Asked by: Yvonne Fovargue (Labour - Makerfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of insomnia on the likelihood of people not being in employment or training.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
No assessment has been made. However, the Government has funded an extension of the Midlands’ Mental Health and Productivity Pilot, which is trialling interventions, including one with a focus on insomnia, to support and improve employee mental health and wellbeing, to support employees to remain in work. The final evaluation will be available by Spring 2024.
In addition, a range of Government initiatives are supporting disabled people, and people with health conditions, including insomnia, to start, stay, and succeed in, work. These include:
Asked by: Yvonne Fovargue (Labour - Makerfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she plans to introduce further measures on prevention of respiratory conditions in the workplace.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) continues its activity to help prevent work related respiratory ill health by using the best available evidence to design interventions that will improve health outcomes. HSE delivers a wide range of regulatory activity to prevent work related respiratory ill health, focusing on steps employers and workers can take to control occupational exposures.
Asked by: Yvonne Fovargue (Labour - Makerfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she plans to introduce real-time exposure monitoring for workers exposed to respirable crystalline silica.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is aware of developments in real time monitoring instruments claiming to measure aerosols containing respirable crystalline silica (RCS) onsite.
HSE will continue to monitor developments, as validation data to confirm accuracy remains limited. As with all advances in technology claims made for any of these instruments would need to be examined further and substantiated with robust data.
Asked by: Yvonne Fovargue (Labour - Makerfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she has taken to help reduce exposure to respirable crystalline silica in the workplace.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has a well-established regulatory framework in place to protect workers from the health risks associated with exposure to hazardous substances at work.
Under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (COSHH) employers have a duty to prevent or adequately control worker exposure to hazardous substances such as Respirable Crystalline Silica (RCS). COSHH sets out the hierarchy of control that must be implemented and, if managed appropriately, should result in achieving a level below the Work Exposure Limit (WEL) as detailed in HSE Guidance ‘EH40/2005, Workplace exposure limits’.
HSE also delivers communications campaigns to support its regulatory activity. These campaigns inform duty holders and workers of the hazards faced and how these should be controlled and monitored. HSE’s dust campaign which ran in late 2021, included silica exposure, and involved social media and press activity to support awareness of the risks and how to control them.
Asked by: Yvonne Fovargue (Labour - Makerfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she plans to make silicosis a notifiable disease under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR) are made under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and apply to all sectors and workplaces in Great Britain.
The 2013 regulations clarified and simplified the list of reportable ill-health conditions (occupational diseases), as a result of a recommendation made by Professor Löfstedt in his report “Reclaiming health and safety for all: An independent review of health and safety legislation,” published in 2011.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) keeps the regulations, including specified injuries and reportable diseases, under review. The list of current reportable occupational diseases, including silicosis, will be considered as part of the next formal post-implementation review of RIDDOR, which is due to report in October 2023. HSE will engage with a range of stakeholders as part of the review process.
Asked by: Yvonne Fovargue (Labour - Makerfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will reduce the Workplace Exposure Limit in the UK for silica related work to 0.05 mg/m3 in line with other countries.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) does not currently intend to review the Workplace Exposure Limit (WEL) of Respirable Crystalline Silica (RCS) in Great Britain. HSE contributed to the more recent European Union (EU) assessment of the limit in January 2019, where the EU reclassified RCS as a carcinogen and implemented the same occupational exposure limit as already existed in GB.
HSE will continue to monitor international developments in this area and the evidence base to consider the range of interventions that might be suitable, including any change to the exposure limit in GB.
Asked by: Yvonne Fovargue (Labour - Makerfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will introduce an industry awareness campaign on the potential effects of exposure to silica.
Answered by Chloe Smith
Over the last three years the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has delivered several month-long inspection campaigns encompassing risks arising from silica in the construction industry. These campaigns also ran over the period impacted by coronavirus restrictions. HSE used these campaigns to highlight risks from dust, including silica, and used repeated messaging to drive sustained behaviour changes. The campaigns involved inspectors across the country visiting around 1000 sites identified as being likely to have dust risks present.
HSE also delivers communications campaigns to support its regulatory activity. These campaigns inform duty holders and workers of the hazards faced and how these should be controlled and monitored. HSE’s dust campaign which ran in late 2021, included silica exposure, and involved social media and press activity to support awareness of the risks and how to control them.
Asked by: Yvonne Fovargue (Labour - Makerfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people in Makerfield constituency have (a) opted out after being auto-enrolled into a workplace pension and (b) saved more than the auto-enrolment minimum contribution.
Answered by Guy Opperman
Automatic enrolment has achieved a quiet revolution through getting employees into the habit of pension saving, and reversing the decline in workplace pension participation in the decade prior to these reforms. Since automatic enrolment started in 2012 participation rates have been transformed with 87% of eligible employees saving into a workplace pension in 2018, up from 55% in 2012.
The Department does not hold data for individual constituencies in relation to opt outs or the number of individuals who have saved above the automatic enrolment minimum contribution level. However, we do know that overall around 9% of automatically enrolled workers have chosen to opt out which is significantly below original estimates; and our latest evaluation report shows that, in April 2017, approximately 5.9 million eligible employees were already meeting the April 2019 minimum contribution rates1.
I am providing the following information about the impact of automatic enrolment in your constituency, as at end of September 20192:
In the Makerfield constituency since 2012, approximately 5,000 eligible jobholders have been automatically enrolled and 1200 employers have met their duties.
1Automatic Enrolment Evaluation Report 2018, available via the following weblink: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/764964/Automatic_Enrolment_Evaluation_Report_2018.pdf.
2The Pensions Regulator’s data on Automatic enrolment declaration of compliance by constituency, available via the following weblink:
https://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/en/document-library/research-and-analysis/data-requests
Asked by: Yvonne Fovargue (Labour - Makerfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people have had deductions from their universal credit of (a) 40 per cent and (b) 30 per cent for the repayment of advances on that benefit.
Answered by Lord Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Of the eligible Universal Credit Full Service claims due a payment in October 2018 (990,000 claims – rounded to the nearest 10,000):
The claim count figures in this text will not match the official statistics due to methodological differences.
At Autumn Budget 2018 we announced that from October 2019, we will reduce the maximum rate at which deductions can be made from a Universal Credit award from 40% to 30% of the standard allowance. The total saving for claimants is £25 million in 2019/20, increasing to £65 million in 2023/24.
This is detailed in Table 1.8 in the Budget 2018 which can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/budget-2018-documents/budget-2018
This will ensure that those on Universal Credit are supported to repay debts in a more sustainable and manageable way. Additionally, from October 2021, the government will also increase the period over which advances will be recovered, from 12 to 16 months.
Asked by: Yvonne Fovargue (Labour - Makerfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people have had more than 40 per cent deducted from their universal credit payment to repay a combination of (a) advance payments of that benefit and (b)(i) utility debts and (ii) council tax arrears.
Answered by Lord Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The Department does not have access to data outlining third party deductions by deduction type. As such, to provide this data would incur disproportionate cost.