Asked by: Paul Sweeney (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many constituents in Glasgow North East constituency in receipt of legacy benefits will be financially worse off as a result of the universal credit full service migration at Springburn Job Centre from 31 October 2018.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The Department does not hold data at constituency level on the number of claimants who will naturally migrate to Universal Credit.
Universal Credit Full Service will be rolled out at Springburn Jobcentre on 31 October 2018. This will not affect existing benefit entitlements for claimants whose circumstances remain the same.
Claimants will move from existing benefits to Universal Credit through natural migration or managed migration. Natural migration occurs when they experience a change in their circumstances that would trigger the need for a new claim to benefit. Rather than continuing to claim a legacy benefit, the claimant will claim Universal Credit and their Universal Credit award will be based on their new circumstances. No one will have a reduced benefit entitlement at the point that they move over to Universal Credit as a result of managed migration, and one million more disabled people will get, on average, £110 more a week through Universal Credit.
Asked by: Paul Sweeney (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he Department has undertaken an assessment of the effect of the roll-out of universal credit full service on the economy of the City of Glasgow in 2018-19.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The Department does not forecast the economic impact of Universal Credit by area.
The Universal Credit Programme Full Business Case demonstrates that Universal Credit provides value for money and will produce economic benefits of £34bn over the next ten years and £8 billion in economic benefits per year once fully rolled out. It will also increase the number of people in employment by 200,000.
The Universal Credit Programme Full Business Case can be accessed at
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions her Department has had with (a) Glasgow Housing Association, (b) Southside Housing Association, (c) Elderpark Housing Association, (d) Glenoaks Housing Association, (e) Govan Housing Association, (f) Linthouse Housing Association, (g) Rosehill Housing Association, (h) Sanctuary Scotland Housing Association, (i) Home Group Scotland and (j) Blackwood Housing on (i) service rollout of universal credit and (ii) access to the Landlord Portal; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Following the successful pilot of the Landlord Portal Service, DWP is enrolling more landlords in stages, in tandem with the expansion of Universal Credit Full Service. Priority has been placed on enrolling the largest landlords that are eligible where possible in order to maximise the number of Universal Credit claimants that can be handled via the portal. By December 2018 we will have covered 90% of social tenancies on the portal, and we are looking at how best to complete rollout for small landlords.
Representatives from all the organisations listed have been invited to Universal Credit Full Service events, jointly hosted by DWP and Glasgow City Council, with the vast majority attending. Those that have not attended have had follow up calls or visits and will be invited to future events. All Registered Social Landlords have now been given escalation contacts for each Jobcentre, and we will continue to work closely with landlords, local authorities, housing associations and other organisations to ensure the successful rollout of Universal Credit.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the longest number of days is a universal credit claimant in Glasgow South West has had to wait before receiving their initial payment.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The Department’s data on Universal Credit payment timeliness is not currently available for publication by area or region.
The latest statistics on timeliness of payment for new claims to Universal Credit were published on 9 July 2018, and can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/length-of-payment-delays-for-new-claims-to-universal-credit
Around 80 per cent of new claims are paid in full and on time. In many cases, where full payment is not made on time by the end of the first assessment period, this is as a result of unresolved issues such as: some claimants have not signed their Claimant Commitment or passed identity checks, and the others have outstanding verification issues, such as for housing and self-employed earnings. Whilst this verification is on-going, many of these claimants receive a part payment for those elements of the claim that have been resolved.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with housing associations in (a) Glasgow South West constituency and (b) Glasgow on access to information by those associations from the Landlord Portal for universal credit claimants; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
In Glasgow and the surrounding area, Universal Credit Account Managers have engaged extensively with the Wheatley Group and enrolled six of their landlords onto the Landlord Portal: Loretto Housing, Glasgow Housing Association, Cube Housing Association, Dunedin Canmore, Barony Housing Association, and, West Lothian Housing Partnership.
We are continuing in our efforts to identify and enrol suitable landlords onto the portal between now and December 2018.
Asked by: David Linden (Scottish National Party - Glasgow East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reasons the universal credit full service roll-out to Shettleston Jobcentre has been moved back to December 2018.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
We have always been clear that we will roll out Universal Credit in a way that allows us to continue to make improvements.
To accommodate the Universal Credit measures announced in the Budget, we have modified the rollout schedule to ensure we continue to implement this important welfare reform safely and gradually
Asked by: Paul Sweeney (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to ensure that the roll-out of universal credit in Glasgow North East constituency will not result in an increase in child poverty.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
Work is the best route out of poverty, and Universal Credit supports parents to move into and progress in work, and raises the income of families.
Since 2010 the number of children growing up in households where no one works has fallen by half a million.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the benefits freeze on constituents in Glasgow South West.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The analysis published at the time of the 2015 Budget assesses the impact of the measures in the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 including the benefit freeze. This includes an estimate that the benefit rate freeze would save £3.5 billion in 2019-20 (https://www.parliament.uk/documents/impact-assessments/IA15-006C.pdf). We are not able to provide constituency-level analysis for the full range of measures covered by our welfare reforms.
Our welfare reforms to working-age benefits are part of the Government’s commitment to incentivise work and support working families. We know that work is the best route out of poverty and have strong evidence that a person’s employment status has a direct impact on their mental health and wellbeing.
We are supporting people who have additional needs as a result of disability or illness and have maintained the value of payments to meet the extra costs they face. We now spend over £50 billion a year on benefits to support disabled people and people with health conditions, which represents an increase of more than £7 billion since 2010.
DWP is committed to ensuring homeless people get the appropriate support they need to move into work so they can succeed and rebuild their lives. The department provides a range of support to help homeless people into work, including access to the Jobcentre Plus employment offer with individual tailoring, access to hardship payments for claimants who have received sanctions and the homelessness easement to job-seeking requirements to be temporarily put on hold whilst homeless claimants find accommodation.
The Government is tackling the root causes of child poverty and disadvantage. We know that children living in workless households have significantly poorer outcomes than those in working families. Since April 2016, the Universal Credit childcare element has covered up to 85% of eligible childcare costs, compared with 70% in Working Tax Credit. The number of children living in households where no one is in work is now at its lowest level since comparable records began.
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the longest number of days a universal credit claimant in Glasgow south west has had to want before receiving the initial payment.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
There are no data broken down by area or region.
Data published on 2 October 2017 show that, nationally, 81% of new full service claims received their first payment in full and on time. Across the whole of Universal Credit 92% of all households received full payment on time. The published data can be found here.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/universal-credit-payment-timeliness-january-to-june-2017
Asked by: Chris Stephens (Scottish National Party - Glasgow South West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions he has had with housing associations in (a) Glasgow South West constituency and (b) Glasgow on access to information those associations from the Landlord Portal for Universal Credit claimants; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
We have enrolled large national landlords some of whom may have housing stock in Glasgow. The approach for expansion of the Landlord Portal is to add the 50 largest stock owning Social Registered Sector landlords to the Portal in October, November and December. This will be in line with the Full Service roll out dates wherever possible.
Universal Credit Account Managers contact Social Landlords 4 weeks prior to the start of each month’s expansion. This advises landlords of any information required, support available during enrolment and assistance using the portal.
So far, Universal Credit has enrolled a number of Scottish landlords, however none of whom appear to have a direct link to the Glasgow area the closest would be South Lanarkshire.