Asked by: Stephen Hepburn (Independent - Jarrow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants of employment and support allowance in (a) Jarrow constituency, (b) South Tyneside, (c) the North East and (d) the UK have received a sanction of their benefit in each of the last five years.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Sanctions are only used in a small percentage of cases, and that is when people fail to meet their agreed commitments without good reason. When considering whether a sanction is appropriate, a Decision Maker will take all the claimant’s individual circumstances, including any health conditions or disabilities, domestic emergencies and any evidence of good reason, into account before deciding whether a sanction is warranted.
The latest Benefit Sanction Statistics (for Great Britain), released in February 2019, show that just 0.03% of ESA claimants in the Work Related Activity Group had a reduction in benefit as a result of a sanction.
The number of Employment and Support Allowance claimants who have been sanctioned by parliamentary constituency, local authority and region is published at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance for users is available at:
https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
Asked by: Stephen Hepburn (Independent - Jarrow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants of employment and support allowance in (a) Jarrow constituency, (b) South Tyneside, (c) the North East and (d) the UK have disputed a sanction to their benefit in each of the last five years.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Statistics on Employment and Support Allowance claimants in Great Britain* who have been sanctioned, including information on decision outcome, type, referral reasons and appeals across local authority and region is published and can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
* The Northern Irish Assembly has devolved responsibility for social security benefits. The responsibility for statistics in Northern Ireland lies with the Department for Communities.
Asked by: Stephen Hepburn (Independent - Jarrow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants of employment and support allowance in (a) Jarrow constituency, (b) South Tyneside, (c) the North East and (d) the UK who have disputed a sanction to their benefit in each of the last five years have had their sanction overturned after they were reconsidered.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Statistics on Employment and Support Allowance claimants in Great Britain* who have been sanctioned, including information on decision outcome, type, referral reasons and appeals across local authority and region is published and can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
* The Northern Irish Assembly has devolved responsibility for social security benefits. The responsibility for statistics in Northern Ireland lies with the Department for Communities.
Asked by: Stephen Hepburn (Independent - Jarrow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants of employment and support allowance in (a) Jarrow constituency, (b) South Tyneside, (c) the North East and (d) the UK who have received a sanction to their benefit in each of the last five years have had their sanction overturned following an appeal to a Tribunal.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Statistics on Employment and Support Allowance claimants in Great Britain* who have been sanctioned, including information on decision outcome, type, referral reasons and appeals across local authority and region is published and can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
* The Northern Irish Assembly has devolved responsibility for social security benefits. The responsibility for statistics in Northern Ireland lies with the Department for Communities.
Asked by: Stephen Hepburn (Independent - Jarrow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants of employment and support allowance in (a) Jarrow constituency, (b) South Tyneside, (c) the North East and (d) the UK who have disputed a sanction to their benefit in each of the last five years have had their sanction overturned after they were reconsidered or successful appeals were made.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Statistics on Employment and Support Allowance claimants in Great Britain* who have been sanctioned, including information on decision outcome, type, referral reasons and appeals across local authority and region is published and can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
* The Northern Irish Assembly has devolved responsibility for social security benefits. The responsibility for statistics in Northern Ireland lies with the Department for Communities.
Asked by: Stephen Hepburn (Independent - Jarrow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of new claims for universal credit in (a) Jarrow constituency, (b) South Tyneside, (c) the North East and d) the UK were processed (i) within five weeks, (ii) between five and ten weeks and (iii) in ten weeks or longer in the most recent 12 months for which data are available.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The latest official statistics were published on 19 February 2019 and can be accessed on Gov.UK at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/universal-credit-29-april-2013-to-10-january-2019
This release provides the latest data on payment timeliness for new Universal Credit claims. Future official statistics will include additional breakdowns of payment timeliness. Longer term we will publish further Universal Credit statistical releases and continue to commission and publish ad-hoc statistical releases.
Asked by: Stephen Hepburn (Independent - Jarrow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment the Government has made of the effect on low-income families of the roll-out of universal credit in (a) Jarrow constituency, (b) South Tyneside and (c) the North East.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
When fully rolled out, Universal Credit will support households with around £62 billion a year across the whole of Great Britain. In addition, Universal Credit covers up to 85% of childcare costs, up from 70% in the old system.
The Department has made no assessment specifically in Jarrow, South Tyneside or the North East specifically. However, we continue to evaluate progress as we roll out Universal Credit nationally in a careful and co-ordinated way, reviewing against key measures, to ensure safe and secure delivery.
Work is the best route out of poverty, and Universal Credit is designed to strengthen incentives to move into and progress in work.
Asked by: Stephen Hepburn (Independent - Jarrow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many benefit sanctions have been issued to people in (a) Jarrow constituency, (b) South Tyneside and (c) the North East in receipt of (i) jobseekers allowance, (ii) employment and support allowance and (iii) universal credit in each of the last five years.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The available information on Jobseeker’s Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support and Universal Credit sanction decisions by parliamentary constituency is published and can be accessed at: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
The Department publishes quarterly statistics on sanctions, including a breakdown by sanction referral reason, as part of the Benefit Sanction Statistics publication:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/jobseekers-allowance-sanctions
We take a number of steps to make sure our decisions are fair. When considering whether a sanction is appropriate, a Decision Maker will take all the claimant’s individual circumstances, including any health conditions or disabilities and any evidence of good cause, into account before deciding whether a sanction is warranted.
Asked by: Stephen Hepburn (Independent - Jarrow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent estimate she has made of the number and proportion of unemployed people who are entitled to claim (a) jobseeker's allowance and (b) universal credit but are not doing so in (i) Jarrow constituency, (ii) South Tyneside and (iii) the North East.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer to PQ192726, answered on 27 November 2018.
Asked by: Stephen Hepburn (Independent - Jarrow)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent representations she has received from women in Jarrow constituency affected by measures taken to equalise the state pension age; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The policy of increasing State Pension age due to changes in life expectancy and equality legislation is enshrined in the 1995, 2007 and 2011 Pensions Act. It is a policy agreed by all governments in the last 23 years whatever their political persuasion – in 1995 Conservative, Labour in 1997-2010 and Coalition 2010-2015.
The Department for Work and Pensions receives a number of recent representations on the measures taken to equalise the State Pension age from individuals and from Members of Parliament writing on their behalf, as it does on many issues. We are unable to state specifically how many representations are from Jarrow constituency
This matter has been comprehensively debated on many occasions in Parliament. The Government will not be making changes to its policy on state pension age for women born in the 1950s.