Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
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 claimants who are due to reach the end of their 12 month entitlement to contributions-based employment and support allowance before the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments has completed its work capability assessment by the end of 2021.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent estimate her Department has made of the average waiting time to process personal independence payment applications in (a) Scotland and (b) Fife.
Answered by Chloe Smith
We are committed to ensuring that people can access financial support through Personal Independence Payment (PIP) in a timely manner and reducing customer journey times for PIP claimants is a priority for the Department. We always aim to make an award decision as quickly as possible, taking into account the need to review all available evidence.
Average waiting times for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) new claims made under normal rules (i.e. excluding those processed under special rules for terminal illness, which typically take 3 days) are calculated as the median number of weeks from registration to DWP decision, and published as the “Average Actual Clearance Time”. For claims cleared in July 2021, which is the most recent data available:
(a) The Average (median) Actual Clearance Time for new claims in Scotland was 26 weeks.
(b) The Average (median) Actual Clearance Time for new claims in the Fife Local Authority was 26 weeks.
Notes:
Data Source: PIP Atomic Data Store (ADS)
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to her letter to the hon. Member for Glenrothes dated 13 August 2021, what progress she has made on the annual review meeting for the Cold Weather Payment Scheme.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
I can confirm that the annual review meeting has taken place. We will update Parliament on the outcome of this year’s review shortly.
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 18 May 2021 to Question 1111 on Universal Credit, what progress she is making on automating the identification of claimants impacted by the decision of the Court of Appeal in June 2020 in the case of Johnson, Woods, Barrett and Stewart v. the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
Answered by Will Quince
We have successfully delivered the automation which allows us to identify and take action when claimants are impacted by two earnings in the one assessment period.
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
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 help ensure that requests for National Insurance numbers are processed in an efficient and timely manner for people who have been granted a Turkish Businessperson visa.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
We recently reviewed the National Insurance number process for Turkish Businesspersons and introduced a more streamlined process for this group on 9th June 2021. The new process accepts the Biometric Residence Permit as evidence of their self-employment, removing the previous need for them to provide evidence that they were gainfully self-employed.
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent estimate she has made of the levels of child poverty in (a) Scotland and (b) Glenrothes constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
This Government is wholly committed to tackling poverty. Throughout the pandemic, our priority has been to support the most vulnerable including through spending an additional £7.4billion to strengthen the welfare system, taking our total expenditure on welfare support for people of working age to an estimated £112 billion in 2020/21.
National Statistics on the number and percentage of children in low income are published annually in the “Households Below Average Income” publication. Data for Glenrothes is unavailable due to insufficient sample size.
Latest statistics for the levels of children who are in low income in Scotland, covering 2019/20, can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/households-below-average-income-for-financial-years-ending-1995-to-2020,“children-hbai-timeseries-1994-95-2019-20-tables” in table 4.16ts (relative low income, before and after housing costs) and in table 4.22ts (absolute low income, before and after housing costs).
In the three years to 2019/20, the absolute child poverty rate, before housing costs, in Scotland was 17%, down 2 percentage points since the three years to 2009/10.
The Department now publishes supplementary official statistics on the number of children in low income families at constituency level. Children in Low Income Families data is published annually.
The latest figures on the number of children who are in low income in Glenrothes and in Scotland, covering 2019/20, can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-in-low-income-families-local-area-statistics-2014-to-2020/children-in-low-income-families-local-area-statistics-fye-2015-to-fye-2020.
Due to methodological differences, the figures in these two publications are not comparable
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
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 effect of the £20 uplift in universal credit on levels of child poverty in (a) Scotland and (b) Glenrothes constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
No assessment has been made.
This Government is wholly committed to supporting those on low incomes, including by increasing the living wage, and by spending an estimated £112 billion on welfare support for people of working age in 2020/21. This included around £7.4 billion of Covid-related welfare policy measures.
As the economy recovers, our ambition is to help people move into and progress in work as quickly as possible based on clear evidence around the importance of employment, particularly where it is full-time, in substantially reducing the risks of poverty. We are investing over £30 billion in our ambitious Plan for Jobs which is already delivering for people of all ages right across the country.
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress her Department has made on ensuring that monthly salaries are automatically reallocated within assessment periods for universal credit, where a claimant gets two monthly salary payments in a single assessment period following the decision made by the Court of Appeal in June 2020 in the case of Johnson, Woods, Barrett and Stewart v. the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
Answered by Will Quince
The legislation we introduced on 16th November 2020 provides a remedy to the Court of Appeal Judgment in the case of Johnson and others and allows us to reallocate monthly earnings to another assessment period. This means that claimants affected by this issue will have one salary payment taken into account in each assessment period rather than two.
To meet the Court of Appeal Judgment as soon as was practicable we introduced a solution based on a streamlined dispute process currently in place. This has enabled those who are affected to benefit under this regulation and claimants simply need to tell their work coach either in one of their regular discussions or via their journal if they think they are affected.
We expect to automate identification of affected claimants in mid-summer 2021. This will allow us to correct awards proactively before they are paid, without the need for the claimant to raise the issue.
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many complaints were received by the Child Maintenance Service in (a) 2020 and (b) 2019.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department has received CMS complaints in these years as follows:
| 2018/2019 | 2019/2020 | 2020/2021 |
Caseload | 475,200 | 515,600 | 548,400 |
Complaints | 7,235 | 10,315 | 6,196 |
The data includes both Collect & Pay and Direct Pay. It should be noted that each case has at least two customers associated with it (Paying and Receiving parents) and on occasion, there may be two complaints relating to a single case.
Asked by: Peter Grant (Scottish National Party - Glenrothes)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many complaints were received by the Child Maintenance Service in (a) 2020 and (b) 2019.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Dissolution.