Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to help support women in Hornsey and Wood Green constituency to return to work after a career break.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Local Jobcentre teams are supporting residents into work and helping those in work to progress to higher paid jobs. We are working with local and national employers to help fill vacancies quickly, delivering Sector-Based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs), recruitment days, Job Fairs, and work trials, all of which can help support women to return to work after a career break.
In addition, one to one support from a Work Coach and Contracted Employment Programmes, the department also offers help with CVs and employability skills, mentoring circles for people aged 50 plus and support with childcare costs. Where a Work Coach identifies a barrier to securing or progressing in employment, they can use the Flexible Support Fund (FSF) to procure clothing, tools, digital devices, and to help with travel to work costs.
In Haringey, we are working with the Construction Youth Trust to support more women into construction roles, with referrals made by Jobcentres across the borough, and funding available to support women who want to work in this sector.
To help facilitate signposting discussions with claimants, staff have access to a database of national and local support information, the District Provision Tool as well as the new Managed Jobs and Opportunities which ensures that claimants can access tailored support where required. This includes provision aimed at women across London such as Dress for Success, a service that supports women to improve their confidence when attending interviews and Smart Works, a UK charity that provides high quality interview clothes and interview training to unemployed women.
We are also working with Transport for London and the College of North East London on their Women into Transportation and Engineering provision. This provides two weeks of pre-employment training, covering CV writing, and workplace skills, plus a Smart Works coaching and styling appointment designed to give participants the confidence to apply for the roles offered within the programme
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to ensure carers are made aware when they have exceeded the threshold for claiming carer's allowance.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP remains focussed and passionate about ensuring that the experience for our DWP customers is at the forefront of the decisions that we make, the processes we deliver, and the improvements that we design.
We have made it easier for customers to contact DWP via the channel that makes the most sense for them. DWP customers can report change of circumstances by telephone, letter, and online via GOV.UK which outlines the routeway of how a customer should notify DWP for each benefit where changes occur. This includes the use of Universal Credit Journal to report changes directly to the appropriate benefit affected where earnings increase or decrease accordingly.
For customers seeking advice on Carer’s Allowance (CA) entitlement, GOV.UK provides detail on eligibility. The CA threshold for earnings is £151 a week from April 2024, after tax, National Insurance, and expenses.
Following a successful claim to CA customers are issued with an ‘award letter’ which includes a reminder that ‘You must tell us if your earnings or expenses change.” This helps to ensure that their CA claim runs smoothly, and the earnings threshold for claiming Carer's Allowance is not exceeded.
As benefit and pension rates are uprated, CA customers are further issued with new benefit rate ‘uprating letters’ which also include reminders to report changes in circumstances.
For irregular earners, CA work closely with our customers to ensure CA is only paid for the periods when the customer’s earnings fluctuate and are below the earnings limit. In this way, this should ensure that CA is not overpaid, as information is obtained from the customer for set periods of time to ensure CA is paid correctly for that period.
As our customers rightly expect, DWP is committed to continuous improvement, and we have many mechanisms in place to measure, and analyse the experience of our customers, providing DWP with a rich source of feedback that helps us to review and improve our services.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to tackle discrepancies in entitlements for people on legacy benefits who are required to migrate to Universal Credit.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government has given a commitment that no eligible customer, notified they must claim Universal Credit (UC) by the Department for Work and Pensions, and whose circumstances remain the same, will have a lower entitlement on claiming UC than their existing entitlement to legacy benefits. To meet this commitment, eligible customers will be assessed for Transitional Protection and where necessary awarded a Transitional Element as part of their UC award.
Transitional Protections are also applied to customers who would not normally meet UC entitlement conditions. Normal UC entitlement rules of not being in full time education are disregarded for the duration of the course the customer was undertaking on claiming UC and having capital over £16,000 does not prevent entitlement for UC for 12 assessment periods.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when he expects to announce his plans for the household support fund for financial year 2024-25.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government has provided over £2 billion in funding for the Household Support Fund since October 2021.
The current Household Support Fund runs from April 2023 until the end of March 2024, and the government continues to keep all its existing programmes under review in the usual way.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to help reduce youth unemployment in Hornsey and Wood Green consitutency.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department of Work and Pensions Youth Offer provides individually tailored Work Coach support to young people aged 16 to 24 who are claiming Universal Credit. This support includes the Youth Employment Programme, Youth Employability Coaches for young people with additional barriers to finding work, and Youth Hubs across Great Britain.
Within the Haringey and Wood Green constituency, we have a dedicated Youth Work Coach Team across our Jobcentres. This team spends two days a week co-located within the Rising Green Youth Hub, based in Wood Green, to dedicate extra support to young people within the borough to address barriers and move them closer to employment. We also hold regular ‘Young People Jobs fairs’ focused on the sectors and employers young people are interested in. To do this we involve a variety of employers and partners into the Jobcentres and Youth Hub to engage and support this group.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of levels of youth unemployment in Hornsey & Wood Green constituency in each of the last 5 years.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Due to small samples, reliable estimates of youth unemployment for Hornsey and Wood Green cannot be produced from the available survey data.
The claimant count for various age groups is published and available here.
Guidance for users can be found here.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many cold weather payments were made to pensioners in Hornsey and Wood Green constituency in (a) 2021-22 and (b) 2022-23; and what the total value of those payments were.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Cold Weather Payment (CWP) scheme is administered at weather station level rather than at a constituency or regional level. The coverage area for each weather station is determined by the Met Office, which assesses the most appropriate weather station for each postcode area. Cold weather payments are triggered when the average temperature recorded at the weather station has been recorded as, or is forecast to be, 0° C or below over seven consecutive days, during the Cold Weather season (November to March).
The constituency of Hornsey and Wood Green covers all or part of the following postcode areas: N2, N4, N6, N8, N10, N11, N13, N17, N22 and N81[1].
For the 2021/22 and 2022/23 Cold Weather Payment seasons, the above postcode areas are covered by the weather station Heathrow. Heathrow weather station covers the following postcode areas, in Table 1, which include constituencies other than Hornsey and Wood Green.
Table 1 Postcode districts mapped to Weather Stations | |
Weather station | Postcode Districts Covered |
Heathrow | BR1-4, CR0, CR2-8, E1-18, E20, E1W, EC1A, EC1M, EC1N, EC1R, EC1V,EC1Y, EC2A, EC2M, EC2N, EC2R, EC2V, EC2Y, EC3A, EC3M, EC3N, EC3R, EC3V, EC4A, EC4M, EC4N, EC4R, EC4V, EC4Y, EN1-5, EN7-11, HA0-9, IG1-11, KT1-24, N1-22, N1C, NW1-11, SE1-28, SL0, SL3, SM1-7, SW2-20, SW1A, SW1E, SW1H, SW1P, SW1V, SW1W, SW1X, SW1Y TW1-20, UB1-11, W2-14, W1B-D, W1F-H, W1J-K, W1S-U, W1W, WC1A-B, WC1E, WC1H, WC1N, WC1R, WC1V, WC1X, WC2A-B, WC2E, WC2H, WC2N, WC2R |
Qualifying individuals living in these postcode districts will have received a payment in respect of a seven-day period of Cold Weather.
For the 21/22 Cold Weather Payment season, running from 1 November 2021 to 31 March 2022, there were 0 Cold Weather Payment triggers for Heathrow weather station.
For the 22/23 Cold Weather Payment season, running from 1 November 2022 to 31 March 2023, there was 1 Cold Weather Payment trigger for Heathrow weather station. The estimated payments to Pension Credit recipients during 22/23 Cold Weather Payment season is 180,000, equating to an estimated spend of £4.5 million.
[1] Postcode information was obtained from the ONS Postcode Directory (November 2023): ONS Postcode Directory (November 2023) | Open Geography Portal (statistics.gov.uk)
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that students with long-term health conditions are able to access the financial support to which they are entitled; and if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of deducting loans that cover maintenance from Universal Credit on the income of affected students.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Students, including disabled students and those with health conditions, access fees and living costs support for their higher education courses through various loans and grants funded through the student support system. It is important that UC does not duplicate this support, which is designed for the needs of students unlike the social security system. This includes support which recognises a person’s disability, such as the Disabled Students Allowance for those in higher education and discretionary bursaries and grants if undertaking further education. Disabled students also have access to discretionary Hardship Funds which are made available by universities and colleges.
It is important that Universal Credit does not duplicate this support. A condition of entitlement for Universal Credit is that the claimant must not be in education, which excludes most students. There is an exception where a person has already been determined to have limited capability for work before entering education and is entitled to a qualifying disability benefit, such as Personal Independence Payment. The rules for this exception are designed to encourage those already claiming Universal Credit because of disability or ill health to take up education that may help them into work in the future.
Treatment of student income under Universal Credit broadly mirrors that in income related Employment and Support Allowance, Housing Benefit, Income Support and income-based Jobseekers Allowance which safeguards fairness whilst also ensuring simplification of the benefit system. If an eligible student makes a claim to Universal Credit we take into account, as income, any financial support which provides for the student's basic maintenance, such as student maintenance loans and grants. We do not take into account student income which covers additional costs, such as loans for tuition fees and books. The first £110 of any student maintenance loan or grant paid to meet living costs is not taken into account in each monthly Assessment Period where benefits are calculated. Over a typical 9 or 10 month academic year claimants are able to keep between £990-£1100 more of their Universal Credit award. The intention behind this is to help students with any added costs of books, equipment and travel which may be incurred whilst studying or training.
Whilst it is acknowledged that maintenance loans are to be paid back, if they were not treated as income and were ignored this would result in Universal Credit (and most legacy benefits) duplicating support already provided through the student finance system.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to ensure that (a) risk and (b) equality assessments are made of the use of Artificial Intelligence to assess Universal Credit applications.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Where Artificial Intelligence is used to assist its activities in prevention and detection of fraud within UC applications, DWP always ensures appropriate safeguards are in place for the proportionate, ethical, and legal use of data with internal monitoring protocols adhered to.
DWP will not use AI to replace human judgement to determine or deny a payment to a claimant; a human agent will always make final decisions, safeguarding the protection of individuals. Where appropriate Equality and Data Protection Impact Assessments have been carried out.
Both the NAO and ICO, who have looked at this issue recently, found no areas of immediate concern with our use of AI.
DWP’s Personal Information Charter explains how and why we use personal information and citizen’s rights and responsibilities.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to reduce waiting times for PIP assessments.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
We are committed to ensuring that people can access financial support through Personal Independence Payment (PIP) in a timely manner. Reducing customer journey times for PIP claimants is a priority for the department and we are working constantly to make improvements to our service.
We always aim to make an award decision as quickly as possible, taking into account the need to review all available evidence, including that from the claimant.
We are continuing to see an improvement in PIP clearance times with the latest statistics showing that the average end-to-end journey has reduced each quarter from 26 weeks in August 2021 to 13 weeks at the end of April 2023. This is because we’re: