Asked by: Liam Fox (Conservative - North Somerset)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much has been paid in personal independence payments to (a) UK and (b) non-UK citizens in each of the last five years.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
Personal Independence Payment (PIP) has been available in Great Britain since April 2013 and will be introduced in Northern Ireland later this year. A person’s nationality is not a consideration when assessing entitlement to PIP; rather it is whether they have a right to reside in Great Britain and whether they have met the presence conditions which are material. Information on the amount of PIP paid to UK and non-UK citizens is not available. Information on benefit expenditure as is available is published on Gov.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/benefit-expenditure-tables.
Asked by: Liam Fox (Conservative - North Somerset)
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 likelihood of a major contamination of the Severn Estuary downhill of the Radcliffe Bay Petroleum Storage Depot in North Somerset.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The Radcliffe Bay Petroleum Storage Depot is subject to the Control of Major Accident Hazard (COMAH) Regulations 2015 at Upper Tier. This requires it to produce a Safety Report that includes an assessment of the hazards posed by the site to its environmental surroundings including the Severn Estuary, the measures in place to prevent an accident and a plan for mitigatory action, including clean-up, in the event of an accident. Through these Regulations the Environment Agency is working with the site to ensure that adequate and appropriate risk assessments are in place.