Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many direct earnings attachments her Department has put in place in each year since the Welfare Reform Act 2012 enabled recovery of overpayments as a result of errors made by her Department rather than the claimant; and what estimate she has made of the amount that has been overpaid in error by her Department in each year since 2012.
Answered by Will Quince
It is not possible to produce a historical time series for this specific data request regarding Direct Earnings Attachments (DEA). However, I can confirm that there are 15,000 DWP debtors with an official error debt who currently have a DEA in place.
This data is taken from operational data systems, and is not intended for publication. Therefore, the data itself is not quality assured to the standard of published Official Statistics and National Statistics.
It should be noted that, during a period when we have faced the unprecedented challenges posed by COVID-19, fraud and error in the benefits system remains low, with 95% of benefits, worth more than £200bn paid correctly in 2020/21. Official Error overpayments remained at 0.4% of benefit expenditure last year, with UC Official Error Overpayments falling from 1.3% to 0.9%.
DWP’s primary method of debt recovery is by deduction from any on-going benefit that mightbe in payment, with limits on the amount we can deduct from income related benefits being set out in legislation.
Where recovery from ongoing benefit entitlement is not possible, DWP will seek to agree a voluntary repayment plan with the debtor, taking into account their personal circumstances and the amount they can reasonably afford to repay each month.
Where a person fails to agree a voluntary repayment plan, we can apply a Direct Earnings Attachment (DEA) which allows deductions to be taken directly from a person’s earnings, bu this would only be after DWP had made all reasonable efforts to pursue recovery via a voluntary repayment plan.
Estimates of the amount that has been overpaid in error by DWP are published annually and can be found by following the links at Fraud and error in the benefit system - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will bring forward legislative proposal to ensure that employers affected by the covid-19 outbreak cannot retain employee pension deductions as cashflow rather than pay into the relevant pension scheme.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
No. Employers are not permitted to hold pension contributions as cash flow.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the potential effect of including discretionary and hardship payments as income for the purposes of universal credit on people in receipt of that payment.
Answered by Will Quince
No assessment has been made.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of extending eligibility to the Motability scheme for people in receipt of attendance allowance who have also been diagnosed with a terminal illness after state pension age.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Motability Scheme was designed to provide people entitled to mobility welfare payments with access to a vehicle. The Scheme is open to anyone who qualifies for the higher rate mobility component for Disability Living Allowance, the enhanced rate of the mobility component for Personal Independence Payment, the Armed Forces Independence Payment or War Pensioners Mobility Supplement.
Attendance Allowance is intended to help those with a severe disability who have long term care or supervision needs which arise after reaching State Pension age. It has never included a mobility component, and so cannot be used in payment for a leased Motability scheme vehicle. Government mobility support is focused on people who are disabled earlier in life; developing mobility needs in older life is a normal consequence of ageing, which non-disabled younger people have had opportunity to plan and save for.
Special rules apply to people considered to be terminally ill when applying for AA, DLA or PIP. However, there is no automatic entitlement to a mobility component of either DLA or PIP, and, while there would be no qualifying period, an eligible claimant would need to satisfy conditions for this entitlement.
Benefits such as DLA or PIP can continue beyond State Pension age for as long as the individual remains entitled. This would allow an individual with existing entitlement to retain their Motability vehicle.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of welfare support available to people receiving a cancer diagnosis after reaching state pension age.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Welfare support for pensioners, including those with cancer, could include Attendance Allowance which is intended to help those who have long term care or supervision needs. Pension Credit is also available to help those pensioners on low incomes, and as we set out in our Manifesto, this Government remains committed to a range of other pensioner benefits including the Winter Fuel Payment and free prescriptions, ensuring that older people have the security and dignity they deserve.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what assessment his Department has made of the need to provide financial support for employees made redundant before 23 September 2020 who cannot be furloughed and are not entitled to any statutory redundancy payment.
Answered by Will Quince
Universal Credit is in place to support claimants in difficult circumstances. The Government introduced a package of temporary welfare measures worth around £9.3 billion this year to help with the financial consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. This included the £20 weekly increase to the Universal Credit Standard Allowance rates as a temporary measure for the 20/21 tax year.
Our long-term ambition is to level up across the country and continue to tackle poverty through our reformed welfare system that works with the labour market to encourage people to move into and progress in work wherever possible.
Our £30bn Plan for Jobs is the first step on the ladder to achieving this and will support economic recovery through new schemes including Kickstart and Job Entry Targeted Support.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the need to remove the five-week wait for universal credit for employees made redundant prior to 23 September 2020 and who are not eligible for statutory redundancy pay.
Answered by Will Quince
Nobody in need has to wait for a payment under Universal Credit (UC). UC New Claim Advances allow eligible claimants to receive up to 100% of their estimated Universal Credit payment upfront within a few days. Claimants will receive their annual award over 13 payments during their first year, instead of 12. They are paid quickly and can be applied for online or over the phone. These upfront payments can be spread across two years instead of one from October 2021, as announced in the 2020 Budget.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many times the universal credit service has been unavailable since 23 March 2020; and for what reasons that service was unavailable on each of those occasions.
Answered by Will Quince
There have been over 3 million Universal Credit claims made since mid-March; six times the volume that the Department would typically receive. Despite that surge, the system is standing up to the challenge and demonstrating that resilience and scalability are integral parts its design, whilst maintaining high levels of payment timeliness.
There have been no unplanned outages of the Universal Credit online service since March 2020.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the capacity of the universal credit service to cope with demand for new online claims in the period since 23 March 2020; and what steps her Department is taking to minimise periods of unavailability of that service.
Answered by Will Quince
There have been over 3 million Universal Credit claims made since mid-March; six times the volume that the Department would typically receive. Despite that surge, the system is standing up to the challenge and demonstrating that resilience and scalability are integral parts its design, whilst maintaining high levels of payment timeliness.
There have been no unplanned outages of the Universal Credit online service since March 2020.
Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the finding of the Financial Conduct Authority that pension scammers take on average £91,000 from each of their victims, what assessment her Department has made of additional protections required to protect UK pensioners (a) in the UK and (b) overseas from pension transfer scams.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Action was taken by the Pension Regulator, Financial Conduct Authority, and Money Advice and Pension Service on 7 April pointing to the actions members should seek to take to safeguard against becoming victims of scams. Additional guidance was issued to trustees, and providers from both The Financial Conduct Authority and the Pensions Regulator to support them to produce suitable communications during the Covid-19 outbreak.
Please see links below for more information about the joint statement from Regulators and the Money Advice Service, and help available, produced by the Pension Protection Fund and supported by government.
https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/covid-19-savers-stay-calm-dont-rush-financial-decisions
https://www.ppf.co.uk/sites/default/files/file-2020-05/COVID-19-and-your-pension.pdf
All of Government is committed to safeguarding consumer savings amongst those based in the UK and living overseas with UK based pension savings. We have adopted a layered approach building from interventions to assist all pension savers seeking to access their pensions to those who are most at risk of scams.
For all pension savers aged 50 and over, in the lead up to accessing their pension savings, our aim is to support them make informed choices about their retirement income. We are therefore committed to replicating measures introduced by the FCA for contract based schemes for occupational pension schemes and requiring trustees to provide information to pensions savers from the age of 50, in a simpler format, to encourage savers to think about their retirement savings, choices and raise awareness of Pension Wise.
We want to encourage savers with to take appropriate guidance (currently provided by MAPS under the Pension Wise brand) when they exercise their Pension Freedoms by applying to access savings. Recent trials showed a nudge to guidance during the application process is effective. We want to present taking guidance as a natural part of the journey when individuals access their pension savings. We are working with the FCA on rules that would require managers of private pension schemes to Introduce parallel provisions.
Although the majority of transfers are to safe destinations there are still fraudsters who try to entice individuals to transfer to schemes for the purposes of relieving them of their pension savings.
To help protect people from pension scams, government has introduced an amendment to clause 125 in the Pension Schemes Bill 2020 limiting the statutory right to transfer The clause achieves two things:
In addition, the Government, working with the regulators and the Money and Pension Service, has been communicating with pension savers to alert them to the risk of scams in the current climate. DWP continues to communicate regularly on social media about the warning signs of a scam.