Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department's transparency data entitled DWP and CMG: spending over £500, August 2024, published on 24 October 2024, for what reason her Department spent (a) £1,249 at John Lewis, (b) £868 and £579 at Sam Turner Sons, (c) £679, £899 and £1,139 at Screwfix, (d) £1,436 at Next Day Catering, (e) £589 and £534 at Halfords, (f) £1,099 at Laurastar SA, (g) £629 on Singer Outlet, (h) 11 amounts with SE Online and (i) £999, £619, £619, £557 and £504 at Argos.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
All these transactions would fall into the ‘Barrier Spend’ Category which is where the Flexible Support Fund (FSF) should be considered to remove barriers that are; preventing claimants from moving closer to the job market, hindering a claimant’s search for work, preventing a claimant from accepting a firm job offer or moving into self-employment or preventing them from increasing their earnings, through increased hours or job change.
Examples of ‘barrier spend’ may include smart clothing for interviews or to start work, essential work wear (excluding safety wear as it is the employer’s duty to provide this), essential tools and equipment for specialist roles/sectors (ie chef’s knives). This could also include travel costs where the inability to afford travel is preventing access to an employment opportunity.
The SE online transactions are all for the purchase of ‘Travel expenses’ from the supplier ‘Southeastern Railways’. FSF travel payments can be made in advance if it removes the barrier of arriving to, and sustaining, employment. This includes customers taking on additional job(s) or additional hours in current job(s).
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 4 October 2024 to Question 4699 on Civil Servants: Political Impartiality, whether there have been disciplinary investigations of potential breaches of political impartiality restrictions by campaigning in elections by officials in her Department in the last 18 months.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information you have requested is not on a central system. Gathering this information would require input from team leaders and will incur disproportionate costs.
Within the Civil Service Code and re-iterated within the DWP’s Standards of Behaviour policy, is the statement that all Civil Servants must consistently demonstrate honesty, integrity, objectivity and impartiality in their conduct.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department's transparency data entitled DWP and CMG: spending over £500, July 2024, published on 3 September 2024, for what reason her Department spent (a) £533 at Back Market, (b) £580 at Bright Horizons, (c) £1259 at Cheltenham Mowers, (d) £699 and £599 at Currys, (e) £520 at Elya Catering, (f) £1,167 at Happy Days South West, (g) £555 at Moss Brows, (h) £527 at Argos,(i) £970 at Fitness Superstore and (j) multiple amounts with Trainline.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
All these transactions would fall into the ‘Barrier Spend’ Category which is where the Flexible Support Fund (FSF) should be considered to remove barriers that are a) preventing claimants from moving closer to the job market, b) hindering a claimant’s search for work, c) preventing a claimant from accepting a firm job offer or moving into self-employment or d) preventing them from increasing their earnings, either through increased hours or job change.
Examples of ‘barrier spend’ may include smart clothing for interviews or to start work, essential work wear (excluding safety wear as it is the employer’s duty to provide this), essential tools and equipment for specialist roles/sectors (ie chef’s knives). This could also include travel costs where the inability to afford travel is preventing access to an employment opportunity.
The Trainline transactions are all for the purchase of ‘travel expenses’. Trainline often offers the most price effective ways of travel. FSF travel payments can be made in advance if it removes the barrier of arriving to and sustaining employment. This includes customers taking on additional job(s) or additional hours in current job(s). Most of these transactions were for a monthly pass to allow someone to start employment within London. After the first monthly wage, they would then be able to sustain their own travel costs.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
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 impact of freezing state pensions on British citizens living overseas.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
No assessment has been made.
The UK's policy on the up-rating of the UK State Pension for recipients living overseas is a longstanding one. The UK state pension is payable worldwide without regard to nationality and is uprated abroad where we have a legal requirement to do so.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 31 October 2024 to Question 11172 on Workplace Pensions, what her planned timetable is for the Pensions Review.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Phase Two of the Governments landmark Pensions Review will launch later this year. The timetable for delivery will be published in due course as part of the Terms of Reference.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
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 adequacy of the criteria for auto-enrolment for workplace pensions in the Pensions (Extension of Automatic Enrolment) Act 2023.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Security in retirement is a key priority for this Government
We are undertaking a landmark Pensions Review, the second phase of which will consider further steps to improve pension outcomes, including assessing pension adequacy. This will consider options to build on the success of Automatic Enrolment, which has turned millions of people into pension savers.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether (a) a single pensioner aged 90 on £218.16 per week and (b) a pensioner couple aged 90 on £332.96 per week who (i) own their own home, (ii) have no savings and (iii) are in receipt of no other benefits will continue to receive winter fuel payments.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
A single pensioner aged 90 with a weekly income of £218.16 which doesn’t fall to be disregarded, for example, it’s made up of state pension or a personal pension, would not be entitled to the Guarantee Credit element of Pension Credit because their non-disregardable income is in excess of the standard minimum guarantee for a single person. However, they would be entitled to the Savings Credit element of Pension Credit and would therefore receive the Winter Fuel Payment.
A pensioner couple both aged 90 with a combined weekly income of £332.96 which, again doesn’t fall to be disregarded would not be entitled to the Guarantee Credit element of Pension Credit because their non-disregardable income is in excess of the standard minimum guarantee for a couple. They would, however, be entitled to the Savings Credit element of Pension Credit and would therefore receive the Winter Fuel Payment.
The Pension Credit calculator on gov.uk provides an estimate as to what Pension Credit, a person may have entitlement to.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of the number and proportion of people previously in receipt of the winter fuel payment who will no longer be eligible to receive it in each (a) local authority and (b) constituency.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The number and proportion of people previously in receipt of the winter fuel payment, who will no longer be eligible to receive it in each local authority and constituency can be derived using the following published statistics: winter-fuel-payments-caseload-2022-to-2023.ods (live.com) and Stat-Xplore - Table View (dwp.gov.uk).
These are 22/23 Winter Fuel Payment statistics and Feb-24 Pension Credit statistics.
Estimation of those who will no longer be eligible to receive Winter Fuel Payment can be calculated by subtracting the number of Pension Credit recipients for each local authority and constituency from the number of Winter Fuel Payment recipients for each local authority and constituency.
Please note that the Pension Credit data that is used should be based on the 2010 Westminster Parliamentary constituencies, not 2024 in order to be comparable with the Winter Fuel Payments statistics.
In addition to that, the above figures do not take into account any potential increase in Pension Credit take-up. We do not have data on those additional Pension Credit claims by Parliamentary constituencies or local authorities.
Also, the published Pension Credit figures refer to households, so the number of individuals will be higher (i.e. taking account of households where it is a couple claiming Pension Credit).
Furthermore, Pension Credit claimants are the majority of those that will be eligible for Winter Fuel Payments, not all. There are other pensioners who are eligible for Winter Fuel Payments (as they claim other means tested benefits) but they are not considered in these figures as it is not possible to do so.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many (a) people, (b) children and (c) pensioners were in absolute poverty in (i) May 2010 and (ii) the last month for which figures are available.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Statistics on the total number of people living in relative and absolute poverty both before and after housing costs are published annually in the Households Below Average Income statistics Households below average income (HBAI) statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Figures are produced on an annual basis and available for the breakdowns requested.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 23 July 2024 to Question 706 on Unemployment, what the headline level of economic inactivity was in (a) March-May 2010 and (b) the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The headline UK economic inactivity level was 9.433 million in March-May 2010 (based on people aged between 16 and 64). In March-May 2024 (the latest month for which figures are available) the UK economic inactivity level was 9.383 million.
The headline UK economic inactivity rate was 23.4% in March-May 2010 (this is also estimated on a 16-64 basis). In March-May 2024 (the latest month for which figures are available) the UK economic inactivity rate was 22.1%.
The UK has experienced a rise in economic inactivity since the pandemic. The economic inactivity level has risen by 833,000 since the pre-pandemic level, with economic inactivity due to long-term sickness rising to 2.8m. The UK remains the only nation in the G7 with an economic inactivity rate higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic.