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Written Question
Offshore Industry: Helicopters
Tuesday 12th March 2024

Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has received recent representations from the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers on safety risks in the offshore helicopter supply chain.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The responsibility for safety risks in the offshore helicopter supply chain lies with the Civil Aviation Authority. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is not aware that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has received recent representations from the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers on this matter.


Written Question
Universal Credit: Disqualification
Wednesday 21st February 2024

Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when Ministers in his Department last requested information from officials on the (a) number, (b) age and (c) disabilities of children living in households subject to a Universal Credit sanction.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Ministers frequently ask officials for data and information on a wide range of subjects both informally and formally.

Statistics are published regularly showing the number of Universal Credit full-service customers with a payment that has been reduced due to a sanction. These can be found in the Universal Credit sanction rates dataset on Stat-Xplore (https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/jsf/login.xhtml). Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, they can also access guidance (https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html) on how to extract the information required.


Written Question
Universal Credit: Disqualification
Wednesday 21st February 2024

Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Answer of 16 October 2023 to Question 199738 on Universal Credit: Disqualification, for what reason information on the number of children living in households subject to a Universal Credit sanction is not readily available.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Department records information on the number of children living in Universal Credit households and these are published every three months as part of the official Universal Credit statistics (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/universal-credit-statistics). The Department also records information on the number of people who have received a sanction on Universal Credit, and these are published every three months as part of the official Benefit Sanctions Statistics (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/jobseekers-allowance-sanctions). These statistics are produced using different methodologies and it is not possible to provide appropriately quality assured statistics within the disproportionate cost limit.


Written Question
Social Security Benefits
Thursday 8th February 2024

Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants of (a) tax credits only, (b) income-based jobseekers allowance, (c) employment support allowance and tax credits, (d) income support, (e) housing benefit only, other than people in supported accommodation or temporary accommodation and (f) housing benefit and tax credits only his Department plans to send a migration notice to in the 2024-25 financial year.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Move to UC Notifications (household) Aut-2023

24/25

JSA income based

20,000

ESA income based (and Child Tax Credits)

90,000

Income Support

110,000

Tax Credit & Housing Benefit

120,000

Tax Credit only

10,000

Housing Benefit only

100,000

Total

440,000

Notes:

  • This is the number of households DWP estimated it would notify to move to UC as of Autumn-23 (where households are couples only one member of the couple is counted).
  • The benefits are in a hierarchy so we do not double count households claiming multiple benefits. E.g. if a household claims JSA/ESA/IS and Tax Credits or Housing Benefit they only appear in the JSA/IS/ESA line. Households in the Tax Credit and Housing lines do not include households claiming ESA, JSA or IS.
  • Numbers are rounded to the nearest 10k.
  • Over 500,000 Tax Credit only households are scheduled to be notified in 2023/24

Written Question
Universal Credit: Disqualification
Thursday 18th January 2024

Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether jobcentres collect data on the (a) number, (b) age and (c) disabilities of children in households subject to Universal Credit sanctions.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Department collects information on UC households which includes the number of children by age group and the age of the youngest child. The Department also collects data on UC households with entitlement to the Disabled Child element which is payable where a child is entitled to Disability Living Allowance (DLA) or Personal Independence Payment (PIP). All this information is published as part of the quarterly Universal Credit statistics (see https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/universal-credit-statistics), with further breakdowns available in the Households on Universal Credit dataset on Stat-Xplore (see https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/jsf/tableView/tableView.xhtml).


Written Question
Universal Credit: Childcare
Monday 15th January 2024

Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to his Department’s publication entitled Universal Credit claimants eligible for and receiving the childcare element between March 2021 to February 2022, published on 29 June 2022, whether he plans to publish an update to these statistics.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We intend to publish proposals on the future release of these statistics in due course at: UC Research and Statistics Announcements


Written Question
Universal Credit: Disqualification
Monday 15th January 2024

Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance his Department provides to (a) work coaches and (b) decision makers on, (i) referring for sanctions and (ii) imposing sanctions on, Universal Credit claimants with dependent children.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Comprehensive Universal Credit guidance is provided to Work Coaches when referring cases for a decision, which may lead to a sanction. For example, before referring for or applying a sanction, staff must consider if the claimant is a care leaver, has complex needs, is vulnerable, has a health condition or if there have been previous sanctions recorded in the last 12 months.

For sanctions imposed on Universal Credit claimants with dependent children; all claimants will have their conditionality tailored to their individual circumstances.

Relevant guidance for Decision Makers is available on GOV.uk. Specific relevant chapters can be found here:

K1: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/644a43f8faf4aa0012e12f52/admk1.pdf

K2: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/61e13d648fa8f5058667834d/adm-k2.pdf

K3: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64b6afc961adff000d01b2f9/admk3.pdf

K4: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5c92307840f0b633f71989d7/admk4.pdf

K5: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64ca5b6421df0f000dab4be6/admk5.pdf

K6: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5d0b94a3e5274a0694afe5c3/admk6.pdf

K8: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5aa2811de5274a3e391e37a6/admk8.pdf

K9: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64b6afd60ea2cb000d15e546/admk9.pdf


Written Question
Universal Credit: Childcare
Monday 15th January 2024

Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of (a) single and (b) couple parent households receiving universal credit (i) were eligible for and (ii) received the childcare element in each region in the latest month for which data is available.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Statistics on the number of households in receipt of Universal Credit are published every three months. The latest statistics, to August 2023, are available by family type and if they receive the childcare element, and by region on Stat-Xplore.

Statistics on the number of households who are eligible for the childcare element are not routinely published, but we are looking to develop the official UC household statistics to include these statistics. Further details will be published here in due course.


Written Question
Universal Credit: Children
Wednesday 13th December 2023

Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many children were living in households (a) in receipt of Universal Credit and (b) subject to deductions in each parliamentary constituency in the most recent month for which data is available; what the (i) total and (ii) average sum of Universal Credit deductions was for households with children in each constituency; and what proportion of those sums was deducted to repay advance payments.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The requested information is provided in the separate spreadsheet and are subject to the following caveats:

1. For low level geography: volumes have been rounded to the nearest 100, total amounts have been rounded to the nearest £1,000 and average amounts have been rounded to the nearest £1. For totals at GB level: volumes have been rounded to the nearest 100,000, total amounts have been rounded to the nearest £1,000,000 and average amount has been rounded to the nearest £1. Proportions have been rounded to the nearest percentage point.

2. The sum of individual low level geographies may not sum to the total figure due to rounding.

3. Deductions include advance repayments, third party deductions and all other deductions, but exclude sanctions and fraud penalties which are reductions of benefit rather than deductions.

4. Children are defined here as being people who are declared as living in the same household as the UC claimant(s) and who are under the age of 20. The number of children may not be equal to the number of dependent children in the household who are eligible for child element for various reasons. This includes children over the age of 16 in non-advanced full-time education, looked-after children and, other young people living in multigenerational households whose parents are not the claimant. Those affected by the policy to provide support for a maximum of two children may also have a larger number of children compared to the number of children entitled to the child element in their household.

5. Figures are provisional and are subject to retrospective change as later data becomes available.

6. The ‘unknown' parliamentary constituency equates to 0.4% of all households and relates to households for which a constituency could not be determined due to incomplete postcode information.

7. Data for August 2023 has been provided in line with the latest available UC Household Statistics.

8. Claim numbers and numbers of children on UC will not match official statistics caseloads due to methodological differences.


Written Question
Universal Credit: Carers
Monday 20th November 2023

Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the number of (a) family and (b) friend carers affected by the changes to work conditionality rules for Universal Credit implemented on 25 October 2023 in (i) 2022-23, (ii) 2023-24 and (iii) 2024-25.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.