Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people claiming the Personal Independence Payment are also claiming the (a) limited capability for work and work-related activity component of Universal Credit or old-style Employment and Support Allowance in (i) Blyth and Ashington constituency, (ii) Northumberland, (iii) the North East and (iv) England.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information to answer these questions can be found on Stat-Xplore in the Benefit Combinations - Data from May 2019 for England and Wales dataset. The most recent month for which data is available is August 2024. The data can be filtered by Benefit to include PIP Claimants only. The data can also be broken down by Additional Claim Details to include ESA Payment type and UC Health Journey information, and for a range of geographical areas.
Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here. An account is not required to use Stat-Xplore, the ‘Guest Login’ feature gives instant access to the main functions.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many children were living in poverty in (a) Northumberland, (b) the North East and (c) nationally in (i) 2022-23 and (ii) 2023-24.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In 2022/23 in Northumberland there were 10,858 children living in relative poverty before housing costs. Figures on an after housing costs basis are not available below region level. Source: Children in Low Income Families statistics
In 2022/23 in the North East there were 0.1m children living in relative poverty on a before housing costs basis and 0.2m children living in relative poverty on an after housing costs basis. Source: Households Below Average Income statistics
In 2022/23 in the UK there were 3.2m children living in relative low poverty on a before housing costs basis and 4.3m children living in relative poverty on an after housing costs basis. Source: Households Below Average Income statistics
2023/24 figures will be published in March 2025.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps the Government is taking to help ensure employers support women managing the menopause in the workplace.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government believes in the vital importance of equality of opportunity and of treatment in the workplace. The plan to Make Work Pay includes clear action to place equality, diversity and inclusion issues on a statutory footing. This includes requiring large employers to publish plans detailing the action they're taking to improve gender equality and support employees during the menopause. Alongside this, the Government has appointed a Menopause Employment Ambassador who will work with employers to improve the support for women experiencing menopause symptoms at work.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of means-testing the winter fuel payment on trends in the level of excess deaths in winter.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
This Government is committed to pensioners. Everyone in our society, no matter their working history or savings deserves a comfortable and dignified retirement. We will do this through protecting the triple lock, keeping energy bills low through our Warm Homes Plan, and bringing real stability to people’s lives.
However, given the substantial pressures faced by the public finances this year and next, the Government has had to make hard choices to bring the public finances back under control.
The Government is committed to a preventative approach to public health. Keeping people warm and well at home and improving the quality of new and existing homes will play an essential part in enabling people to live longer, healthier lives and reducing pressures on the NHS.
The Household Support Fund (HSF) is also being extended for a further six months, from 1 October 2024 until 31 March 2025. An additional £421 million will be provided to enable the extension of the HSF in England, plus funding for the Devolved Governments through the Barnett formula to be spent at their discretion, as usual.
We are supporting consumers, including pensioners, through our Warm Homes Plan which will transform homes across the country by making them cleaner and cheaper to run. The Warm Homes Plan will offer grants and low interest loans to support investment in insulation, low carbon heating and other home improvements to cut bills.
Additionally, there are multiple targeted schemes in place to deliver energy efficiency measures to low income and fuel poor households. Schemes include the Energy Company Obligation (ECO), the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, the Home Upgrade Grant (HUG) and the Great British Insulation Scheme (GBIS).
Pensioners if eligible may also receive the Warm Home Discount which provides a £150 annual rebate off energy bills for eligible low-income households until 2025/26.
Guidance to help people stay safe in cold weather has been published by UKHSA. This will help ensure that organisations and staff are prompted to signpost those vulnerable to cold weather to sources of support for keeping their home warm, with cost of living support, including help to manage energy bills, as needed. As well as advice on simple measures to improve home energy efficiency and safety to reduce risks that may increase in cold weather (for example from carbon monoxide exposure).
Details of excess winter deaths in England and Wales can be found at: Winter mortality in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk).
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of poverty levels on birth rates.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
It is not possible to make a robust assessment of the impact of poverty levels on birth rates. This is because poverty levels are potentially one of a very wide range and complex interaction of social, economic and personal factors which might affect birth rates. It is not possible to isolate the potential impact of poverty levels from the vast range of other possible factors.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many families use foodbanks in Blyth and Ashington constituency.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Statistics for the total number of families using foodbanks is not available at a constituency level.
Figures for families using foodbanks in the North East in the past 30 days and 12 months is available on Stat-Xplore: Stat-Xplore - Home (dwp.gov.uk)
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many families in Blyth and Ashington constituency are impacted by the two child benefit cap.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The number of Universal Credit households affected by the policy to provide support to a maximum of 2 children, in Blyth and Ashington in April 2024 was 770.
The equivalent figure for Child Tax Credits is not held by this department as it is administered by HM Revenue & Customs.
Notes:
1. The new 2024 Parliamentary Constituencies are derived by using postcode lookup data against the claimant address however, this is only available for England and Wales and is not present for all households in this data source.
2. 2024 Parliamentary Constituencies are approximate and therefore figures may not match exactly with the previous 2019 Parliamentary Constituencies they correspond to.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
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 merits of (a) allowing people that are moving from legacy benefits to Universal Credit to use a countersignature as proof of ID and (b) opening Job Centres on (i) evenings and (ii) weekends for people who are in full-time employment.
Answered by Jo Churchill
Countersignatures or vouching can be used to verify an identity as an exception where the customer does not have any other method to prove who they are. This method is more time consuming for both the customer and agent and we have found that the majority of our customers can meet the identify verification criteria.
A number of our Jobcentres across the network already offer a Saturday service. We do not offer evening appointments, but it is important to emphasise that we have a number of different mechanisms through which customers can access our services; for example, through our Universal Credit (UC) system which is a digital platform where customers can leave messages on their journal to update UC agents on their current circumstances. A number of our service lines also offer telephony services into the evening.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that people pay the full child maintenance costs for which they are liable.
Answered by Paul Maynard
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) has a range of enforcement powers at its disposal to ensure parents meet their financial obligations to their children.
These include deductions directly from earnings and bank accounts, using Enforcement Agents (previously known as bailiffs) to take control of goods, forcing the sale of property, removal of driving licence or UK passport or even commitment to prison.
The Child Support (Enforcement) Act received Royal Assent in 2023. This creates a primary power to replace court-based liability orders with administrative orders, which should significantly speed up this key enforcement process.
We have concluded a public consultation to support regulations to implement administrative liability orders. The Government published their response on 12 February 2024.
Secondary legislation is now being developed, which, once implemented, will reduce the process from 22 weeks to as low as 6 weeks. This will be brought forward as soon as possible.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
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 increasing the state pension age on the financial situation of people approaching retirement age.
Answered by Laura Trott - Shadow Secretary of State for Education
The latest assessment of the impact of increasing State Pension age can be found in the 2023 State Pension age review published in March 2023.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/state-pension-age-review-2023-government-report