Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what information his Department holds on trends in the number of people with problem debt; and if he will make an assessment of the implications for his policies of those trends.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP Debt Management holds information on people owing monies to DWP (benefit debt recovery) but does not hold data on general, personal/household indebtedness.
Problem debt statistics are published by the Office for National Statistics.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 6 March 2024 to Question 15819 on UK Border Force: Corruption, if he will provide a breakdown of the allegations and referrals received by the Border Force Joint Anti-Corruption Intelligence Team by type in 2023.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
As the public rightly expect, we demand the highest standards from our Border Force officers and have measures in place to prevent and tackle corruption. There were 204 allegations and referrals received by Border Force Joint Anti-Corruption Intelligence Team in 2023, broken down as follows:
Type of allegation/referral | Number of allegations/referrals |
Conspiracy Cross Border Offences | 54 |
Crime | 42 |
Vulnerable | 22 |
Risk from associates | 21 |
Local management issues | 44 |
Not Border Force | 6 |
Assist key partner | 15 |
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many investigations have been undertaken by his Department's professional standards unit in each year since 2015, broken down into the categories of (a) immigration, borders and citizenship, (b) policing and (c) counter-terrorism.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The requested information is not centrally held, and complying with this request would incur a disproportionate cost to the department.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of reducing the maximum benefit deduction rate for people on Universal Credit.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The primary aim of the deductions in Universal Credit is to protect claimants by providing a last resort repayment method for arrears of essential services.
Making deductions from a claimant’s benefit is a cost effective and efficient mechanism to recover third party debt and benefit debt. Regulations protect claimants from excessive deductions. There are limits set for individual deduction items, there is also an overall deduction cap set at 25% of standard allowance, although where necessary to support the claimant, this can be exceeded for rent and fuel debts.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has made an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of the findings in the Christians Against Poverty report entitled Pushed under, pushed out, published on 12 March 2024, relating to the impact of high debt repayments on people's living standards.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
No formal assessment has been made.
Asked by: Siobhain McDonagh (Labour - Mitcham and Morden)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his policies of the report entitled Pushed Under, Pushed Out, published by Christians Against Poverty on 12 March 2024.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
No formal assessment has been made.