Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, on how many occasions he has received correspondence from the Mayor for the West Midlands on the (a) roll-out and (b) design of universal credit in the last 12 months.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The Department has not received correspondence from the Mayor of the West Midlands on either of these issues in the last 12 months.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will list the (a) dates and (b) formats of representations her Department has received from the Mayor of the West Midlands on (i) the roll out of universal credit in the West Midlands or (ii) the policy design of universal credit.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The Mayor of the West Midlands visited Coventry Jobcentre on 02 November 2018 and Wolverhampton Service Centre on 18 January 2019.
To list the date and format of all correspondence from the Mayor of the West Midlands on rollout and policy design, from across the Department, would only be possible at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the expected decrease in the number of people who will be migrated onto universal credit in Birmingham in (a) 2019 and (b) 2020, following her announcement to revise the rollout of that system.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The requested information is not available for publication by constituency. We know that approximately 6.5 million households will be receiving Universal Credit in steady state. From July 2019 through to 2023, approximately 2 million households will move onto Universal Credit from their existing benefits via the Managed Migration process.
Universal Credit is proceeding as planned, with no change to the timetable of completing managed migration by December 2023. We will start with very small numbers in 2019 and will report on the findings from the pilot before bringing forward legislation to extend the Managed Migration processes.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to clarify the fiduciary duties of pension fund trustees to support a longer term approach to investing pension funds.
Answered by Lord Sharma
We want pension schemes to take account of all financially material long-term risks when making investment decisions. We are concerned that sometimes shorter-term considerations may be disproportionately influential. This can exclude or reduce consideration of investment options that take account of longer term financial factors, such as those arising from material environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks.
The 2017 Law Commission report ‘Pension funds and social investment’ proposed some legislative changes to clarify the fiduciary duties of trustees in this respect, which we are minded to accept. We plan to launch a consultation on regulatory changes and respond in full to the report by June 2018.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what meetings Ministers of his Department has had with representatives of the Legatum Institute in the last 12 months.
Answered by Damian Hinds
No meetings have taken place between the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, or his Ministers and representatives of the Legatum Institute.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the maximum income is which may be received tax free in each week by a person in receipt of the state pension without affecting that person's entitlement to pension credit.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The level of income at which entitlement to Pension Credit ends is £151.20 for those under 65 years of age and £188.25 for those aged 65 and over (£230.85 and £274.43 respectively for couples). These amounts may be higher for those with caring responsibilities, a severe disability, or certain housing costs. When calculating Pension Credit entitlement, income such as earnings, pensions or income drawdown is taken into account net of any tax liability, and subject in some cases to full or partial disregards. The provisions defining income and its treatment are sections 15 and 16 of the State Pension Credit Act 2002 and regulations 14 to 18 and schedules IV and VI of the State Pension Credit Regulations 2002.