Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many universal credit claimants were subject to a deduction; and what the average sum deducted was in (a) South Shields and (b) the UK, in the most recent month for which data is available.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department’s deductions policy strikes a fair balance between a claimant’s need to meet their financial obligations and their ability to ensure they can meet their day-to-day needs. It maintains our policy to enforce social obligations such as the payment of court fines, ensure Government debt is recovered and vitally to safeguard claimants from the potential impacts of not repaying priority debts, such as homelessness or loss of utilities. Since October 2019, Universal Credit deductions are a maximum of 30% of a claimant’s standard allowance down from 40% previously. The Budget 2020 also set out that the maximum level will be further reduced, so that standard deductions will not exceed 25% of a claimant’s Standard Allowance from October 2021.
For Universal Credit payments due during August 2020:
a) 4,700 of 8,600 claims in the South Shields parliamentary constituency had a deduction, with £73 on average being deducted from these claims.
b) 1,847,000 of 4,536,000 claims of all GB claims had a deduction, with £70 on average being deducted from these claims.
Notes:
1. The number of claims per constituency are rounded to the nearest 100, total claims at GB level rounded to the nearest 1,000.
2. Deductions include advance repayments, third party deductions and all other deductions, but exclude sanctions and fraud penalties which are reductions of benefit rather than deductions.
3. Numbers are affected by the impact of the temporary suspension of some deduction types due to Covid-19. During April 2020, government deductions were temporarily suspended and only began to be reinstated from July.
4. Figures are provisional and are subject to retrospective change as later data becomes available.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what her Department's policy is on yellow card warnings and benefit sanctions.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
I refer the honourable member to the answer given for PQ 78683 on 1st September 2020.
The increase in claimants due to Covid has led to a pause in this testing in order to prioritise support for claimants during this difficult time.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether all applicants for personal independence payment, whose assessments are currently telephone-based, are offered the option of recorded assessments.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Audio recording of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) telephone assessments is live in all areas. Claimants are required to make a request to the Assessment Provider in order to have their PIP assessment recorded, thereby opting-in to the recording of their assessment being undertaken.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 7 September 2020 to Question 84269 on Food Banks; whether the literature review of the factors driving the use of food banks has been updated.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department reallocated resources to prioritise work to helping the COVID-19 effort. As such, we will update on this literature review in due course.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she plans to bring forward with immediate effect the proposal to allow universal credit claimants an extended period to repay advances and other debts through monthly deductions.
Answered by Will Quince
The Government has already taken significant steps to extend the repayment time for advances from 6 months to 12 months. This will increase to 24 months from October 2021 as announced in the 2019 Budget.
The Government has also reduced the normal maximum deduction from 40% to 30% of a claimant’s standard allowance from October 2019 and this will be further reduced to 25% from October 2021. For claimants who do find themselves in unexpected hardship, advance repayments can be deferred for up to three months.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when she plans to publish her Department's evidence review on the drivers of food bank usage.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department reallocated resources to prioritise work to helping the COVID-19 effort. As such, we will update on the literature review on the factors driving the use of food banks in due course.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
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 amending the universal credit application form and online journal to enable her Department to automatically (a) assess and (b) register children for free school meals.
Answered by Will Quince
The eligibility criteria for free school meals are the responsibility of the Department for Education in England, and the Devolved Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The Department for Education already provides an electronic eligibility checking service to all local authorities in England, which is used to confirm eligibility for free school meals.
Universal Credit (UC) claimants may currently be entitled to a number of other benefits because they are in receipt of UC. These are known as passported benefits and include free school meals and free prescriptions. The eligibility criteria for each passported benefit remain the responsibility of relevant departments and the devolved administrations that own them.
The Department needs to ensure that there is a high level of security to protect claimants’ personal information, and has no plans to amend either the UC claim form or online journal to obtain an applicant’s consent to register eligible children for free school meals.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to Answer of 24 February to Question 725, what plans she has to extend the Yellow Card warning system to other locations across the United Kingdom.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department committed to look at processes to give claimants a written warning, instead of a sanction, for a first sanctionable failure to attend a Work-Search Review and to undertake a series of small-scale Proof of Concepts of this warning system. The Department would like to complete all testing before making an assessment of the merits of extending such a system.
We have now gathered internal staff feedback on the first Proof of Concept and we are looking at informing our next steps. As this was a small proof of concept, we do not plan to publish this feedback.
Sites for future stages of the Proof of Concept are chosen in such a way that ensures we are able to assess the concept / policy under consideration. To do this effectively we consider what data can be collected from the site, whether the site is appropriate given its characteristics and if this can be done in a manner to ensure findings are sufficiently robust.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when she plans to publish an assessment of the effectiveness of a Yellow Card warning system based on the Proof of Concepts undertaken by her Department.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department committed to look at processes to give claimants a written warning, instead of a sanction, for a first sanctionable failure to attend a Work-Search Review and to undertake a series of small-scale Proof of Concepts of this warning system. The Department would like to complete all testing before making an assessment of the merits of extending such a system.
We have now gathered internal staff feedback on the first Proof of Concept and we are looking at informing our next steps. As this was a small proof of concept, we do not plan to publish this feedback.
Sites for future stages of the Proof of Concept are chosen in such a way that ensures we are able to assess the concept / policy under consideration. To do this effectively we consider what data can be collected from the site, whether the site is appropriate given its characteristics and if this can be done in a manner to ensure findings are sufficiently robust.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she plans to work with Feeding Britain to identify additional locations in which to pilot a Yellow Card warning system.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department committed to look at processes to give claimants a written warning, instead of a sanction, for a first sanctionable failure to attend a Work-Search Review and to undertake a series of small-scale Proof of Concepts of this warning system. The Department would like to complete all testing before making an assessment of the merits of extending such a system.
We have now gathered internal staff feedback on the first Proof of Concept and we are looking at informing our next steps. As this was a small proof of concept, we do not plan to publish this feedback.
Sites for future stages of the Proof of Concept are chosen in such a way that ensures we are able to assess the concept / policy under consideration. To do this effectively we consider what data can be collected from the site, whether the site is appropriate given its characteristics and if this can be done in a manner to ensure findings are sufficiently robust.