Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the potential savings to the public purse of issuing the Winter Fuel Payment on a per-household basis.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
No such estimate has been made. The Winter Fuel Payment is already a household payment paid on an individual basis.
Winter Fuel Payments are typically £200 for a household with someone of State Pension age and £300 for a household with someone aged 80 or over.
Winter Fuel Payments are paid automatically, without the need to claim, based on information held by DWP.
Where a pensioner is receiving a relevant income-related benefit such as Pension Credit, whether as a single person or as part of a couple, one payment of £200 or £300 (depending on age) is made to that household. This is because Pension Credit is assessed and paid on a household basis.
State Pension is not assessed or paid on a household basis, so shared payments are made to individuals to reflect the household effect. For example, a couple, each under 80 and not on Pension Credit will receive a shared payment amount of £100 each.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will set out what (a) support and (b) safeguards are in place to assist adults with intellectual disabilities in completing benefit application forms; and whether information provided when applying for a welfare benefit can be (a) transferred and (b) reused in subsequent applications.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is committed to pursuing a just, equal and inclusive society, ensuring independence and control for all customers, including all disabled people and those with complex needs. This means we need to ensure that our customers have access to reasonable adjustments or additional support, to enable them to access benefits and our services.
We aim to support customers to access services independently but recognise some customers need the support of an appointee. The Department has a robust end-to-end process to fully assess both the customer and the proposed appointee to ensure suitability and prevent financial abuse. For customers without an appointee, and unable to complete forms through other channels, the DWP Visiting service can conduct home visits to provide support. Support is also offered within our Job centres.
The national DWP Visiting Service provides additional support across all service lines to customers who cannot access DWP services in any other way. A visit can be arranged for a customer if they need extra help to claim benefits, for example because they have complex needs, are disabled, are a vulnerable young person making a claim for the first time, have nobody else to support them or cannot claim benefits in any other way. Support visits if you need help to claim benefits - GOV.UK. Where further specialist help is required, DWP has a national network of 37 Advanced Customer Support Senior Leaders who can provide additional advice and support through the local networks they have built with external partners and organisations.
In some benefits there is an opportunity to share information. For example, Case Managers will occasionally cross reference information held on previous Employment Support Allowance (ESA) claims to build a more complete picture, where it is felt there are gaps or inconsistencies in evidence provided. However, specific information is required to support a Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claim to assess functionality across a range of activities. In this scenario, information provided for the purposes of other benefit claims would not be sufficient for this purpose. A further example of where information is shared across benefits would relate to an SR1 claim - special rules for end of life.
The Department continues to review the experience of users of its services and seeks to balance application simplicity with obtaining the information needed for an accurate award. A key objective of the DWPs Service Modernisation Programme is assessing how people locate, access, and navigate support, including making new applications and ensuring that services are designed around the needs of DWP customers and joined up wherever it is possible to do so.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has considered changes to the benefits system to reflect increases in costs for (a) building and contents insurance, (b) home maintenance, (c) boiler servicing and (d) other homeowner-related costs, in the context of those costs not usually applying to renters.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department has not recently considered changes to the benefit system to reflect increases in costs for (a) building and contents insurance, (b) home maintenance, (c) boiler servicing and (d) other homeowner-related costs.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
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 support pensioners on the poverty line.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The last Labour government lifted over one million pensioners out of poverty, and this government – despite having to make the tough decisions to deal with our fiscal inheritance – remains absolutely committed to supporting pensioners and giving pensioners the dignity and security they deserve in retirement.
We will honour our commitment to the Triple Lock throughout this parliament with a 4.1% increase to the basic State Pension and the new State Pension this April, and we are also increasing the standard minimum guarantee in Pension Credit by 4.1%. As such, according to the latest OBR projections, the full yearly rate of the new State Pension is forecast to increase by around £1,900 over the course of this parliament whilst the full yearly amount of the basic State Pension is forecast to increase by around £1,500.
The Government also offers an array of support to ensure pensioners remain comfortable and safe in the winter months. This includes direct financial help to low-income pensioners through Pension Credit, the Warm Home Discount and (in England & Wales) Cold Weather Payments and Winter Fuel Payments.
We know there are low-income pensioners who aren’t claiming Pension Credit and want to ensure as many people as possible have access to this support. We urge pensioners to check their eligibility. Pension Credit will passport them to receive Winter Fuel Payments in future, alongside other benefits. Our take-up campaign has been successful in boosting applications by 145% since July.
All pensioners will also continue to benefit from free eye tests, free NHS prescriptions and free bus passes.
Low-income pensioners and others struggling with the cost of living should contact their local council to see what further support may be available to them. They may be able to receive support from Council Tax Reduction, or through energy support programs – or through the Household Support Fund (a scheme providing discretionary support to those most in need towards the cost of essentials, such as food, energy and water). The Government has extended the Household Support Fund in England by a further year, (until 31 March 2026) – with funding of £742 million provided to enable this extension in England, plus additional funding for the devolved Governments to be spent at their discretion, as usual.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of making people with less than 12 months to live to automatically eligible for the Winter Fuel Payment.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
This Government remains completely committed to supporting pensioners and giving them the dignity and security they deserve in retirement.
Linking Winter Fuel eligibility to Pension Credit and other means tested benefits for pensioners, ensures the least well-off pensioners still receive the help they need; this includes people with a terminal illness who are eligible. There are no plans to change the eligibility criteria.
To ensure that Winter Fuel Payments are received by those on the lowest incomes, the Government is determined to do everything it can to maximise take-up of Pension Credit which provides a safety net for the pensioners on the lowest incomes and opens the door to other benefits including the Winter Fuel Payment.
For disabled pensioners or those with long-term health conditions, the “extra costs” disability benefits, including those provided for by the Scottish Government, provide a tax free, non-income-related contribution towards the extra costs people with a long-term health condition can face, such as additional heating costs. They are paid in addition to any other benefits received.
The Department supports people nearing the end of life through the Special Rules for End of Life (SREL). These enable people who are nearing the end of their lives to get faster, easier access to certain benefits, without needing to attend a medical assessment and without serving waiting periods – and, in most cases, they receive the highest rate of benefit. For many years, the Special Rules have applied to people who have 6 months or less to live and have now been changed so they apply to people who have 12 months or less to live.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what criteria her Department uses to determine which Personal Independence Payment recipients need to have a regular work capability assessment.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Personal Independence Payment is available to people with a long-term health condition or disability regardless of whether they are in work, training or education or not. As such, the PIP assessment looks at an individual’s ability to carry out a series of key everyday activities which are fundamental to living an independent life, such as their ability to prepare, cook and eat food, dress and undress, make budgeting decisions, manage and monitor their health condition, engage with other people, and plan and follow journeys.
The PIP assessment does not look at an individual’s capacity to undertake work or work-related activity. This is the purpose of the Work Capability Assessment which determines eligibility for Employment and Support Allowance and the additional health-related amount of Universal Credit.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will take steps to ensure that people with incomes (a) that fluctuate and (b) from multiple sources are accurately assessed for Universal Credit; and if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing (i) savings and (ii) earnings thresholds for Universal Credit.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Wherever possible, employed earnings are received through the Real Time Information (RTI) system used by employers to report Pay As You Earn (PAYE) data to HMRC (His Majesty s Revenue and Customs). RTI enables a customer’s Universal Credit award to be automatically adjusted to reflect their earnings each month, which eases the reporting burden on customers.
If earnings are not reported through RTI for any reason, the customer needs to self-report their earnings.
Unearned income such as pension payments and certain benefits, including new style Jobseeker’s Allowance or new style Employment and Support Allowance are taken into account when calculating Universal Credit entitlement. Where these are not paid monthly they are calculated as a monthly equivalent. This is to reflect the Universal Credit monthly assessment period and to ‘smooth’ the calculation of award.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is required by law to undertake an annual review of benefits and State Pensions. The outcome of the Secretary of State’s review will be announced in the usual way.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with the reference to the UN Inquiry into the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in the UK, published in October 2016, what steps she is taking to help protect the human rights of disabled people.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This government is committed to boosting opportunity and protecting the rights of disabled people. We will work closely with disabled people and their representative organisations to ensure that their needs and voices are at the heart of everything we do.
As a first step, our Equality (Race and Disability) Bill will enshrine in law the full right to equal pay for disabled people and disability pay gap reporting for large employers.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
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 number of people in receipt of both Child Maintenance payments and Universal Credit.
Answered by Paul Maynard
At the end of the quarter ending September 2023, 353,000 Receiving Parents were also claiming Universal Credit.
Please note that Child Maintenance payments are not considered during the calculation of Universal Credit and Figures have been rounded to the nearest 1,000.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
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 ensure that universal credit payments are not affected by child maintenance.
Answered by Jo Churchill
Child Maintenance payments are not taken into account in the calculation of Universal Credit.