Asked by: Stephen Lloyd (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department has taken to tackle the disability pay gap in the last 12 months.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
This Government is committed to providing targeted support for people so that everyone is given the very best chance of getting into and then thriving in work.
From April 2019, Jobcentre Plus introduced an enhanced Disability Employment Adviser and a new Disability Employment Adviser Leader role, in total more than 800 individuals supporting Jobcentre colleagues to provide high quality services to disabled people and those with health conditions. One of the key transformational elements of Universal Credit is that it provides us with the opportunity to support people who are in work to progress and increase their earnings.
Using an Innovation Fund funded by DWP, DHSC, and NHS England we are testing initiatives to support disabled people and those with health conditions to get into, and then remain in, work.
The government published the voluntary reporting framework on disability, mental ill health and wellbeing in November 2018.This is aimed at large employers (over 250 employees) and it is recommended that they publically report on the pay and progression of disabled people at regular intervals. It can also be used to support smaller employers who are keen to drive greater transparency in their organisation or industry.
Asked by: Stephen Lloyd (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, (a) how many and (b) what proportion of disabled adults of working age in (i) England, (ii) Wales and (iii) Scotland received support from the Access to Work grant scheme in each of the last three years.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
When considering your questions, it should be noted that those that use the Access to Work scheme are not a direct subset of the disabled adults of working age. Robust proportions cannot be estimated by simply dividing figures for Access to Work by figures for number of disabled adults of working age. This is because the data would come from different data sources and are different data types.
To be eligible for Access to Work a person must be 16 or older, there is no upper age limit to eligibility therefore some people who receive Access to Work will not be considered working age (16-64 years old). Also Access to Work is available to those that have a disability or health condition (physical or mental) that makes it hard for them to do parts of their job or get to and from work therefore covers a broad range of people not just those who identify themselves as ‘disabled’.
When answering your question, we have interpreted ‘received support’ as received a payment.
The number of people who received a payment from Access to Work for each financial year can be found in Table 8 of the annual Access to Work Statistics publication. Table 8 shows the number of people who received a payment for any Access to Work provision by various customer characteristics including by region.
The latest Access to Work statistics can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/access-to-work-statistics-april-2007-to-march-2019
Please note, number of people for each region is based on residency of the beneficiary as opposed to place of work. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10.
Asked by: Stephen Lloyd (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many employees left employment in her Department due to (a) disability and (b) long-term health conditions in (i) 2016, (ii) 2017 and (iii) 2018.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities
The table below shows numbers of ill health retirements over the period requested.
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Asked by: Stephen Lloyd (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
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 disability employment gap in her Department.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The disability employment gap is the measure of the difference between the employment rate of disabled people and the employment rate of non-disabled people. It is not therefore something which can be measured at the level of a single organisation. The current disability employment gap in the UK is 28.9 percentage points.
Asked by: Stephen Lloyd (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has implemented the voluntary reporting framework on disability, mental health and well-being in the workplace introduced in November 2018.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The Department have implemented the framework and the report is due to be published by the end of October 2019.
Asked by: Stephen Lloyd (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department has taken to assess how the Pensions Dashboard could connect into private pension schemes using a federated Digital Identity.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The Government’s response to the consultation on pensions dashboards set out that it is the responsibility of the industry delivery group to agree a standardised level of digital identity to make dashboards work, working closely with industry and the government. We are clear that it must comply with the National Cyber Security Centre’s Good Practice Guide 45. Therefore, it will ultimately be the responsibility of the industry delivery group reporting to the Money and Pensions Service to identify a digital identity solution(s) for dashboards that meet these standards and to make a decision on whether those digital identity solution(s) use a federated digital identity.
Asked by: Stephen Lloyd (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Transport:
What progress has been made on the proposed dualling of the A27 east of Lewes to Eastbourne.
Answered by Michael Ellis
The Department is considering this proposal alongside the many others put forward for possible inclusion in the second Road Investment Strategy. We intend to announce our decisions towards the end of this year.
Asked by: Stephen Lloyd (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the viability of the Verify scheme; and what role the private sector is planned to play in the future of that scheme.
Answered by Lord Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The Government Digital Service (GDS) and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have been working together on improvements to GOV.UK Verify for access to DWP digital services and the number of claimants who are successful when attempting to use GOV.UK Verify is steadily increasing.
DWP will continue to consider options to provide the easiest and most secure digital services for claimants and as such we're considering a range of other identity verification options which are easy to use and cost-effective for the Department. The Verify solution is part of the suite of products offered in this area. The assessment of all DWP identity solutions is a continuous process to ensure that we are meeting customer needs in the most cost effective way.
Discussions between Cabinet Office Government Digital Services, the owners of GOV.UK Verify are ongoing as to the role of the private sector post March 2020 and DWP, alongside all other Departments that use GOV.UK Verify, will be engaging in those conversations at the appropriate time.
Asked by: Stephen Lloyd (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what criteria his Department uses to determine the allocation of legal aid; and how his Department assesses the claims of families of victims of terrorist attacks against that criteria.
Answered by Paul Maynard
All individual case funding decisions are taken by the Legal Aid Agency (LAA). It is important that these decisions are, and are seen to be, free from political and Government influence.
Legal aid can be provided, if the matter or issue in question is within scope of the legal aid scheme, as defined in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO).
Legal aid is available for advice and assistance for all inquests, subject to a means and merits test. Legal aid funding for legal representation for a family, during an inquest hearing, is not in scope of LASPO.
The Government recognises that for certain inquests, bereaved people may require representation; legal aid may therefore be available, through the Exceptional Case Funding scheme, if certain criteria are met:
(a) if a failure to provide such representation would breach, or likely risk a breach of, the government’s obligations under the European Convention of Human Rights, usually Article 2; or
where the Director of Legal Aid Casework (DLAC) makes a determination that there is a ‘wider public interest’ in legal representation being granted.
Asked by: Stephen Lloyd (Liberal Democrat - Eastbourne)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment each Department makes of the implications for climate change when making policy decisions.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
Government departments undertake a policy impact assessment when developing new legislation. Where relevant, impact assessments include consideration of how a policy may decrease or increase greenhouse gas emissions. This is reflected in our strong progress on climate change – we have reduced emissions by 42% since 1990, while growing our economy by two thirds, and transformed our power sector with over half of our electricity now coming from low carbon generation.