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 - Parliamentary 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
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, whether he has made a recent assessment of the adequacy of housing benefit in the context of trends in the level of average rents.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
Housing Benefit supports tenants in both the private rented sector (PRS) and social rented sector (SRS).
For Housing Benefit claimants in the PRS, the majority are subject to their Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rate. The LHA policy is kept under regular review and in 2020 we spent almost £1 billion increasing LHA rates to the 30th percentile. The significant investment at that time has been maintained ensuring that everyone who benefited continues to do so however, LHA rates are not intended to cover all rents in all areas.
Claimants in receipt of the housing benefit living in the social rented sector have their eligible rent paid in full, unless it is reduced because of their income or savings, contributions from non-dependants, or limited by the benefit cap or the removal of the spare room subsidy.
We recognise that rents are increasing. However, the challenging fiscal environment means that difficult decisions have been necessary to ensure support is targeted effectively.
For those who face a shortfall in meeting their housing costs and need further support. Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) are available from local authorities. Since 2011 the Government has provided nearly £1.6 billion in DHP funding to local authorities
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, whether his Department has made a recent equality impact assessment on the Personal Independence Payment in the context of the ethnicity of people who have been awarded that payment.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) places a legal duty on the DWP to consider how its decisions impact differently on different people and in particular those with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. While an Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) is not a legal requirement of the PSED, it is one of the ways a department can demonstrate consideration of, and compliance, with its duty.
Prior to the introduction of Personal Independence Payment (PIP), an EIA, including against ethnicity, was completed which can be found here Disability Living Allowance reform – equality impact assessment - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). EIAs are carried out in relation to significant proposals or changes to PIP, the most recent of which was in 2022. The Family Resources Survey, published annually, also contains ethnicity data by benefit, including PIP.