Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions the Health and Safety Executive has had with representatives of the hairdressing and beauty industry on ensuring that health and safety practices are followed when using hair dye.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Businesses in the hairdressing and beauty sector, which includes barber shops, hairdressers and beauty salons are required to comply with the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and associated regulations, which place duties on businesses to assess the risk of infection for employees and others affected by their work including members of the public.
While Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has the policy lead for the hair and beauty sector, responsibility for enforcing health and safety legislation at individual businesses rests with the local authority where the premises are located. HSE is not currently engaged in discussions with the industry about the use of hair dye, however it’s use and the precautions necessary when using it are captured by the requirements of the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (as amended).
Where there is evidence that risks are not being properly managed, local authorities are able to intervene and take appropriate enforcement action to ensure that employees and customers are protected.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on best practice in joined up systems supporting people with long term health issues to (a) find work and (b) achieve long term employment.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Regular cross government collaboration takes place at both Ministerial and official level. Examples of this can be seen through the publication of the Get Britain Working White Paper and the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits, Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, the Industrial strategy, the Joint Health and Work Directorate and the Make work pay legislation.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to monitor outputs arising from the £1bn for guaranteed personalised employment support to help people get back to work.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We anticipate that we will assess effectiveness of Pathways to Work measures in the usual way, including through evaluation of their implementation and the impacts that they have on employment, incomes, benefit receipt and other indicators. We will publish more information on our evaluation strategy in due course.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 11 March 2025 to Question 35774 on Pension Credit: Staff, if she will make an estimate of the cost to the public purse of using (a) external providers and (b) external recruitment to process pension credit applications during Winter 2024-25.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
My previous response (UIN 35775) advised we had deployed over 500 additional staff through a combination of internal redeployments, use of external providers and external recruitment.
The 24/25 forecast cost of (a) external providers is £1.9 million, and (b) external recruitment is £2.2 million.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 11 March 2025 to Question 35774 on Pension Credit: Staff, what steps she is taking to ensure that the work previously undertaken by internal redeployed staff is continued.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
My previous response reference 36448, advised redeployed colleagues to support Pension Credit were from Child Maintenance Service and Counter Fraud, Compliance and Debt. Since the redeployment, both services have continued with no deterioration in service or performance.
Further to this, the Autumn Statement includes additional investment in Fraud and Error, which means we can increase our resourcing levels. We will also be increasing Child Maintenance Service resources as demand for that service continues to grow. In the meantime, we are continuing to transform Child Maintenance Service with our 24/7 online service and also with further automation, reducing the need for human intervention.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 12 March 2025 to Question 36448 on Pension Credit, how many staff were seconded from the Child Maintenance Services and Counter Fraud, Compliance and Debt to process pension credit applications; and for what time period.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
100 colleagues have been redeployed from Child Maintenance Services and 20 colleagues redeployed from Counter Fraud, Compliance and Debt to support Pension Credit activity.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the number of Pension Credit applications rejected by decision makers since September 2024; and what the reasons were for the rejection of those applications.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The latest published data on Pension Credit applications and awards was published on 27 February [Pension Credit applications and awards: February 2025 - GOV.UK]. This showed that DWP cleared 232,200 Pension Credit claims between 29 July 2024 and 23 February 2025, of which 117,800 claims were awarded Pension Credit and 114,500 were not awarded Pension Credit. In common with all income-related benefits, a person’s eligibility for Pension Credit depends on their financial and household circumstances. The most common reason why a person might not qualify for Pension Credit is because their household income is too high.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 25 February 2025 to Question 31507 on Pension Credit, from which directorate have the additional staff been deployed to process pension credit applications; and for how long the additional staff have been seconded to process pension credit applications.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The directorates within DWP where colleagues were redeployed to support Pension Credit activity were from Child Maintenance Service and Counter Fraud, Compliance and Debt. Other additions were via use of a flexible pool of DWP colleagues that move across functions as required.
Our approach to deploying additional people to support Pension Credit activity was taken in a manner to not disadvantage other services. Backlogs have not emerged as a consequence of these moves.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 25 February 2025 to Question 31507 on Pension Credit, whether she is taking steps to ensure that backlogs of work are actioned within directorates that have seconded additional staff to process pension credit applications.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The directorates within DWP where colleagues were redeployed to support Pension Credit activity were from Child Maintenance Service and Counter Fraud, Compliance and Debt. Other additions were via use of a flexible pool of DWP colleagues that move across functions as required.
Our approach to deploying additional people to support Pension Credit activity was taken in a manner to not disadvantage other services. Backlogs have not emerged as a consequence of these moves.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 25 February 2025 to Question, what performance matrix she is following to monitor the effectiveness of the funding for additional staffing to reducing pension credit application processing times to a planned timescale of 50 working days.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government has recently put in place the biggest ever pension Credit tave-up drive. To help ensure it has the capacity to assess all claims within reasonable timeframes, the Department has deployed over 500 additional staff through a combination of internal redeployments, use of external providers and external recruitment.
We measure Pension Credit performance via our published 50 working day timeliness measure and monitor weekly average actual clearance times. The most recent information on processing times for Pension Credit was published in DWP annual report and accounts 2023 to 2024 - GOV.UK (ARA) on 22nd July 2024. This shows that in 2023/24 DWP cleared 192,000 Pension Credit claims within the planned 50 working day timescale, equating to 77.7%. The next publication of the ARA will include claims processed in the Financial Year 2024 to 2025, which is due for publication in the summer.
As a result of this investment in staff the latest Average Actual Clearance Time is now down to 56.2 working days in week commencing 24th February 2025 after a peak of 87 working days week commencing 9 December 2024.
Please note, the Average Actual Clearance Time figures shown is unpublished management information, collected and intended for internal departmental use and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. It is rounded to the nearest working day and based on the week the claim was cleared, rather than the week the claim was made.