Asked by: Holly Mumby-Croft (Conservative - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the extension to the Household Support Fund to March 2024, what other steps his Department is taking to help reduce child poverty in (a) North Lincolnshire and (b) the UK.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government is committed to reducing child poverty and supporting low-income families. We will spend around £276bn through the welfare system in Great Britain in 2023/24 including around £124bn on people of working age and their children.
From April, we uprated benefit rates by 10.1%. In order to increase the number of households who can benefit from these uprating decisions the benefit cap levels have also increased by the same amount.
With 1.05 million job vacancies across the UK, our focus remains firmly on supporting individuals, including parents, to move into, and progress in work, an approach which is based on clear evidence about the importance of employment - particularly where it is full-time - in substantially reducing the risks of child poverty and in improving long-term outcomes for families and children. The latest statistics show that in 2021/22 children living in workless households were around 5 times more likely to be in absolute poverty after housing costs than those where all adults work.
To support those who are in work, from 1 April 2023, the National Living Wage (NLW) increased by 9.7% to £10.42 an hour for workers aged 23 and over - the largest ever cash increase for the NLW.
At the Spring Budget, the Chancellor announced an ambitious package of measures designed to support people wherever they live in the UK to enter work, increase their working hours and extend their working lives.
We are investing billions in additional childcare support for parents of toddlers, investing in wraparound childcare in schools, and increasing financial support for, and expectations of, parents claiming Universal Credit.
This government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living which is why we are providing total support of over £94bn over 2022-23 and 2023-24 to help households and individuals with the rising bills.
For people who require additional support, the Household Support Fund has been extended until March 2024. This year long extension allows Local Authorities in England to continue to provide discretionary support to those most in need in response to the significantly rising cost of living. The Devolved Administrations will receive consequential Barnett funding, as with all England-only investment, to spend at their discretion.
For the period April 2023 to March 2024, the total Household Support Fund allocation for North Lincolnshire is £2,647,785.53.
Asked by: Holly Mumby-Croft (Conservative - Scunthorpe)
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 effectiveness of the cost of living support for disabled people.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 13 December 2022 to Question UIN 110766.
Asked by: Holly Mumby-Croft (Conservative - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment she has made of the employment opportunities available to disabled school leavers.
Answered by Chloe Smith
There is a range of government initiatives supporting disabled people and people with health conditions to live independent lives and start, stay and succeed in work. Over the next three years we will invest £1.3bn in employment support for disabled people and people with health conditions. The latest data shows that the number of disabled people in employment increased by 1.3m between 2017 and Q1 2022 – the goal to see a million more disabled people in employment has been met after only five years.
To support the transition of disabled individuals from education into employment, Access to Work is delivering a series of Adjustment Passport pilots in a variety of settings. The pilots will enable us to understand if a passport can support a more coherent journey of receiving support, reduce the need for additional assessments and empower the passport holder to have a more confident conversation with potential employers enabling smoother transitions into employment.
The government runs multiple initiatives to help young disabled people whilst they are still in education. The National Careers Service enables individuals to make informed choices about the best route to take for different careers. This includes exploring whether an apprenticeship is right for them. The service helps young people apply for apprenticeships, improving the quality of applications received by employers and advising those not ready for an apprenticeship of alternative routes e.g. traineeships.
The Careers & Enterprise Company (CEC) works with special schools across England, as well as with Careers Leaders, who design and deliver careers education programmes tailored to the needs of young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) regardless of their educational setting (i.e., mainstream schools and colleges, special schools or alternative provision). All local authorities must set out the support available to help children and young people with SEND move into adulthood as part of their local offer. This should be co-produced with children, young people, and their families to ensure it meets local needs.
In February 2022, Department for Education (DfE) announced it would invest up to £18million over the next three years to build capacity in the Supported Internships programme, aiming to double the number of Supported Internships to give more young people with an Education Health and Care Plan the skills to secure and sustain paid employment. We have also worked with stakeholders across the sector to update our Supported Internship guidance to support education providers and employers to deliver quality internship placements for young people across the country.
Asked by: Holly Mumby-Croft (Conservative - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment she has made of (a) the support available to help people with multiple sclerosis to succeed in the labour market and (b) further measures that could be taken to help improve this support.
Answered by Chloe Smith
A range of government initiatives, including schemes in partnership with the health system, are currently supporting disabled people and people with health conditions, including people with multiple sclerosis, to live independent lives and start, stay and succeed in employment. These include the Intensive Personalised Employment Support programme, Access to Work and Disability Confident. The response to the Health is Everyone’s Business consultation, published last year, set out actions to minimise the risk of ill-health related job loss.
The last Spending Review and departmental funding allocation process assessed the current support available to help disabled people and people with health conditions, including those with multiple sclerosis, to succeed in the labour market and set future plans. Over the next three years, this government will invest £1.3bn in employment support for disabled people and people with health conditions. This will build up our provision further, including extending and expanding contracted employment support.
Asked by: Holly Mumby-Croft (Conservative - Scunthorpe)
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 support people who are temporarily unable to work due to delays in treatment caused by the NHS's backlog in elective surgery.
Answered by Chloe Smith
People who have low, or no, income or earnings and are unable to work due to having a health condition or disability, can claim Universal Credit. This includes people who are unable to work pending treatment, including elective surgery.
Claimants are required to provide medical evidence, most commonly a fit note, to support their claim of being unable to work. After four weeks the claimant will be referred for a work capability assessment (WCA).
A WCA is a functional assessment of what a claimant can do as well as what they cannot do. WCAs are undertaken by DWP’s contracted healthcare provider. The outcome of the WCA is used by a DWP decision maker to decide if the claimant:
Claimants who are determined to have LCW or LCWRA have:
Those who are determined to have LCWRA are entitled to the award of an additional amount of benefit – the LCWRA addition – which is £343.63 per month.
Universal Credit also includes additions to provide support, where eligible, for housing costs, children and childcare costs and support for carers.
People who are sick and unable to work may also be eligible for Employment and Support Allowance, subject to satisfying the National Insurance contributions’ eligibility conditions.
Asked by: Holly Mumby-Croft (Conservative - Scunthorpe)
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 extending the eligibility criteria for carer's allowance during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The role that unpaid carers play has perhaps been more important than ever during the current emergency. That is why we have focussed on ensuring carers do not inadvertently stop receiving Carer’s Allowance because of changes to patterns of care. This includes allowing emotional support to count towards the 35 hours of care being provided by the carer as well as relaxing the rules around breaks in care. These changes aimed to support carers whose role, in many cases, became harder due to the need to self-isolate or shield the person they care for. And I am pleased to be able to say that we have decided to extend these provisions until 12 May 2021. This is good news for those unpaid carers receiving Carer’s Allowance who need some extra flexibility in the way they provide care during the current emergency, so as to continue to protect themselves and the people they are caring for.
Asked by: Holly Mumby-Croft (Conservative - Scunthorpe)
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 ending mandatory reassessments for benefits related to diagnosed irreversible disabilities or progressive conditions.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
Since 29 September 2017, those placed in ESA’s Support Group and the UC equivalent who have the most severe and lifelong health conditions or disabilities, whose level of function would always mean that they would have Limited Capability for Work and Work-Related Activity, and be unlikely ever to be able to move into work, will no longer be routinely reassessed.
These criteria are applied at either the initial Work Capability Assessment or for existing claimants at their next assessment. We need to ensure that we have the right and most up to date information to apply the criteria fairly and make sure we identify everyone who should benefit from it. The people who best understand how their health problem or disability affects them are the individuals themselves, and so it is only right that we ask them for their information. However, we will do this in the least intrusive way and, wherever possible, carry out a paper based assessment.
Asked by: Holly Mumby-Croft (Conservative - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
What steps she is taking to (a) reduce the number of assessments undertaken by people with disabilities and (b) ensure adequate support for those people.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
We have made improvements to reduce assessments for Work Capability and Personal Independence Payment. This includes reducing review frequency for pensioners and people with severe or progressive conditions. We are also exploring our manifesto commitment to ensure a minimum award review duration for PIP awards. The planned Green Paper will continue to look at how we can further improve the experience for people with health conditions and disabilities.