Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an estimate of the cost of applying the £20 per week uplift to legacy benefit recipients which was provided to recipients of Universal Credit during the period covering the outbreak of covid-19.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

No such assessment has been made and it would incur disproportionate costs to make an estimate.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to tackle situations in which benefits may have been wrongly ended as a result of a lack of medical evidence related to the covid-19 outbreak.

Answered by Chloe Smith

DWP is not aware that there is a widespread issue where claims have been wrongly ended as a result of a lack of medical evidence. It might be helpful to note that to ensure ESA claimants received their payments on time, there was an easement in place on the requirement for medical evidence from the start of pandemic until summer 2020, when claimants could not easily access GPs. A similar easement was also applied between 17 December 2021 and 26 January 2022, to allow GPs to support the Covid-19 vaccine booster campaign.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans her Department has to support legacy benefit recipients who have been financially impacted by the covid-19 pandemic.

Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

Since the start of the pandemic, DWP has spent over £11.9bn to help families by investing in additional welfare and employment support. From 24 March, the COVID-19 provisions in the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) regulations will end. There are no other remaining legacy benefit provisions relating to COVID-19, but a wide range of benefits and other support is available to people who are receiving legacy benefits, subject to the normal conditions of entitlement.

The Government is committed to supporting families most in need, spending billions more on welfare and planning a long-term route out of poverty, by helping people to increase their hours in employment or to find new work through our Plan for Jobs and the new Way to Work campaign.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of benefit claims made when controls were suspended during the covid-19 outbreak have been reviewed by the Department; and where the Department found an inaccuracy, in how many cases the Department identified (a) fraud and (b) claimant error as the source of the inaccuracy.

Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

The Department has taken huge steps to reduce and minimise fraud and error, including during the last 20 months, at a time where the Department processed an additional 3 million new Universal Credit claims.

We have revisited over 900,000 high risk claims paid during the early period of Covid-19 with incorrectness being found in just over 11% of the claims reviewed. Internal records do not enable us to split the overpayments we found between fraud and claimant error.

Any overpayments identified will have been referred to DWP’s Debt Management Team for recovery action. The DWP’s Debt Management IT systems does not allows us to track these particular cases.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of benefit claims made when controls were suspended during the covid-19 outbreak have subsequently been reviewed by her Department; and in how many cases was (a) an overpayment identified (b) recovery action initiated.

Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

The Department has taken huge steps to reduce and minimise fraud and error, including during the last 20 months, at a time where the Department processed an additional 3 million new Universal Credit claims.

We have revisited over 900,000 high risk claims paid during the early period of Covid-19 with incorrectness being found in just over 11% of the claims reviewed. Internal records do not enable us to split the overpayments we found between fraud and claimant error.

Any overpayments identified will have been referred to DWP’s Debt Management Team for recovery action. The DWP’s Debt Management IT systems does not allows us to track these particular cases.

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 people affected by administrative errors made by her Department which led to the overpayment of benefits in (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) England during the covid-19 outbreak.

Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

The Department does not hold Official Error data, or details of subsequent hardships requests for a reduction in the rate of repayment, by geographical area.

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 people affected by administrative errors made by her Department which led to financial hardship for claimants in (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) England during the covid-19 outbreak.

Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

The Department does not hold Official Error data, or details of subsequent hardships requests for a reduction in the rate of repayment, by geographical area.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to allow jobseekers to establish their benefit status online rather than in person to reduce their risk of exposure to COVID-19.

Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott

Customers claiming Universal Credit, New Style JSA and ESA already do so online. Many parts of the verification process, which is essential to check an individual’s eligibility to claim, is also carried out online. To protect Universal Credit from the risk of fraud, in some cases we require face to face verification activity in a COVID secure environment.

Key workers will continue to deliver essential services, including in jobcentres, across the UK. Anyone who needs to get support or other vital services from our jobcentres will be able to continue to do so in an environment that is safe and compliant with COVID regulations. Telephone appointments can be arranged for customers who prefer to receive support virtually. We ask customers who do come in-person to take a lateral flow test and follow all the safety measures to help reduce the spread of COVID.

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 potential merits of extending the Covid Local Support Grant scheme.

Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

The Covid Winter Grant and the Covid Local Support Grant provided Local Authorities in England with total funding of £429m to September 2021, to help them to support the most vulnerable households in their areas with the costs of household essentials during the COVID-19 pandemic. These schemes have now ended.

However, we recognise that some people may require extra support over the winter as we enter the final stages of recovery, which is why vulnerable households across the country will now be able to access a new £500 million support fund to help them with essentials. The Household Support Fund will provide £421 million to help vulnerable people in England. The Barnett Formula will apply in the usual way, with the devolved administrations receiving almost £80 million (£41m for the Scottish Government, £25m for the Welsh Government and £14m for the NI Executive), for a total of £500 million.