Asked by: Caroline Johnson (Conservative - Sleaford and North Hykeham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people claiming benefits under special rules with a form SR1 have been claiming for (a) more than 12 months and (b) less than 12 months.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department supports people nearing the end of life through special benefit rules – called the Special Rules for End of Life (SREL). These enable people who are nearing the end of their lives to get faster, easier access to certain benefits, without needing to attend a medical assessment, serve waiting periods and in most cases, receive the highest rate of benefit.
SREL applies to these benefits Personal Independence Payment (PIP), Universal Credit (UC), Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), Disability Living Allowance for children (DLAc) and Attendance Allowance (AA).
The department holds some data on special rules for end of life (SREL) claims for PIP and UC based on receipt of the medical evidence form, the SR1, but does not centrally collate equivalent data on SREL claims for AA, DLA and ESA, so we cannot provide the total number of SREL claimants. We have therefore provided data for UC and PIP only below.
Benefit* | Claim duration less than 12 months | Claim duration of 12 months or more. | Total |
PIP | 16,900 | 15,400 | 32,300 |
UC | 5,900 | 4,800 | 10,700 |
*All figures are rounded to the nearest hundred.
The PIP data covers England and Wales and is from October 2024. The UC data covers Great Britain and is from September 2024.
The numbers above count the number of claims for each benefit, not the number of individuals. Some individuals may be counted more than once, as they may be in receipt of both benefits.
It is possible, although rare, to make a SREL claim without a SR1 form, so these data do not necessarily present the full picture in terms of total numbers of SREL claims.
‘DLA: Cases in Payment - Data from May 2018’ and ‘AA: Cases in Payment - Data from May 2018’ data is available on Stat-Xplore by ‘Main Disabling Condition’, this includes ‘Terminally Ill’ claims. This data is available by ‘Duration of Current Claim’. ESA - Data from May 2018 is available on Stat-Xplore by ‘Medical condition’ which includes ‘Neoplasms’. This data is available by ‘Duration of Current Claim’. A claimant’s main disabling condition being ‘Terminally Ill’ does not necessarily mean they are classed as an SREL claimant. Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest user and, if needed, can access guidance on how to extract the information required.
Asked by: Caroline Johnson (Conservative - Sleaford and North Hykeham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of items of correspondence from Parliamentarians received by (a) her Department, (b) herself and (c) her ministerial team have not received a substantive response in each month since August 2024.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department does not keep this information centrally and therefore it is not readily available. Providing the information that the Department does hold would incur disproportionate costs.
Asked by: Caroline Johnson (Conservative - Sleaford and North Hykeham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many pension credit claims received since 1 August 2024 have (a) not been paid to the claimant and (b) refused on grounds the claimant is ineligible.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
Because of how we capture our operational data, information on claims received over that period which have not been paid to the claimant/refused on the grounds of the claimant being ineligible is not available and to provide it would incur disproportionate costs.
Statistics on Pension Credit award volumes were published on 28 November 2024. This publication includes numbers of applications that were received, awarded and not awarded, up to 17 November 2024. Pension Credit applications and awards: November 2024 - GOV.UK. Please note, the next publication of Pension Credit application statistics is due around the end of February 2025 and will cover the data up to week commencing 10 February 2025.
Asked by: Caroline Johnson (Conservative - Sleaford and North Hykeham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many applications for Pension Credit were (a) received, (b) processed and granted and (c) processed and not granted in each month between July and December 2024.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
Statistics on Pension Credit application volumes were published on 28 November 2024. This includes numbers of applications that were received, awarded and not awarded, up to 17 November 2024. Pension Credit applications and awards: November 2024 - GOV.UK.
Please note, the next publication of Pension Credit application statistics is due around the end of February 2025 and will cover the data up to week commencing 10 February 2025.
Asked by: Caroline Johnson (Conservative - Sleaford and North Hykeham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of the number of pensioners who have an annual income that is (i) lower and (ii) higher than (a) £23,795.20, (b) £12,570, (c) £50,271, (d) £125,140, (e) £60,000, (f) £70,000 and (g) £24,000.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
These estimates are provided at a pensioner unit level. The estimated number of pensioner units with the gross annual incomes specified are stated in the following text. Numbers have been rounded to the nearest 100,000 and then displayed in millions. Individual figures have been rounded independently, so figures may not sum due to rounding.
(a) (i) lower than £23,795.20 – 4.1m, (ii) higher than £23,795.20 – 4.6m
(b) (i) lower than £12,570 – 1.0m, (ii) higher than £12,570 – 7.7m
(c) (i) lower than £50,271 – 7.4m, (ii) higher than £50,271 – 1.2m
(d) (i) lower than £125,140 – 8.5m, (ii) higher than £125,140 – 0.2m
(e) (i) lower than £60,000 – 7.9m, (ii) higher than £60,000 – 0.8m
(f) (i) lower than £70,000 – 8.2m, (ii) higher than £70,000 – 0.5m
(g) (i) lower than £24,000 – 4.2m, (ii) higher than £24,000 – 4.5m
These estimates are based on Pensioners’ Incomes data derived from the Family Resources Survey and cover private householders in the United Kingdom and the financial year 2022/23.
A pensioner unit can be a single pensioner over State Pension age, a pensioner couple where one member is over State Pension age, or a pensioner couple where both members are over State Pension age.
Asked by: Caroline Johnson (Conservative - Sleaford and North Hykeham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many parents are (a) making child maintenance payments through the Child Maintenance Service and (b) in arrears on those payments.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The principle of the Child Maintenance Service is to increase levels of cooperation between separated parents and encourage parents to meet their responsibilities to provide financial support for their children through their own family-based arrangements where possible. Where a family-based child maintenance arrangement is not suitable we offer a statutory scheme to those parents who need it.
The Government is dedicated to ensuring parents meet their obligations to children and the Child Maintenance Service will do everything within its powers to make sure parents comply. Where parents fail to pay their child maintenance, the Service will not hesitate to use its enforcement powers, including deductions from earnings orders, removal of driving licences, disqualification from holding a passport, and committal to prison. The Service is committed to using these powers fairly and in the best interests of children and separated families.
The Department publishes quarterly statistics for the Child Maintenance Service and the latest statistics are available up to March 2024. The number of Paying Parents using the Collect and Pay service are published on Stat-Xplore in the CMS Paying Parents dataset.
In the latest quarter ending on 31 March 2024, there were 188,945 parents due to pay through the Collect and Pay service. Information on the full arrears status of those parents is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Caroline Johnson (Conservative - Sleaford and North Hykeham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the number of pensioners who have an income lower than the (a) minimum and (b) living wage.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage are hourly rates. Pensioners do not receive their income at an hourly rate. As such, the requested information is not available.