people reaching State Pension age from 6 April 2016 onwards, the full rate of the new State Pension is £179.60 per week: the amount an individual receives depends on their individual National Insurance record.
Meaningful comparisons between pension schemes in different countries are very difficult to make as there are many factors to take into account. This includes differences in; tax systems, healthcare systems, pension ages, cost of living, access to occupational pensions and the availability of other social security benefits, as well as the provision of services and goods free to pensioners or at concessionary rates.
Asked by: Lord Jones of Cheltenham (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation and KPMG Report on Jobs, published on 8 July; in particular, the finding that the availability of workers to fill vacancies fell at the quickest rates on record; and what steps they intend to take as a result.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) monitors a wide range of statistics and surveys on the labour market.
We want everyone to be able to find a job, progress in work and thrive in the labour market, whoever they are and wherever they live. Through Plan for Jobs, the government announced over £33 billion in measures to create, support and protect jobs, which includes £2.9 billion funding for Restart and £3 billion investment in the Kickstart programme alongside other measures focussed on boosting work search, skills and apprenticeships.
Alongside measures in Plan for Jobs, DWP is leading cross-government collaboration to identify and remove barriers to working in sectors with immediate or growing demand for jobs. We continue to work closely with these departments and sector bodies to identify and address barriers facing DWP customers and to ensure the provision is available to support individuals to access opportunities in these sectors. We work closely with a range of departments to shape skills support to enable individuals to develop the skills needed in order to move to roles in different sectors
Asked by: Lord Jones of Cheltenham (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what recent meetings they have had, if any, to discuss the future of health and safety regulation.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The Government is committed to taking a proportionate approach to health and safety regulation to support economic recovery and enable innovation while maintaining levels of protection for workers.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the Minister for Employment meet regularly with senior officials from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to discuss current priorities, for example the new post EU Chemicals regime, the Building Safety Regulator and Covid-19 responses, and discuss potential developments and future priorities.
HSE’s Annual Business Plan 2020/21 details key priorities, taking account of the ongoing response to Covid-19 while helping to support the economy.
Asked by: Lord Jones of Cheltenham (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to reduce and eliminate child poverty in the United Kingdom.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
This Government is wholly committed to tackling child poverty. Throughout the pandemic, our priority has been to protect family incomes by spending £407 billion to protect jobs, keep businesses afloat and help families get by. Including spending an additional £7.4 billion last year to strengthen the welfare system for those most in need, taking our total expenditure on welfare support for people of working age to an estimated £112bn in 2020/21.
In December 2020 we introduced our Covid Winter Grant Scheme providing funding to Local Authorities in England to enable them to support people with food and essential utility bills during the coldest months. It will now run to the 20th June as the Covid Local Support Grant, with a total investment of £269m.
As the economy recovers, our ambition is to help parents move into and progress in work as quickly as possible based on clear evidence around the importance of parental employment, particularly where it is full-time, in substantially reducing the risks of child poverty. We are investing over £30 billion in our ambitious Plan for Jobs which is already delivering for people of all ages right across the country.
Asked by: Lord Jones of Cheltenham (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the decision by the government of Canada to grant annual state pension increases to Canadian pensioners living in the UK; and what plans they have to provide annual state pension increases to UK pensioners living in Canada.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The Government has had no discussions with the Canadian Government, regarding the up-rating of the UK State Pension for recipients living in Canada, and has made no assessment of the Canadian Government’s up-rating policy.
Asked by: Lord Jones of Cheltenham (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with the government of Canada about frozen UK pensions for UK pensioners in Canada.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The Government has had no discussions with the Canadian Government, regarding the up-rating of the UK State Pension for recipients living in Canada, and has made no assessment of the Canadian Government’s up-rating policy.
Asked by: Lord Jones of Cheltenham (Liberal Democrat - 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 6 April (HL14577), why there has been a departure from the policy to agree reciprocal social security arrangements, despite the agreements with (1) Bermuda in 1969, and (2) Gibraltar in 1974.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The policy on entering into new reciprocal social security agreements has been in place since 1996.
Asked by: Lord Jones of Cheltenham (Liberal Democrat - 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 6 April (HL14579), why they have not responded yet to the request on 16 December 2020 by members of the Canadian Parliament for a reciprocal agreement on the uprating of pensions for UK state pension holders residing in Canada; and what assessment they have made of the impact the delay in responding could have on the negotiations for new trade agreements.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
As indicated in my answer on 6 April 2021 (HL14579), an official request was received from the Government of Canada, to which the Government has now responded.