Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the (a) appropriateness of access rights to claimant information when third parties make alternative enquiry requests to the State Pension Claim phoneline and (b) adequacy of support available under those rules from third party organisations for claimants who are unable to make applications independently to the phoneline.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The DWP Agents, Appointees, Attorneys, Deputies and third parties guide is used by staff to ensure that communications from customer representatives are processed in line with guidance. This includes the instances when State Pension claims are made by a customer’s official representative.
Official customer representatives can make enquiries to DWP via our helplines, as well as making written requests to the DWP Mail Opening Unit address, which is available online at GOV.UK
DWP also operates secure email links with Local Authorities in the instances when they act as Corporate Appointee to make a claim on behalf of a customer or to share information.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the level of the Cold Weather Payment to help offset (a) the suspension of the pension triple lock in the 2022-23 financial year and (b) increasing fuel costs.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Social Security (Up-rating of Benefits) Bill ensures those who rely on the new State Pension, basic State Pension and Pension Credit Standard Minimum Guarantee have their spending power preserved. They will be protected from the higher costs of living by increasing at least with the rise in inflation or 2.5%, whichever is higher. This was also the case last year when we took legislative action to increase State Pension rates despite the fall in earnings which would otherwise have meant that they would have been frozen.
The UK Government is committed to supporting older people and vulnerable households to keep warm, and it has a strong package of policies already delivering to those in need.
This includes Winter Fuel Payments and Cold Weather Payments available in Scotland until the Scottish Government has built the capacity to deliver replacements for them.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what additional steps she will take to improve response times to personal independence payment inquires from hon. Members.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department aims to provide substantive replies to inquiries from hon. Members within 20 working days. Where issues are complex substantive replies may take longer.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Order by Consent issued by the High court on 13 July 2021 (CO/4263/2020), whether her Department carried out an equalities impact assessment of its policy to make on-the-spot personal independence payment benefit calls to recipients of that benefit.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department’s aim is that claimants are paid the correct amount of benefit at the earliest opportunity. Where new evidence or information becomes available after an appeal has been lodged, but before it is heard at a tribunal, DWP is able to revise a decision and increase the award where appropriate. In circumstances where the decision can be revised but not to the level the claimant is seeking on appeal, we contact claimants to give them the option to continue with their appeal or to have the decision revised, in which case they can still appeal the new decision. The right of appeal was always set out in the decision letter claimants receive notifying them of the new decision. Accordingly, we have no plans to further review the Department’s handling of past calls.
We began contacting claimants in this way in 1998 consequent on the change in the law introduced by the Social Security Act 1998, whereby the Secretary of State may revise a decision in the claimant’s favour even if they would not get everything they were seeking on appeal. An equality impact assessment was not conducted at that time and has not been conducted pursuant to the Equality Act 2010.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Order by Consent issued by the High court on 13 July 2021 (CO/4263/2020), what assessment she has made of the potential merits of conducting an inquiry into her Department's handling of Personal Independence Payment benefit calls.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department’s aim is that claimants are paid the correct amount of benefit at the earliest opportunity. Where new evidence or information becomes available after an appeal has been lodged, but before it is heard at a tribunal, DWP is able to revise a decision and increase the award where appropriate. In circumstances where the decision can be revised but not to the level the claimant is seeking on appeal, we contact claimants to give them the option to continue with their appeal or to have the decision revised, in which case they can still appeal the new decision. The right of appeal was always set out in the decision letter claimants receive notifying them of the new decision. Accordingly, we have no plans to further review the Department’s handling of past calls.
We began contacting claimants in this way in 1998 consequent on the change in the law introduced by the Social Security Act 1998, whereby the Secretary of State may revise a decision in the claimant’s favour even if they would not get everything they were seeking on appeal. An equality impact assessment was not conducted at that time and has not been conducted pursuant to the Equality Act 2010.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the consent order in K v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions CO / 4263 / 2020, what steps her Department is taking in response to that consent order to ensure that people who received on the spot benefit calls and as a result accepted a lower Personal Independence Payment (PIP) payment than they were legally entitled to are (a) contacted and (b) have that PIP payment (i) corrected and (ii) fully backdated.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department’s aim is to ensure that claimants are paid the correct amount of benefit at the earliest opportunity. Accordingly, if new evidence or information becomes available after an appeal has been lodged, it is right that decisions are reviewed and claimants put in the best position where they can choose either to continue with their appeal, or have the decision revised. At the same time claimants have, and have always had, a right of appeal against the revised decision, and to have their payments fully backdated if successful at appeal. Claimants are notified of this right of appeal in their revised decision letter.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 6 July 2021 to Question 28245 on Personal Independence Payments: Long Covid, how many people have applied for personal independence payments with covid-19 as a primary disability since March 2021.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
In the application process for Personal Independence Payment (PIP), a claimant’s main disabling condition is only recorded centrally on Departmental computer systems at assessment. Disabilities are not recorded centrally at the point of application. The Department does not therefore hold data on the number of applicants to PIP with particular conditions. Only those who have a disability assessment determination decision will have a main disabling condition recorded for them.
The latest available data on the number of people who have “Coronavirus COVID-19” recorded as their primary disability following assessment for PIP each month can be found on Stat-Xplore: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/. As described in my response to Question 28245, this disabling condition has been available to record for PIP assessments following a computer system change in March 2021. Due to the nature of the qualifying period for PIP claims, these cases will all be “long COVID” or “post-COVID syndrome” cases rather than initial COVID-19 infections.
Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the inclusion of covid-19 as a registrable cause for a long term health condition when applying for personal independence payment (PIP) since March 2021, what discussions his Department has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on developing a system of monthly published reporting of PIP application numbers to allow for additional tracking of the economic impact of long covid.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Entitlement to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is assessed on the basis of the needs arising from a health condition or disability, rather than the health condition or disability itself.
PIP statistics are published on a quarterly basis and include breakdowns by month. From March 2021, the published statistical series that include low level disability breakdowns (clearances, PIP cases with entitlement, MR registrations and clearances, Award Review & Change of Circumstance clearances) include the additional category “Coronavirus covid-19”. This reflects an operational change implemented in March 2021 to include this code on the PIP Computer System. This will allow us to track the volume of clearances with Coronavirus covid-19 as a primary disability and the corresponding volume/proportion of the PIP caseload. There are currently no plans to publish the PIP statistics on a monthly basis.
There are regular, ongoing discussions between the Secretary of State and Cabinet colleagues.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans her Department has to allow discretion in taking recovery action for overpayment of universal credit when that overpayment occurred as a result of her Department's error.
Answered by Will Quince
Following the introduction of the 2012 Welfare Reform Act, all overpayments of Universal Credit and new style benefits paid in excess of entitlement are recoverable.
The trend in recent years has been to ensure claimants are left with more of their benefit; through two successive reductions in the proportion of UC we will deduct – from 40% of the UC Standard Allowance to 30% and now 25% from April 2021.
The Department seeks to recover benefit overpayments without creating undue financial hardship; any person who does experience such hardship is encouraged to contact the Department’s Debt Management unit. Where a person cannot afford the proposed rate of repayment a lower amount can be negotiated.
In exceptional circumstances discretion not to pursue recovery can also be applied under guidelines set out by HM Treasury. Typically, this would be where the continuing recovery would cause severe hardship or risk to the customer and/or their family. Further details of which are publicly available in HM Treasury’s Managing Public Money.
Asked by: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the average waiting time for a decision on whether an award should be made in the case of a new Personal Independence Payment application; and what assessment she has made of acceptability of that waiting time.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
I refer the Hon member to the answer I gave on 24 May 2021 to Question UIN3035.