Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to make personal independence payment assessment forms available online.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
We are committed to providing a digital channel - “PIP Apply” - to widen claimants’ choices on how to make a new claim for PIP. In October 2020 we introduced – testing on a small scale - an online version of the PIP 2 claim form for claimants to complete using an HTML link sent via an email. We will use the learning from this as we develop this service further. Our aim is to scale this service by Spring 2021. We are also working on how we enable claimants to access this service directly from gov.uk removing the need for the initial telephone call. As this digital channel will be optional, we will ensure we continue to offer our telephony service and paper form for those who are unable or prefer not to use our online services.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to improve access to the personal independence payments assessment.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department is committed to assessing people with health conditions and disabilities fairly and accurately. We have introduced telephone assessments as part of the Department’s Covid-19 response and we are now testing video assessments. Building on changes already made, the upcoming Health and Disability Support Green Paper will consult on how to make further improvements to our services to make them better and easier for disabled people to access and use.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department has taken to compensate people who were eligible to claim State Pension under the basic State Pension system, but did not make a claim as they unaware of their eligibility.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The provisions of the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1987 (Schedule 4, para 13), as amended in 2008, set out the rules in relation to this matter. Where an individual is required to make a claim to be entitled to State Pension the law allows for such claims to be backdated for a maximum period of up to 12 months.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of (a) making the uplift to universal credit and working tax credit permanent and (b) extending that uplift to legacy benefits.
Answered by Will Quince
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 and Working Tax Credit basic element as temporary measures for the 20/21 tax year. There are no plans to extend this to legacy benefits.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will urgently extend the suspension of the minimum income floor on universal credit to support people working in the creative industries and self-employed people during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
After careful consideration of the ongoing public health situation and the national working environment, the current easement of the suspension of the Minimum Income Floor in Universal Credit that was due to expire on 12th November 2020 will be extended to the end of April 2021.
Regulations will be laid and made prior to 12th November 2020.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to prepare her Department for a rise in (a) unemployment and (b) benefit claims at the end of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department has taken swift action in response to the pandemic, supporting millions of families across the country to claim Universal Credit and we stand ready to help those in need.
We are already supporting people into work through our Plan for Jobs and will continue to do so. Kickstart will provide high quality paid work placements for thousands of young people and our new Job Entry Targeted Support and the Job Finding Support Service will provide targeted support for the newly unemployed. We are also doubling the number of Work Coaches across our nationwide network of Jobcentres to ensure claimants have access to personalised support so they can move back into employment.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Streatham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has made an assessment of the effect on members of the Windrush generation living in frozen rate countries of the policy not to uprate the pensions of UK pensioners living overseas unless there is a legal requirement to do so or where there is a reciprocal agreement in place that provides for that uprating.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
DWP continues to support the cross-government commitment, actively supporting people of the Windrush generation and working closely with the Home Office.
The policy on up-rating UK state pensions overseas is a long-standing one of successive post-war Governments. The UK State Pension is payable worldwide and is uprated abroad where there is a legal requirement to do so. There are no current plans to change this.