Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many disability living allowance claimants have been sanctioned due to inability to attend a personal independence payments assessment since the introduction of such payments.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and Personal Independence Payment (PIP) do not operate a regime of sanctions.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 10 December 2015 to Question 18554, on housing benefit: social rented housing, what proportion of the estimated 80,000 claimants referred to in that answer are in receipt of (a) disability and (b) in-work benefits.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The estimated 80,000 claimants referred to in Question 18554 are not disabled for the purposes of the shared accommodation rate exemption. Above this figure there are some disabled claimants within this category who were identified as having rents above the relevant Local Housing Allowance rate. However as these are exempted from the policy they were not included in the original response.
Of the estimated 80,000, around 31% have self-declared disabilities which are not exempt from the shared accommodation rate. Of these around 18% are in receipt of disability benefits (DLA/PIP/AA) and around 13% are in receipt of either Housing Benefit or the housing element of Universal Credit and are in work.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 10 December 2015 to Question 18555, whether he is consulting on what exemptions should apply to the cap on housing benefit for single under-35 claimants in social housing; and whether changes to the applications of that cap will be implemented through new regulations.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The existing exemptions that already apply to private rented sector tenants aged less than 35 will be carefully considered prior to implementing the Local Housing Allowance rate for similar tenants living in the social rented sector. Consultation forms a part of the policy development.
This change will require legislative amendments.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will exempt adults with disabilities whose partner is unable to share the same bedroom due to that disability from the under-occupancy penalty.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Courts recently accepted that disability in itself does not mean that couples are unable to share a bedroom and administering an exemption would be extremely challenging.
Instead, to help people with difficult situations, the Government has provided additional Discretionary Housing Payment (DHP) funding. Since the introduction of this policy DHP funding has been as follows:
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to paragraph 1.123 of the Spending Review and Autumn Statement 2015, what assessment he has made of the effect of uprating the individual threshold in the minimum income floor for self-employed people on the household income of a tax credit claimant family with two children and one self-employed earner under the age of 25 earning £12,194 over the course of a year.
Answered by Priti Patel
There is no Minimum Income Floor (MIF) in the tax credit system.
In Universal Credit the MIF is designed to address issues in the current system which enable self-employed claimants to receive full State support while declaring low or zero earnings indefinitely.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in Salford and Eccles constituency are in receipt of (a) pension credit and (b) the carer addition.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The number of claimants in receipt of Pension Credit in Salford and Eccles constituency as at May 2015 is 4,750, of which 440 are also in receipt of the carer addition.
Source: DWP, 100% data.
Notes:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/207966/espa.pdf.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to paragraph 1.125 of the Spending Review and Autumn Statement 2015, what estimate he has made of the number of single claimants under 35 without dependent children living in social housing who are receiving more than the local housing allowance in housing benefit in (a) total and (b) each local authority.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
We estimate that there are approximately 80,000 single claimants under 35 without dependent children living in the social sector who currently receive more than the relevant local housing allowance rate. However, not all claimants in this category will be affected by the announced policy as it will only apply from April 2018, where a new tenancy is taken out or a tenancy is renewed after April 2016.
Tenants who take on a new tenancy or renew a tenancy will have the opportunity to consider whether they can afford to take on the property before committing to it. As such it is not possible to accurately estimate the proportion of single people without children that will be affected by this policy in 2018.
As the overall estimate is based on survey data, it is not possible to provide an estimate by Local Authority due to sample size issues.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to paragraph 1.125 of the Spending Review and Autumn Statement 2015, whether the cap on housing benefit for single claimants under 35 will apply to those in receipt of disability benefits.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The existing exemptions that already apply to private rented sector tenants aged less than 35 will be carefully considered prior to implementing the cap for similar tenants living in the social rented sector.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to paragraph 1.123 of the Spending Review and Autumn Statement 2015, what estimate he has made of the effect of uprating the individual threshold in the minimum income floor for self-employed people on the household income of a tax credit claimant family with two children and one self-employed earner under the age of 25 earning the national minimum wage.
Answered by Priti Patel
The government is committed to moving the UK from a high tax, high welfare, low wage society to a lower tax, lower welfare, higher wage society. This remains the case, and Universal Credit (UC) is delivering this.
UC is fundamentally different from the current legacy benefit system and supports people into work and encourages them to earn more.
Therefore there is no meaningful way of comparing an unreformed Tax Credit system with UC. The Government has committed to transitional arrangements as we reform the benefits and Tax Credit system. Those transferred by DWP from tax credits to UC will receive Transitional Protection. In addition, estimates of entitlements under UC of the sort requested will vary depending on assumptions on the level of earnings.
Asked by: Rebecca Long Bailey (Labour - Salford and Eccles)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what modelling his Department has done to estimate the potential effect on household income for tax credit claimant families who are migrated to universal credit before 2020; and if he will place that modelling in the Library.
Answered by Priti Patel
The government is committed to moving the UK from a high tax, high welfare, low wage society to a lower tax, lower welfare, higher wage society. This remains the case, and Universal Credit (UC) is delivering this.
UC is fundamentally different from the current legacy benefit system and supports people into work and encourages them to earn more.
Therefore there is no meaningful way of comparing an unreformed Tax Credit system with UC. The Government has committed to transitional arrangements as we reform the benefits and Tax Credit system. Those transferred by DWP from tax credits to UC will receive Transitional Protection. In addition, estimates of entitlements under UC of the sort requested will vary depending on assumptions on the level of earnings.