Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the longest waiting time was to apply for Access to Work in (a) Enfield North constituency, (b) the London Borough of Enfield and (c) London in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The information requested about Access to Work applications that have been made in Enfield North and London Borough of Enfield and London is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate costs.
Customers were notified of a 20 week wait to be assigned when applying in late 2022. Customers are now being notified of a 12 week wait.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people are awaiting an Access to Work assessment in (a) Enfield North constituency, (b) the London Borough of Enfield and (c) London.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The information requested about Access to Work applications that have been made in Enfield North and London Borough of Enfield and London is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate costs.
At close of business on 17th September 22,063 applications were outstanding.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average length of a face-to-face appointment with a work coach at a job centre is in (a) Enfield North constituency, (b) the London Borough of Enfield and (c) London.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The requested information is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost. Maintaining an effective Work Coach diary is a joint responsibility between a team leader and the Work Coach, and is reached collaboratively through regular discussion and agreement.
The duration of each appointment is determined by the appointment type, and the length of time the appointment is expected to take is recorded by our diary management tool. We do not hold information on the actual duration of an appointment, for example, whether the appointment was longer or shorter than the allocated time.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of inflation on pensioners in Enfield North constituency.
Answered by Laura Trott - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living and is taking action to help. Overall, we are providing total support of over £94bn over 2022/23 and 2023/24 to help households and individuals with the rising cost of bills. This includes 8.7m pensioner households who received a £300 Cost of Living Payment last winter as an addition to the Winter Fuel Payment. Pensioners will also receive a further £300 additional payment later this year in their Winter Fuel Payment.
In April, the State Pension saw its biggest ever rise, increasing by 10.1%. The full yearly amount of the basic State Pension will be over £3,050 higher, in cash terms, than in 2010. That’s £790 more than if it had been uprated by Prices, and £945 more than if it had been uprated by earnings (since 2010).
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what data his Department holds on the average monthly deduction taken from households with children in receipt of Universal Credit in (a) Enfield North constituency, (b) the London Borough of Enfield and (c) London.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The requested information is provided in the table below.
Table 1 : Number of Households with Children, May 2023 |
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Administrative Area | Number of Households on Universal Credit | Number of Households with Children on Universal Credit | Number of Households with Children on Universal Credit with a Deduction | Total amount deducted for Households with Children | Average Amount Deducted for Households with Children |
Enfield North Parliamentary Constituency | 12,700 | 6,700 | 3,200 | £230,000 | £73 |
London Borough of Enfield | 38,200 | 18,600 | 8,500 | £630,000 | £74 |
London | 813,000 | 352,000 | 153,000 | £11,400,000 | £75 |
Table 1 shows the requested analysis of Universal Credit households with children with a payment due in May 2023 for each of the requested administrative areas.
Notes:
1. Volumes have been rounded to the nearest 100, total amounts have been rounded to the nearest £10,000 and average amounts have been rounded to the nearest £1. For region level: volumes have been rounded to the nearest 1,000, total amount has been rounded to the nearest £100,000 and average amount has been rounded to the nearest £1.
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. Children are defined here as being people who are declared as living in the same household as the UC claimant(s) and who are under the age of 20. The number of children may not be equal to the number of dependent children in the household who are eligible for child element for various reasons. This includes children over the age of 16 in non-advanced full-time education, looked-after children and, other young people living in multigenerational households whose parents are not the claimant. Those affected by the policy to provide support for a maximum of two children may also have a larger number of children compared to the number of children entitled to the child element in their household.
4. Figures are provisional and are subject to retrospective change as later data becomes available.
5. The ‘unknown' parliamentary constituency equates to 0.2% of all households and relates to households for which a constituency could not be determined due to incomplete postcode information.
6. Data for May 2023 has been provided in line with the latest available UC Household Statistics.
7. Claim numbers and number of children on UC will not match official statistics caseloads due to methodological differences.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people were on long-term sickness benefits in (a) Enfield North Constituency, (b) the London Borough of Enfield and (c) London in each of the last five years.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The requested information is contained in the attached spreadsheet.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make (a) an estimate of average housing rental costs and (b) an assessment of the adequacy of local housing allowance rates in (i) Enfield North constituency, (ii) the London Borough of Enfield and (iii) London; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department collects rental data necessary for calculating UC or HB payments for its claimants, therefore we cannot produce an estimate of average housing rental costs for all rental properties in specific geographical areas. The Valuation Office Agency collects data on rental costs in England to produce the 30th percentile of market rents and publishes the list of rents utilised to calculate this. The latest list of rents for the period 1st October 2021 to 30th September 2022 is published here. For figures specific to Enfield, Enfield North, and London please refer to the table below.
Geographical Area | Proportion of Households with a shortfall | Average Monthly Shortfall |
Enfield North Constituency | 39% | £213 |
Enfield Local Authority | 37% | £213 |
London (Region) | 41% | £244 |
For detailed information on LHA rates and Government support, please refer to the answer given to PQ191728/191729.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the rate of statutory maternity pay as of June 2023 on health outcomes for (a) new mothers and (b) babies in each of the first five years following birth.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The standard rate of Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) is reviewed annually. From April 2023, we increased the rate of SMP by September's CPI figure of 10.1 per cent to £172.48. There are no plans to review SMP outside of the annual uprating process.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many households had a Universal Credit deduction in Enfield North constituency from (a) March 2022 to February 2023, (b) March 2021 to February 2022 and (c) March 2020 to February 2021; and how many children lived in such households in each of those periods.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The primary aim of the Universal Credit deductions policy is to protect vulnerable claimants by providing a last resort repayment method for arrears of essential services. In recent years, the standard UC deduction cap has been reduced twice – from 40% to 30% of the Standard Allowance in October 2019, and down to 25% in April 2021.
From April 2020 to July 2020, a temporary freeze on government and third party deductions was introduced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The requested information is provided in the separate spreadsheet.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Universal Credit deductions for (a) households and (b) households with children in Enfield North constituency there were from (i) March 2022 to February 2023, (ii) March 2021 to February 2022 and (iii) March 2020 to February 2021.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The primary aim of the Universal Credit deductions policy is to protect vulnerable claimants by providing a last resort repayment method for arrears of essential services. In recent years, the standard UC deduction cap has been reduced twice – from 40% to 30% of the Standard Allowance in October 2019, and down to 25% in April 2021.
From April 2020 to July 2020, a temporary freeze on government and third party deductions was introduced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The requested information is provided in the separate spreadsheet.