Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Harper and Frank Roy

Monday 3rd November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I agree with what my hon. Friend says; we are conducting the further natural reassessment roll-out only in those areas where I am confident we have the capacity to undertake the claims in a timely way. We are doing it in a carefully controlled way. The majority of DLA claimants will not be invited to claim PIP until 2015 onwards under a programme of managed reassessment.

[Mr Frank Roy (Motherwell and Wishaw) (Lab)]

Thousands and thousands of DLA recipients are feeling the effect of the unjust bedroom tax. What does the Minister intend to do to raise discretionary housing payments to help alleviate the problems felt by people on DLA?

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman is right to mention discretionary housing payments. I looked into this matter quite carefully. We have been very generous in the amount of money that we have given to local authorities. Indeed, many local authorities have not spent the money we have made available to them. We also made available further funds for which local authorities could bid and, again, not all of that money was spent. So we have given local authorities the wherewithal to use discretionary housing payment to support those who they think have a good case following the removal of the spare room subsidy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Harper and Frank Roy

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

It is certainly true that there has been a lot of focus on the possible risks to this approach. When we debate Second Reading tomorrow, I hope that colleagues will see that we have taken a lot of steps to deal with that. However, there are also a number of opportunities, one of which is through the online registration system that we are introducing. We hope that disabled people, particularly those with visual impairments, will find it more convenient and easier to register. We may therefore find that, among certain groups, we have a better chance of getting people registered to vote and able to exercise their democratic rights.

[Mr Frank Roy (Motherwell and Wishaw) (Lab)]

Will the Minister publish an ongoing league table showing the number and percentage of people on the electoral register?

[Mr Harper]

Information about people on the electoral register is, I understand, already published by the Office for National Statistics. It is difficult to publish a league table showing the percentage of eligible voters, because no clear information is available about the number of eligible people in each parliamentary constituency. However, information on the number of people registered to vote in each area is regularly published by the Office for National Statistics.