Asked by: David Baines (Labour - St Helens North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department’s press release entitled You could get Pension Credit – Week of Action to drive take up, published on 1 September 2024, whether she has made an assessment of the impact of that campaign on trends in the level of applications for Pension Credit.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The department has secured funding to support increased staffing and fund our communications strategy to support our programme of activity to drive up Pension Credit claims. The latest data available shows we have received around 38,500 Pension Credit claims in the 5 weeks since the announcement on 29th July (which is up to and including w/c 26th August).
This represents a 115% increase in Pension Credit claims received by the Department in the past 5 weeks compared to the 5 weeks before.
Asked by: David Baines (Labour - St Helens North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what data her Department holds on the number and proportion of children living in poverty in St Helens North constituency in (a) 2024 and (b) 2010.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Statistics on the number of Children living in absolute and relative poverty per constituency are published annually in the “Children in low income families: local area statistics” publication and can be found in tabs “6_Absolute_ParlC” and “5_Relative_ParlC” at Children in low income families: local area statistics 2014 to 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). The latest statistics published on 21 March 2024 cover the years 2014/15 to 2022/23. Figures are not available prior to 2014/15 and are produced on a before housing costs basis only.