Asked by: Tracy Brabin (Labour (Co-op) - Batley and Spen)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many households in the (a) Batley and Spen and (b) West Yorkshire are in receipt of the £20 per week uplift to Universal Credit.
Answered by Will Quince
The latest available statistics on the number of households with Universal Credit in payment, by parliamentary constituency and other geographical breakdowns, 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
Asked by: Tracy Brabin (Labour (Co-op) - Batley and Spen)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of families that use the childcare element of universal credit have at least one family member who is self-employed.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
Based on our internal data, around 10 per cent of Universal Credit Full Service payments containing a childcare element, have at least one person in receipt of self-employed earnings.
Asked by: Tracy Brabin (Labour (Co-op) - Batley and Spen)
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 merits of including in universal credit financial support for administration costs when a child starts a childcare place.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
Universal Credit claimants are able to claim up to 85% of childcare costs. Universal Credit childcare costs can be claimed for one month prior to starting work, to enable a child to settle into a new routine. In addition, the Flexible Support Fund is also available to help parents pay childcare deposits or up-front fees.
Asked by: Tracy Brabin (Labour (Co-op) - Batley and Spen)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 20 June 2018 to Question 155896 on Children: Day Care, for what reason she will not make that analysis available.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Entitlement to Universal Credit is determined by first assessing what a claimant qualifies for, for example, housing costs and caring responsibilities. This can include childcare of up to 85% of eligible costs, up to a limit of £1,108.04 for two or more children.
The conclusion that very few people are affected by the limits described comes from analysis using the DWP Policy Simulation Model, based on the Family Resources Survey. [The PSM is a static microsimulation model which describes the tax and benefit system of the GB population]. It produces financial outputs on a representative sample of the GB population simulating a policy. The analysis in question is based on forecasts which we produce for planning purposes and forecasting during fiscal events. It models the legacy and Universal Credit system, and in particular the childcare policy described above. Upon interrogation of the models, we found that while a handful of cases were affected by the limits above, the number of these were too few to report statistically.
Asked by: Tracy Brabin (Labour (Co-op) - Batley and Spen)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Treasury's response to the Treasury Committee's Ninth Report of Session 2017-19 on Childcare, if she will publish the internal analysis on families reaching the Universal Credit childcare costs support cap.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
There are no plans to publish this analysis.
Asked by: Tracy Brabin (Labour (Co-op) - Batley and Spen)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reason maternity pay is not available to people undertaking guardianship orders.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP), and Maternity Allowance (MA), are primarily health and safety provisions. They provide a measure of earnings replacement to help women who have worked during their pregnancies to stop working towards the end of them, and in the months after childbirth, in the interests of their own and their babies’ health and wellbeing.
As there is no associated period of pregnancy for people granted guardianship of a child or children they would not be able to make a claim for either SMP or MA in relation to those children.
Asked by: Tracy Brabin (Labour (Co-op) - Batley and Spen)
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 proportion of families which have claimed the upper limit of the childcare entitlement element of universal credit for whom that support represented less than 85% of their childcare costs since the introduction of that benefit.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Entitlement to Universal Credit is determined by first assessing what a claimant qualifies for, for example, housing costs and caring responsibilities. This can include childcare of up to 85% of eligible costs, up to a limit of £1,108.04 for two or more children.
All relevant qualifying amounts are combined into a gross entitlement figure. Once this gross entitlement has been established, any income and earnings is deducted to produce the net entitlement figure. Income and earnings are deducted from the total entitlement and not a specific element (for example, that representing childcare costs). Therefore it is not possible to provide the calculation requested in the question.
Asked by: Tracy Brabin (Labour (Co-op) - Batley and Spen)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has made an assessment of the effectiveness of the childcare payment support element of Universal Credit on the ability of claimants of Universal Credit to access 30 hours of fee childcare in areas where it has been rolled out.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
No assessment has been made on this specific issue. Support for childcare costs, on top of the 30 hours free entitlement, is available through Universal Credit. Up to 85% of costs are within scope, in contrast to 70% in tax credits.
Asked by: Tracy Brabin (Labour (Co-op) - Batley and Spen)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reasons universal credit recipients are required to take physical receipts of childcare to a job centre in order to receive the contribution her Department makes towards childcare costs.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Experience from Tax Credits shows there is a need for a higher level of verification of childcare costs. Claimants only have to provide physical receipts at the start of the claim and if they have a change in childcare arrangements, such as a change in childcare provider. Claimants can choose to either post in their receipts, or can make an appointment to see their Work Coach, whichever is most convenient for the claimant.
We are currently developing a new functionality for Universal Credit online accounts, which will allow claimants to upload evidence of their childcare costs via their online Universal Credit account. This new function should be available to use in Spring 2018, making it even easier for claimants to provide evidence of these costs.
Asked by: Tracy Brabin (Labour (Co-op) - Batley and Spen)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the number of two year olds that will be in families in receipt of universal credit when that benefit is fully rolled out.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The number of two year olds that will be in families in receipt of Universal Credit when that benefit is fully rolled out is estimated at 440,000 (rounded to the nearest 10,000).