Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the Government plans to support the Royal British Legion Credit their Service campaign.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The department has had a number of discussions with stakeholders about the treatment of armed forces compensation payments in the benefit system and has further such discussions planned. There are already special rules in place for the treatment of these payments.
Those receiving War Disablement Pensions and guaranteed income payments made under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme do not have their Universal Credit reduced to take account of this income. Pension Credit includes a weekly £10 disregard for War Pension payments. There are no plans to change these arrangements.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department plans to provide additional support to people in the workplace with clinical neurodiversity conditions.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
We continue to strive towards providing more support for people in the workplace with clinical neurodiversity conditions. On 2 April 2023, World Autism Acceptance Day, we announced the launch of a new review into autism and employment. The Buckland Review, which is being led by the Rt Hon Member for South Swindon, is focused on supporting employers to recruit and retain autistic people, identifying barriers to this, and developing ways to overcome those barriers. Whilst the Review's primary focus is autism, many of the adjustments and initiatives that would benefit autistic people could also benefit a wider group of people who think differently, including those with other neurodevelopmental conditions such as ADHD, dyslexia, and dyspraxia. The review will present recommendations to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions later this year.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to support people in the workplace with clinical neurodiversity conditions.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
We continue to strive towards providing more support for people in the workplace with clinical neurodiversity conditions. On 2 April 2023, World Autism Acceptance Day, we announced the launch of a new review into autism and employment. The Buckland Review, which is being led by the Rt Hon Member for South Swindon, is focused on supporting employers to recruit and retain autistic people, identifying barriers to this, and developing ways to overcome those barriers. Whilst the Review's primary focus is autism, many of the adjustments and initiatives that would benefit autistic people could also benefit a wider group of people who think differently, including those with other neurodevelopmental conditions such as ADHD, dyslexia, and dyspraxia. The review will present recommendations to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions later this year.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to improve the service being offered by the Child Maintenance Service.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) can play an effective role in helping lift children out of poverty. Through both family-based arrangements (FBAs) and CMS arrangements, we estimate receiving parents in separated families received £2.6 billion annually in child maintenance payments in the three financial years ending 2020 to 2022. Overall, we estimate that on average these payments kept 160,000 children out of absolute low income on an after-housing costs basis each year.
The CMS is focussed on taking pro-active steps to improve the service being offered to both potential customers and those already in the service.
In 2022 the CMS introduced a new digital service ‘Get Help arranging Child Maintenance’ (GHACHM). GHACM is a digital service, available 24/7, making it more accessible for customers.
The majority of applications are now made online. Expanded payment functions via telephony and online services have also helped to provide more options to parents.
CMS has made significant improvements in their telephony service and internal management information suggests the average time to answer calls has reduced by a third since 2021/22.
The CMS recently piloted ‘Real Time Customer Feedback’ on behalf of the department to better understand customer experience.
A Private Members’ Bill (PMB) to streamline CMS enforcement, being taken forward by Siobhan Baillie, is currently ongoing working towards a third reading in the House of Lords. The PMB removes the requirement to make court applications for liability orders which enable the CMS to progress with enforcement action, thus improving the efficiency of the enforcement process.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
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 tackle 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 additional investment is allowing us to recruit 1,400 more staff into our counter-fraud teams and develop enhanced data analytics as a means of preventing and detecting fraud and error.
Additionally, we are creating a dedicated team to deliver Targeted Case Reviews of existing Universal Credit claims. This supports wider Government aims of strong oversight and control and efficiently managing the public purse. Over the next five years we expect to review over 2 million potentially high-risk claims, including suspicious cases which entered our system at the height of the pandemic.
More information on our Fraud Plan, which also explains our ambition to modernise and strengthen our legislative framework, can be found here:
Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of ending the annual £10 Christmas bonus to pensioners and allocating the money saved elsewhere in order to alleviate current budgetary pressures.
Answered by Laura Trott - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Christmas Bonus is an annual, tax-free lump sum payment to pensioners and to working age people who are in receipt of certain qualifying benefits during the relevant week which is usually the first full week in December. The Government remains committed to providing support to pensioners and others who receive the payments and has no current plans to revise the arrangements.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of extending the eligibility criteria for Carers Allowance to a larger number of unpaid carers; and if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of unpaid care work on the (a) physical and (b) mental health of women.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The primary purpose of Carer’s Allowance is to provide a measure of financial support and recognition for people who give up the opportunity of full-time employment in order to provide regular and substantial care for a severely disabled person.
Entitlement to Carer's Allowance depends on certain conditions relating to the circumstances of both the disabled person and the carer being satisfied. The carer must provide a minimum of 35 hours care a week for the disabled person who must be receiving a qualifying disability benefit. The carer must be aged 16 or over; should not be in full-time education; or receiving earnings above £132 a week, net after the deduction of certain allowances. In 2020/21, 850,000 people were in receipt of the Allowance, an increase of nearly 300,000 since 2010/11.
In addition to Carer’s Allowance, carers on low incomes can claim income-related benefits, such as Universal Credit and Pension Credit. These benefits can be paid to carers at a higher rate than those without caring responsibilities through the carer element and the additional amount for carers respectively. Currently, the Universal Credit carer element is £168.81 per monthly assessment period, and the additional amount for carers in Pension Credit is £38.85 per week.
Since April 2010, carers who do not get Carer's Allowance have been able to apply for National Insurance carer's credits if they are caring for one or more disabled people for at least 20 hours a week. These are Class 3 credits which can help towards the conditions of entitlement to the new State Pension and Widowed Parent’s Allowance.
Carer’s Allowance is devolved to the Scottish Parliament and will, in due course be replaced by Scottish Government provision. Carer’s Allowance is a transferred matter in Northern Ireland.
The Government recognises that caring is not always easy or straightforward. There is a wide variety in caring circumstances, experiences and needs among unpaid carers. In England, the Care Act 2014 requires local authorities to deliver a wide range of sustainable high-quality care and support services, including support for unpaid carers and local authorities are required to undertake a Carer’s Assessment for any unpaid carer who appears to have a need for support and to meet their eligible needs on request from the carer. There is similar provision in Scotland and in Wales.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the level of fraud and error in the welfare system.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Fraud Plan, Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System published 19 May 2022, sets out our plans for reducing the level of fraud and error in the welfare system by:
The full document can be found on Welcome to GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
It sets out how we will invest £613m over the next three years in our frontline counter-fraud professionals and establish a brand-new team of trained specialists to conduct Targeted Case Reviews of Universal Credit claims, which will see us review 2 million cases over the next 5 years. This money represents a 75% increase in funding to combat fraud and error, taking our resourcing to £1.4bn over the next three years.
We estimate this investment will stop £2.0bn of loss in fraud and error during this time.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent progress her Department has made on the rollout of the Universal Credit programme.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We recently set out our revised approach to moving the remaining 2.6m households on legacy benefits over to Universal Credit by the end of 2024. This is available here: Completing the move to Universal Credit - Completing the move to Universal Credit - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
From 9th May, we started to issue a small number of migration notices in Bolton and Medway to claimants as part of a managed migration discovery exercise. This controlled approach will allow us to learn and iterate as we go so that we carefully build a service that both meets user needs and is sustainable in the longer term.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent progress her Department has made on allocating the Household Support Fund to local authorities.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Local Authorities have received their allocations from the £421m Household Support Fund extension for April – September 2022, alongside the grant determination and guidance. The allocations for Local Authorities for this period can be found here Household Support Fund (1 April 2022 to 30 September 2022): final guidance for county councils and unitary authorities in England - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) Local Authorities have discretion on exactly how and when this funding is used within the scope set out, based on their assessment of local need. This funding is available now for use by Local Authorities until 30 September 2022.
From October 2022, Government is providing an additional £500 million to help households with the cost of essentials, bringing the total funding for this support to £1.5 billion. In England £421m will be used to further extend the Household Support Fund (October 2022 – March 2023).
Guidance and individual local authority indicative allocations for this further extension to the Household Support Fund will be announced in due course.