Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions her Department has had with HMRC on its investigation of tax rule breaches arising from pension scams.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Tax liabilities relating to unauthorised payments and HMRC’s investigation of tax rules arising from pension scams are the responsibility of HMT. DWP will continue to work closely with HMRC to understand their position and how these may impact the Pensions Schemes Bill and savers.
Government continues to work with regulators and industry to protect consumers and find the best ways of preventing pension scams. HMRC and DWP have held regular discussions relating to the enhanced protection measures in the Pension Scheme Bill 2020.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
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 potential increase in pension scams since the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Through Project Bloom, DWP works with other government departments, regulators, enforcement agencies and the pensions industry to monitor the evolution of scam typology and respond with a collective and coordinated response. Project Bloom is examining the range of measures that all agencies including providers and financial professionals could take to help prevent scams.
At the onset of the covid-19 pandemic, the Department convened a cross-government and regulator group to closely monitor and respond to any increase in transfers and scams. The group includes DWP, HMT, both the Pensions Regulator and the FCA as well as the Money and Pensions Service and the Pension Ombudsman. This is supported by cross government and regulator gathering, monitoring and evaluating of data in order to develop as complete and robust a picture as possible. At this point the Department doesn’t yet have any robust evidence showing an increase in pension scams activity but will continue to monitor across the industry.
In addition to active monitoring, the Government, working with the regulators and the Money and Pension Service has been communicating with pension savers to alert them to the risk of scams in the current climate. DWP continues to communicate regularly on social media out the warning signs of a scam. A joint statement was issued by The Pension Regulator, Financial Conduct Authority, and Money Advice and Pension Service on 7 April pointing to the actions members should seek to take to safeguard against becoming victims of scams. Additional guidance was issued to trustees, and providers from both The Financial Conduct Authority and the Pensions Regulator to support them to produce suitable communications during the Covid-19 outbreak.
Please see links below for more information about the joint statement from Regulators and the Money Advice Service, and help available, produced by the Pension Protection Fund and supported by government.
https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/covid-19-savers-stay-calm-dont-rush-financial-decisions
https://www.ppf.co.uk/sites/default/files/file-2020-05/COVID-19-and-your-pension.pdf
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
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 potential merits of implementing a training programme for pension and finance professionals to ensure they can more readily identify scam risks.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government is committed to working closely with industry, regulators and pension scheme providers to help identify and prevent scams, it is working with Project Bloom, the Pension Regulator led taskforce, to stop scams and co-ordinate action against offenders.
Through Project Bloom, DWP works with other government departments, regulators, enforcement agencies and the pensions industry to monitor the evolution of scam typology and respond with a collective and coordinated response. Project Bloom is examining the range of measures that all agencies including providers and financial professionals could take to help prevent scams.
DWP will consider with Project Bloom, industry and the regulators the feasibility of how a training programme could be developed. This would build on training individual providers already provide for their people.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions her Department has had with (a) pension regulators, (b) pension providers and (c) HMRC on encouraging victims of pensions scams to report that scam.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Through Project Bloom, DWP works with other government departments, regulators, enforcement agencies and the pensions industry to monitor the evolution of scam typology and respond with a collective and coordinated response. Project Bloom is examining the range of measures that all agencies including providers and financial professionals could take to help prevent scams.
DWP consistently works with other organisations to raise awareness of pension scams and encourage reporting, including regular campaigns, from the Financial Conduct Authority and the Pensions Regulator, conducted through the ScamSmart branding. Alongside promoting what to look out for to recognise a pension scam, the ScamSmart campaigns and website encourage people to report when they think they have been scammed. These messages are proving effective, in the most recent campaign prior to Covid-19, June to September 2019 over 222,000 visited the ScamSmart website to find out how to identify a scam scheme and report a scam.
The Government, working with the regulators and the Money and Pension Service communicates with pension savers to alert them to the risk of scams in the current climate. DWP continues to communicate regularly on social media to set out the warning signs of a scam and has made 18 posts referencing Pension Scams and ScamSmart in total across Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn in the period March to September 2020.
A joint statement was issued by The Pension Regulator, Financial Conduct Authority, and Money Advice and Pension Service on 7 April pointing to the actions members should take to help safeguard against scams. Additional guidance was issued to trustees, and providers from both The Financial Conduct Authority and the Pensions Regulator to support them to produce suitable communications during the Covid-19 outbreak.
Please see links below for more information about the joint statement from Regulators and the Money Advice Service, and help available, produced by the Pension Protection Fund and supported by government.
https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/covid-19-savers-stay-calm-dont-rush-financial-decisions
https://www.ppf.co.uk/sites/default/files/file-2020-05/COVID-19-and-your-pension.pdf
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people have booked a Pension Wise guidance session since the start of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Between March 1st and September 9th 2020, the number of Pension Wise guidance sessions booked totalled 64,221.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions her Department has had with representatives of (a) Macmillan Cancer Support and (b) other similar charities on the potential merits of retaining (i) remote identity verification, (ii) flexible assessments and (iii) other such recently introduced measures to help universal credit claimants living with cancer.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department and its Ministers work in partnership with a variety of stakeholders, including local authorities, charities and employer groups, and listens directly to their feedback about Universal Credit. At its core, Universal Credit is about ensuring we deliver a service which is tailored to individual claimant circumstances and abilities. Following the outbreak of COVID-19, we adapted many of our services to be delivered remotely, and we will consider if changes can be retained longer term. But, many claimants benefit from having face to face contact with Work Coaches to overcome barriers and we will ensure this method of contact continues to be used where appropriate.
Measures, such as identity verification, are key components of the Universal Credit claim process to confirm the accuracy of information supplied, allowing us to make timely and accurate decisions. In addition to our usual online verification, since early June we have been trialling the online identity service, Confirm Your Identity. This has enabled a higher number of claimants to verify their identity online, and we are continually monitoring and testing the impact this has on a claimant’s ability to verify remotely.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many employers in (a) Crawley and (b) the UK have signed up to the Disability Confident scheme; and how many jobs have been created (i) in and (ii) under that scheme.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Disability Confident (DC) scheme was launched in November 2016 and supports the Government’s commitment of helping one million more disabled people into work by 2027. Disability Confident provides employers with the knowledge, skills and confidence they need to attract, recruit, retain and develop disabled people in the workplace. The scheme is designed as a journey, with all employers starting at Level 1 and progressing through the scheme at their own pace. Accreditation for each level lasts for 3 years. No employer is too small or new to start the journey and even the most experienced employer will still find new techniques and best practice that can help them.
As of 13/9/2019, the latest published figures show that over 13,600 employers are signed up to the scheme nationally at the following levels: Level 1 - DC Committed (10,031), Level 2 - DC Employer (3,336), Level 3 - DC Leader (244) of those, 62% are small or micro employers and 80% are SMEs. All main Government departments are DC Leaders (Level 3) and over 83% of Local Authorities signed up, with good penetration of NHS and blue-light services. In Crawley there are 17 Disability Confident organisations; 7 DC Committed (Level 1) and 10 DC Employer (Level 2).
Of the 157,000 jobs currently advertised on the DWP Find a Job website, over 20,000 are from DC employers – totalling 13%. Over the last 5 years the number of disabled people in employment has increased by around 1.06 million since Q2 2013, and currently stands at 7.7 million.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to ensure pension funds consider the impact of climate change when taking investment decisions.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government recognises that climate change is a defining national and international emergency, and we have introduced three key measures to ensure that pension schemes understand their responsibilities in responding to it.
Firstly, since January 2019 those running single employer occupational pension schemes have been required to establish an effective system of governance including consideration of environmental, social and governance factors related to investment assets in investment decisions.
Secondly, also since January 2019 schemes with 100 or more members must carry out and document a risk assessment of their system of governance including risks relating to climate change, the use of resources and the environment and risks relating to the depreciation of assets as a result of regulatory change (known as transition risk).
Thirdly, as of 1st October, trustees of occupational pension schemes must state their policy on how they take account of the financial risks of climate change when developing their investment strategies. Defined contribution pension schemes are also required to publish their policy online.
As the Minister for Pensions and Financial Inclusion I have spoken extensively about the new requirements and made clear this Government’s expectations of pension schemes.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to increase financial support for vulnerable claimants of universal credit to ensure that the amount of benefit they receive is not lower than what they received through the legacy system.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Claimants currently only move from existing benefits to Universal Credit when they experience a significant change in their circumstances that triggers a new claim to a benefit that Universal Credit replaces. Their entitlement is then calculated on the rules of their new benefit and their new circumstances.
For those claimants who are moved onto Universal Credit without a change in their circumstances, the Department has committed to providing transitional protection to ensure that they see no decrease in their benefit entitlement at the point of transition.
There are £2.4 billion of unclaimed legacy benefits not going to the people who need them, because they do not know that they are entitled to them or how to claim. Universal Credit makes sure that welfare payments reach those who need them most.
We have also introduced a number of measures to assist claimants during their transition to Universal Credit. Claimants moving onto Universal Credit can access a Universal Credit advance, which is worth up to 100 per cent of their indicative award and is available from the date of their claim. This advance is currently repayable over 12 months, but as announced in the 2018 Budget, from October 2021 the maximum repayment period will be extended to 16 months. Claimants may also be entitled to a two-week Universal Credit Transitional Housing Payment. From July 2020 the Government is introducing a new two-week run on for income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support and income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income Support and income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance.
Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent estimate the Government has made of the number of workless households in (a) Crawley constituency and (b) England.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Office for National Statistics use the Labour Force Survey to provide estimates for workless households in the UK.
However, the percentage and number of workless households in Crawley are unavailable due to small sample sizes.
For April-June 2018, there were 331,000 workless households in the South East region, which was 11.8% of households in the region.
For April-June 2018, there were 2,391,000 workless households in England, which was 13.7% of all English households.