Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
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 encourage more Universal Credit claimants to move into work.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Universal Credit is designed to make work pay. The Government wants people to see their income increase when they start working.
The Department has comprehensive support in place to help UC claimants start, stay and succeed in work, including face-to-face time with work coaches and support with the cost of childcare. In addition, there is targeted support for young people, people aged 50+, disabled people and people with a health condition.
Claimants on work-related benefits are generally expected to undertake certain activities in return for financial support through the benefit system. These requirements help the claimant prepare for, look for and move into work and are tailored to their individual capability and circumstances.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help improve disabled people’s lives.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Disability Action Plan (DAP) will set out the action the Government will take in 2023 and 2024 to improve disabled people’s lives. It will contribute to this Government’s commitment to create a society that works for everyone, where all can participate fully and be included in society.
The DAP will set out how we will go further, taking concerted action across Government to improve disabled people’s lives.
We are also appointing a new cohort of Ministerial Disability Champions (MDCs), who will be accountable for their department’s contribution to the development and delivery of the DAP and will also act as a personal lead committed to championing disabled people within their department.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress his Department has made on supporting disabled people into work.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
In 2017, the Government set a goal to see a million more disabled people in employment between 2017 and 2027. Between Q1 2017 and Q1 2022, the number of disabled people in employment increased by 1.3m – meaning the goal was met after only five years. Our goal to reduce the disability employment gap remains. We will continue to galvanise action across, and outside of, Government to ensure we are ambitious about the employment of disabled people, and supporting them to start, stay and succeed in work.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent steps his Department has taken to help improve the support available for jobseekers.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department for Work and Pensions is responsible for getting people into work and making work pay. We do this through our core Jobcentre offer which provides a range of options to those seeking employment, including face-to-face time with work coaches and interview assistance. We also have support programmes targeted towards specific cohorts, such as young people or people with disabilities.
In his Autumn Statement, the Chancellor of the Exchequer reaffirmed this government’s commitment to raising the Administrative Earnings Threshold from January 2023. This will bring more claimants into scope for intensive work coach support, helping those who are either not in work or are working but are in low pay.
The Restart scheme gives jobseekers intensive support to find work in their local area. First referrals were in July 2021, with an initial focus on those who had been on UC in the IWS regime for between 12 and 18 months. The scheme was expanded to UC claimants who have been unemployed for 9 months (January 2022) and to claimants who are in receipt of Income Based Jobseeker’s Allowance for 9 months (April 2022). By April 2022, 226,785 claimants have started on the scheme.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of the potential impact of increasing the benefit cap in line with inflation on people who receive benefits.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The benefit cap levels will be increased from April 2023 in line with CPI in the year to September 2022 (10.1%). This is the same uprating measure that will be applied to benefits and the State Pension and ensures that capped households will see an increase in their benefit income following annual uprating. There were around 130,000 capped households in May 2022 (the latest available statistics). Around 30,000 households will be taken out of the cap entirely and around 60,000 other households (who would have become capped in the absence of an increase in the levels) will not become capped. The average for all these households will be around £29 extra benefit a week.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Government’s cost of living payments on (a) disabled people and (b) pensioners.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We published an Impact Analysis on the Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill which includes impacts of the Cost of Living Payments on disabled people and pensioners.
Full details of the Impact Analysis can be found here.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
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 reduce benefit fraud.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Our Fraud Plan, Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System, published on 19 May 2022, sets out our approach and explains how the additional investment is allowing us to recruit 1,400 more staff into our counter-fraud teams, establish a new 2,000-strong team dedicated to reviewing 2 million existing Universal Credit (UC) claims and develop enhanced data analytics as a means of preventing and detecting fraud and error. More information on our Fraud Plan can be found here:
Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The Government is investing £1.4billion of funding over the next three years in order to combat fraud and error, which includes a further £613 million to facilitate a number of new initiatives, which collectively will stop an estimated £2.0 billion of loss in fraud and error over the next three years. An additional £280m to help prevent abuse of the system and drive forward UC case checks was announced in the recent Autumn Statement.
This builds on the existing work DWP have done to address overpayments, with savings from the correction and prevention of fraud and error totalling £2 billion last year.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
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 Government's progress in increasing the number of disabled people in work.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
According to the latest figures from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) on working age (16-64) employment, there were 4.9 million disabled people in employment in the UK in Q3 2022. This is an increase of 240,000 on the year and an overall increase of 2.0 million since the same quarter in 2013.
The Government set a goal to see a million more disabled people in employment between 2017 and 2027.
Figures released for Q1 2022 showed that between Q1 2017 and Q1 2022 the number of disabled people in employment increased by 1.3 million – meaning the goal was met after only five years.
Estimations suggest that the rise in the total number of disabled people in employment between 2013 and 2021 has been driven by several factors. These include: an increase in disability prevalence (50%), a strong labour market (20%), internal factors such as Government policy (25%), and an increase in the size of the working population (5%).
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress her Department has made on her consultation on Disability Workforce Reporting.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The consultation on disability workforce reporting for large employers, which is being led by the Disability Unit based in the Cabinet Office, was launched on 16 December 2021 and will close on 25 March 2022. The consultation is available at www.gov.uk/government/consultations/disability-workforce-reporting
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what her priorities are for the next six months of the National Disability Strategy.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The National Disability Strategy (NDS), published in July 2021, sets out a wide range of tangible actions that will impact across the everyday lives of disabled people. From housing to transport, education to leisure and justice, to challenging the unhelpful perceptions of others. Delivery of the policies in the strategy is progressing well.
For example, DfE has invested over £8 billion in 2021/2022 on children and young people with complex needs, improving outcomes for disabled children. DWP is piloting an Adjustments Passport supporting disabled people in the transition to employment, and BEIS launched an online advice hub offering accessible information and advice on employment rights for disabled people.
Priorities over the next 6 months will be to continue to deliver on the commitments in the NDS and reporting on progress as we have previously committed to do.
In addition, this government is supporting the successful delivery of the British Sign Language Private Members Bill through the House of Commons and Lords to recognise British Sign Language (BSL) as a language of Great Britain, with ultimately the objective of increasing access to BSL interpretation.
Alongside recognising British Sign Language as a language of Great Britain, we will:
I am committed to delivering the government’s aim to address the challenges faced by disabled people so that we continue to build back better, and fairer, for disabled people.