Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of providing inflation-linked increases to the amounts payable by the Pension Protection Fund to people with pre-April 1997 pensionable service.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Labour government set up the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) to pay a meaningful level of compensation to DB scheme members where the sponsoring employer becomes insolvent.
The PPF is fundamentally funded by a levy on eligible schemes. Therefore, any decision to increase either the level of compensation, or to provide inflation increases to pensions built up before April 1997, would result in significant increases to levy payers. It is not proposed to change the present law.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
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 cost of extending inflation-linked increases to the amounts payable by the Pension Protection Fund to people with pre-April 1997 pensionable service.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Labour government set up the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) to pay a meaningful level of compensation to DB scheme members where the sponsoring employer becomes insolvent.
The PPF is fundamentally funded by a levy on eligible schemes. Therefore, any decision to increase either the level of compensation, or to provide inflation increases to pensions built up before April 1997, would result in significant increases to levy payers. It is not proposed to change the present law.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what information his Department holds on the number of people receiving benefits due to expending their personal pension in the most recent period for which information is available.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The information requested is not available.
Under the pension freedoms people with defined contribution pensions are able to draw capital or an income from their pensions from 55 years of age. If they do so, this will be taken into account in the assessment of their benefits entitlement. There are safeguards in place to deter people from deliberately spending their pension income in order to gain benefits.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many female unemployment benefit claimants between the ages of 55 and 64 have secured jobs through job centres in Blaenau Gwent during the last three years.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Benefit claimants are not required to report their destination to Jobcentre Plus when they stop claiming benefit. However, as we roll out Universal Credit, we expect to be able to use Real Time Information (RTI) to track claimant outcomes.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of constituents in Blaenau Gwent have had their personal independence payments overturned as a result of (a) mandatory reconsideration and (b) an appeal hearing in each year for which data is available.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
Table 1 below shows the number of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) initial decisions and Mandatory Reconsideration decisions where the award was changed by year since the introduction of PIP in the Parliamentary Constituency of Blaenau Gwent.
Table 1 – Number of Initial decisions and Mandatory Reconsiderations decisions where the award changed by year of decision.
Year of Initial Decision | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 (to April) | Total |
Number of Initial decisions for PIP (Exc. Withdrawn cases) | 50 | 1,280 | 1,370 | 1,510 | 990 | 5,180 |
Year of Mandatory Reconsideration | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 (to April) | Total |
Number of Awards Changed at Mandatory Reconsideration | # | 20 | 70 | 60 | 30 | 180 |
Tribunal Statistics, including appeal outcomes are published by the Ministry of Justice and so we will not be able to provide consistent regional breakdown of these statistics for Blaenau Gwent.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of constituents in Blaenau Gwent who were categorised as lifelong recipients of disability living allowance were subsequently judged as ineligible for personal independence payments in each year for which data is available.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what information his Department has on the number and proportion of children living in poverty in Blaenau Gwent in each year for which data is available.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
National statistics on the number of children in relative low income are set out in the annual "Households Below Average Income" publication. The number and proportion of children in relative low income is not available at local authority or constituency level in this publication because the survey sample sizes are too small to support the production of robust estimates at this geography.
Latest 3-year estimates for Wales of the proportion of children in low income are available in Table 4.16ts in the file “4_children_timeseries_risk” from this link:
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the annual budget is for food produced for his Department's offices; and what proportion of food produced for his Department was sourced from British producers in the last period for which figures are available.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Since 1998 the Department for Work and Pensions has outsourced the provision and maintenance for the majority of its estate to Telereal Trillium under a 20 year Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract that expires on 31 March 2018.
Under the terms of the contract, Telereal Trillium provides fully-serviced accommodation, including the provision of catering services. Telereal Trillium provide catering through their Service Partners, Compass Group. The Department pays an all-inclusive facility unit price for sites and we are unable to separate the costs for catering.
The amount of food sourced from British producers for DWP was 42% (Jan – Mar 2016). This figure does not include the considerable spend on non-indigenous products purchased for use in the DWP contract with large volumes of coffee as well as rice, pasta, tea, banana's, citrus, exotic fruits etc. Additionally as this period falls in winter some UK seasonal products are not available so have been procured from the EU.
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of dairy products procured for his Department was sourced from British producers in the latest period for which figures are available.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Since 1998 the Department for Work and Pensions occupies space provided through a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) known as the PRIME Contract.
Under the terms of this PFI Contract the Department leases fully serviced accommodation from our private sector partner Telereal Trillium. This Contract provides a variety of facility management services which include catering services.
The proportion of dairy products procured by Telereal Trillium for resale in staff restaurants and retail outlets sourced from British producers for the period January – March 2016 is as follows:
DWP Dairy Jan-March 2016 | |||
Dairy Sub-Category | Total Spend | UK Sourced | British % |
Milk | £36,347.37 | £36,347.37 | 100% |
Cheese | £24,494.74 | £15,181.69 | 62% |
Yoghurt | £5,406.24 | £5,406.24 | 100% |
Butter | £4,468.50 | 0.00 | 0% |
Cream | £1,318.58 | £994.84 | 75% |
Cheese 62% - A number of non–indigenous cheese lines are procured from the EU.
Butter 0% - Spend on butter is low and it is sourced from Ireland
Asked by: Nick Smith (Labour - Blaenau Gwent)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the total advertising budget is for the campaign to promote the New Enterprise Allowance; and how much has been spent on (a) television, (b) newspaper, (c) online, (d) radio and (e) other advertising referring to that allowance in the last 24 months.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
In the last 24 months, the Department spent £25,150 (excluding VAT) on marketing activities to support the New Enterprise Allowance.
(a) Television – nil
(b) Newspaper – nil
(c) Online - £2,450
(d) Radio – nil
(e) Other – £22,700 (for posters, flyers and videos)