Asked by: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when her Department plans to include provision to consider mental health issues on the personal independence payments assessment form; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The assessment for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) looks at an individual’s ability to carry out a series of everyday activities. The assessment considers the overall impact of a claimant’s health condition or impairment on their functional ability, rather than focusing on a particular diagnosis. Therefore the PIP assessment forms that underpin the assessment include provision to consider mental health issues as well as physical issues.
66% of PIP recipients with mental health conditions get the enhanced rate daily living component, compared with 22% who received the highest DLA care component. And 31% of PIP recipients with mental health conditions get the enhanced rate mobility rate, compared with just 10% of DLA recipients.
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 measures are being taken to ensure that Universal Credit claimants are paid on time over the Christmas season.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The Department will advance the timing of all payments for people affected by bank holidays, to make sure they have money over the festive period. This year, we have also added a faster payment contingency function for people who need a Universal Credit advance.
Universal Credit payments due to be received on 23, 24, 25 & 26 December will be paid no later than 22 December.
Universal Credit payments due to be received on 30, 31 December & 1 January will receive payment no later than 29 December.
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 measures the Government has undertaken to ensure that people with mental health conditions are properly supported into work.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
We are investing significant resources in improving provision to help people with mental health conditions back to work. This includes funding to increase the coverage of the Talking Therapy services by 600,000 people per year to 1.5million by 2020 and investment in a number of voluntary initiatives and trials to test different types of support, with a view to taking forward those that have the most impact.
In addition we will shortly be publishing a Green Paper on work and health to seek views on what will work to deliver real lasting change for disabled people and those with a health condition. Mental health will be a key focus of our Green Paper as we know that people with mental health conditions fare poorly in the labour market.
Our aim is to help transform the lives and prospects of disabled people and those with a health condition and contribute to building a society and an economy that works for everyone.
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 he has taken to assist unemployed people over the age of 50 back in to work; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Priti Patel
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 24 November 2015 to Question UIN16531.
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 he has made of the effect of auto-enrolment on private sector pension saving.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Over 5.43 million workers have now been automatically enrolled into a workplace pension by their employer, many for the first time. This has reversed the downwards trend seen in workplace pension participation rates since 2003.
So far opt out has been around 10 per cent, which is significantly lower than the original DWP estimate of around 30 per cent. This has seen the programme opt out assumption being adjusted to 15 per cent overall for the lifetime of the programme.
Automatic Enrolment will give around 10 million people the opportunity to save into a workplace pension - we expect to see 8 to 9 million people newly saving or saving more, generating £11 billion a year more in workplace pension saving by 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 he has made of trends in the rate of disability employment.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Last year saw an increase of 238,000 disabled people in work. The employment rate is now 46.3% - up 2.1% from last year. Our Disability Confident Campaign is ensuring that employers understand the benefits of employing disabled people. And our programmes, like Work Choice and Access to Work, are supporting disabled people into work. We will continue build on this success.