Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Honiton)
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 - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
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 - Tiverton and Honiton)
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 - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Child Maintenance payments are not taken into account in the calculation of Universal Credit.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Honiton)
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 the Child Maintenance Service enforces the collection of child maintenance payments from parents who are not living with their children.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) has a range of enforcement powers at its disposal to ensure parents meet their financial obligations to their children.
These include deductions directly from earnings and bank accounts, using Enforcement Agents (previously known as bailiffs) to take control of goods, forcing the sale of property, removal of driving licence or UK passport or even commitment to prison.
In 2023, The Government supported The Child Support (Enforcement) Act. This will allow the Child Maintenance Service to streamline the enforcement process by removing the requirement to obtain a court issued liability order and instead allow the Secretary of State to issue an administrative liability order. This will replace the court-based system and speed up the enforcement process.
In October 2023, The Government consulted on "Accelerating Enforcement" to inform proposed regulations to support the introduction of administrative liability orders. We will be publishing the Government response shortly.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Honiton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate his Department has made of the number of people who will not meet the 35 qualifying years in order to receive the full new State Pension due to prolonged periods of low-income work.
Answered by Laura Trott - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Government has made no such assessment.
The Government has ensured that people with earnings below the Primary Threshold continue to have their entitlement to State Pension protected. Although the Primary Threshold, when people start making National Insurance Contributions, has increased from £190 to £242 per week in 2022/23, the Lower Earnings Limit (LEL) remains at £123 per week in 2022/23 (£6396 per annum). The LEL is the level of earnings above which people are treated as having paid National Insurance, even though they have not paid Contributions.
People with earnings from a single employer above the LEL, receive a Qualifying Year of National Insurance, which counts towards their State Pension eligibility. For people on low incomes, there is a wide range of National Insurance credits available, including people in receipt of Universal Credit, ensuring they can achieve the best possible State Pension outcome when they reach State Pension age. Information about these can be found on www.gov.uk/national-insurance-credits/eligibility.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Honiton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to ensure low-paid workers do not miss out on receiving the full new State Pension due to zero rate National insurance Contributions.
Answered by Laura Trott - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Government have ensured that people with earnings below the Primary Threshold continue to have their entitlement to State Pension protected. Although the Primary Threshold, when people start making National Insurance Contributions, has increased from £190 to £242 per week in 2022/23, the Lower Earnings Limit (LEL) remains at £123 per week in 2022/23 (£6396 per annum). The LEL is the level of earnings above which people are treated as having paid National Insurance, even though they have not paid Contributions.
People with earnings from a single employer above the LEL, receive a Qualifying Year of National Insurance, which counts towards their State Pension eligibility. For people on low incomes, there is a wide range of National Insurance credits available, including people in receipt of Universal Credit, ensuring they can achieve the best possible State Pension outcome when they reach State Pension age. Information about these can be found on www.gov.uk/national-insurance-credits/eligibility.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Honiton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people in receipt of Universal Credit (a) are economically inactive as of 28 November 2022 and (b) were subject to monthly deductions in the (i) 2019-20, (ii) 2021-22 and (iii) 2022-23 financial year.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
The number of people on Universal Credit, broken down by conditionality group, are published every month on Stat-Xplore, with the latest statistics currently available to 13 October 2022.
If needed, you can access guidance on how to extract the information required from Stat-Xplore.