Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to protect people who are victims of identity theft and have had fraudulent benefit claims made in their name.
Answered by David Rutley
COVID-19 saw an unprecedented surge in Universal Credit claims, demanding an extraordinary response from DWP to ensure the welfare safety net continued to catch all those in urgent need.
Whilst a small number of people deliberately misrepresented their circumstances or looked to exploit our response to the pandemic, the verification of claimants’ identities remains at the core of our checks and we quickly introduced new and robust verification procedures following initial easements. Face to face interviews are now being re-established, subject to the latest COVID-19 advice.
Where fraud does occur, the Department takes the issue extremely seriously. Our Integrated Risk and Intelligence Service coordinates the detection of, and response to, fraud risks from organised crime groups, detecting and shutting down systematic attacks. Last year, this led us to suspend 152,000 Universal Credit claims and prevented £1.9 billion in benefits from being paid to people trying to scam the system.
Identity fraud is a complex issue, and it is not always possible to be definitive about every case, but our Enhanced Checking Service and our Serious Organised Crime teams disrupted or corrected over 298,000 claims (including the 152,000 mentioned above) in 2020-21.
We are not able to describe the robust processes we have in place, as to do so may compromise the effectiveness of our operations. However, DWP continues to work across Government to address this issue.
Where citizens allege that their identity has been used to make a fraudulent claim for Universal Credit, DWP considers each case on its own merits. Decisions are made on the strength of the evidence provided. If a claimant has been the victim of a scam, and has not benefited from it in any way, they will not be held liable for any debt. In these cases, we will seek to recover any losses from the perpetrator of any fraud.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 8 September 2021 to Question 41756, on Social Security Benefits: Vulnerable Adults, whether his Department's policy on whether it has a duty of care to benefit claimants has changed since 2012-14.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The Department is required by law to pay the correct amount of benefit to eligible customers at the correct time. This legal duty to benefits claimants has remained consistent.
Further to this, where customers require additional support we take steps to understand their circumstances and will offer advice and support as needed. DWP staff can also signpost customers to other public authorities (including those that have statutory safeguarding responsibilities). Through this collaborative approach, we provide effective support to customers who may be particularly vulnerable.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reason deductions for child maintenance are listed at numbers 13 and 14 in her Department's guidance on the deductions priority order for universal credit.
Answered by David Rutley
Schedule 6 of the Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment, Jobseeker's Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance (Claims and Payments) Regulations 2013 sets out the priority order in which Departmental staff must consider all deductions from Universal Credit, including Child Maintenance. The deductions contained in that priority order are all priority debts and social obligations that are important for claimants to address.
The Department recognises the importance of Child Maintenance payments and these deductions are already prioritised above others such as benefit overpayments of Housing Benefit, Tax Credit and DWP overpayments and Recoverable Hardship and Social Fund loans.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average time taken by the Child Maintenance Service to recover arrears for child maintenance was in (a) 2018, (b) 2019 and (c) 2020.
Answered by Guy Opperman
We do not hold this information due to the complex nature of our unpaid Child Maintenance (previously known as arrears) negotiations. When arranging for unpaid Child Maintenance to be recovered, caseworkers speak to both the Paying Parent and the Receiving Parent to agree an affordable and acceptable amount for both parties.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department accepts a statutory safeguarding duty of care to vulnerable benefits claimants.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department does not have a statutory safeguarding duty or legal duty of care. The safety of claimants is of great importance to us and the Department provides staff with training and guidance to help them identify those who require further support beyond the provision of benefits.
Our staff can direct vulnerable claimants to agencies and services who are best placed to support them, including those who have statutory safeguarding duties such as local authorities and social services.
DWP supports the work of all statutory safeguarding agencies, either when formally requested to do so, or by engaging with them to identify, where possible, those who might need particular support.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what representations her Department has received from (a) welfare and (b) disability groups on her Department's public sector equality duty as set out in the Equality Act 2010 to those people claiming disability benefits.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
DWP take our Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) seriously and are absolutely committed to ensuring our services are accessible to all.
We focus on being a learning organisation and are keen to capture the voice of the customer. A key part of this role is working with a number of representative groups from welfare and disability organisations through regular stakeholder forums.
They comprise of a range of organisations of and for disabled customers and through them we hear the voice of our customers. They let us know where we can improve the reasonable adjustments we offer and our processes for providing them, and they assist us by testing new products and procedures
One example is the Taskforce on Accessible Information which works at strategic level and meets three to four times a year.
Another is the Reasonable Adjustments Forum who work at an operational level and meet every two months.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make it her policy to support an urgent independent inquiry into (a) the impact of the benefits assessment process on claimants' mental health and (b) preventing future deaths of those wrongly declared fit for work.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The Department’s key obligation is to ensure that claimants receive the benefits that they are entitled to, in a timely manner. We continually review our processes to ensure that benefits assessment processes are accessible and supportive to all customers, including those with mental health conditions. We recently put in place a number of improvements to disability benefits assessments, to ensure that vulnerable customers are identified and all evidence relevant to the claim is taken into account. These include enhancing Additional Support Markers on digital case files to indicate vulnerable claimants.
The Department is committed to learning from cases where there is suggestion or allegation that the Department’s actions or omissions may have negatively contributed to the customer’s circumstances. We conduct internal retrospective investigations (known as Internal Process Reviews) to capture these lessons, and take them forward to inform future policy and service.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if the Government will establish an independent inquiry into the (a) number and (b) causes of deaths of those who have died after being found fit to work following a benefits assessment in each of the last six years.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The Department’s key obligation is to ensure that claimants receive the benefits that they are entitled to, in a timely manner. We have recently put in place a number of improvements to disability benefits assessments, to ensure that vulnerable customers are identified and all evidence relevant to the claim is taken into account.
The Department is committed to learning from cases where there is suggestion or allegation that the Department’s actions or omissions may have negatively contributed to a customer’s circumstances. We conduct internal retrospective investigations (known as Internal Process Reviews) to capture these lessons, and take them forward to inform future policy and service.
In England and Wales (where engaged) a Coroner has responsibility for concluding the cause of death.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many families are in receipt of universal credit in Newport East constituency; and how many of those families are in receipt of the £20 uplift for that benefit.
Answered by Will Quince
The available information on the number of households with Universal Credit in payment by parliamentary constituency is published and can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
The £20 uplift applies to all Universal Credit claimants.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the pension credit take up is in (a) Newport East constituency and (b) each Welsh constituency.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The information requested is not available.
The DWP publishes annual take-up statistics for income-related benefits, including Pension Credit, at Great Britain level. The latest data was published in October 2020 and provides take-up estimates up to financial year 2018/19: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/income-related-benefits-estimates-of-take-up--2(opens in a new tab)