Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - North Tyneside)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether levels of pay for administrative staff in his Department at (a) AA, (b) AO and (c) EO grades are (i) below, (ii) equivalent to or (iii) higher than the Living Wage Foundation's real living wage.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The following is based on the UK’s real living wage rates of £12.00 per hour and £13.15 per hour for London as of 14 November 2023.
Pay levels for DWP administrative staff are as follows:
a) All AA employees in Inner London are below the London rate.
b) Some AO employees on Legacy Terms and Conditions in Inner London are below the London rate. All other AO employees are above these rates.
c) All EO employees are above these rates.
This Government is committed to paying people a decent living wage, which is being addressed through the statutory National Living Wage. The real living wage is not a statutory requirement unlike the National Living Wage, which applies to those aged 23 and over. From 1 April 2023, the National Living Wage increased to £10.42 an hour. All DWP employees are paid above this rate.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of Jobcentre plus offering employment support to unemployed individuals that are not in receipt of out-of-work benefits.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is responsible for getting people into work and making work pay.
We are driving forward significant recruitment to deliver on our Labour Market programmes to get more people off benefits and into work, which is fair stewardship of taxpayers money.
At Spring Budget, we introduced a range of measures providing extra support for people to move into work and progress into better-paid jobs, particularly disabled people and those with long-term health conditions, parents, over-50s, unemployed people and people on Universal Credit and working fewer than full-time hours. Along with increased employment support, this includes increased expectations for lead carers of children on Universal Credit, as well as increasing the AET.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
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 merits of Jobcentre plus offering employment support to unemployed individuals not in receipt of out-of-work benefits.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is responsible for getting people into work and making work pay.
A range of employment support is available to non-claimants, including Access to Work grants; Disability Confident, Intensive Personalised Employment Support; Work and Health Programme Pioneer; and the online information service – Support with Employee Health and Disability. The Government also works in partnership with health systems to deliver support including Employment Advisers in NHS Talking Therapies, and the Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care (IPSPC) programme, delivered in health settings.
In addition, non-claimants are able to attend DWP jobs fairs, which connect jobseekers with employers. The enhanced digital Mid-life MOT is also open to everybody and easy to access.
Asked by: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Crewe and Nantwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure parents pay child maintenance.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Lisa Nandy (Labour - Wigan)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what financial support is available to parents after the stillbirth of a child.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Government recognises that stillbirth and neonatal death are extremely sad and difficult for parents and families.
To protect a woman’s health and wellbeing, where qualifying conditions are met, a woman is eligible for maternity payments in the sad event that her baby is stillborn from the start of the 24th week of pregnancy or if her baby sadly dies shortly after birth at any point in the pregnancy.
There are two maternity payments available: Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) paid by employers to qualifying employed women and Maternity Allowance (MA) paid by the Department for Work and Pensions to eligible women (including the self-employed and those employed women who cannot get SMP).
Both SMP and MA are paid for 39 weeks. For SMP, the first six weeks are paid at a weekly rate equal to 90 percent of the woman's average weekly earnings, with no upper limit, followed by 33 weeks at the lower of either the standard rate or 90 percent of the woman's average weekly earnings. MA is paid at either the standard rate or 90 percent of the woman's average weekly earnings, whichever is the lower, for the whole 39 week-period. The standard rate for both SMP and MA is £172.48 per week (2023/24).
A Sure Start Maternity Grant of £500 may be payable for a stillbirth if at the time of the claim the claimant is in receipt of an income related benefit such as Universal Credit. A Sure Start Maternity Grant is usually only paid for the first child.
Depending on individual circumstances, additional financial support may be available for parents through the benefit system, for example Universal Credit.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to increase the number of social care workers.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are investing at least £250 million over the next two years on workforce reforms, a key objective of which is to improve adult social care workforce retention and turnover rates.
In July 2023, we announced the £570 million Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund (MSIF) - Workforce Fund to support increased adult social care workforce capacity, improve market sustainability, and enable local authorities to make tangible improvements to adult social care services, with a particular focus on workforce pay. Local authorities can choose to use this funding to increase adult social care workforce and improve retention.
We are also supporting recruitment and retention by delivering our ongoing National Recruitment Campaign; working with the Department of Work and Pensions to promote adult social care careers to jobseekers; and funding sector partners to provide support to employers and commissioners through training and guidance and supporting international recruitment.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what steps he has taken to mitigate the financial impact of Universal Credit deductions on (a) families with children and (b) other recipients.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The amount that can be deducted is capped and we have lowered the standard cap on deductions from Universal Credit twice over recent years, firstly from 40% to 30% in October 2019 and then to 25% in April 2021.
DWP takes every care to recover benefit debt without causing undue financial hardship.
Deductions are made under legislation and cover a broad range of contingencies, like the recovery of fines to prevent incarceration, the payment of rent arrears to prevent homelessness, child maintenance liabilities to their children, and provision for one-off items of expenditure through advances and the repayment of debts.
DWP remains committed to working with anyone who is struggling with their deductions and encourages customers to contact DWP to discuss any concerns.
The department has a well-established process for working with individuals to support them to manage repayment of debt. Our agents will always look to negotiate affordable and sustainable repayment plans. For overpayment deductions specifically, where a person feels they cannot afford the proposed rate of deduction for an overpayment recovery, they are encouraged to contact the department’s Debt Management to discuss a temporary reduction in their rate of repayment or cessation of the deduction.
There is no minimum amount that a customer has to pay, and we have recently extended the time period for any reduced payment to remain in place.
Customers who do contact Debt Management are routinely referred to the Money Advisor Network, who work in partnership with DWP, to offer free independent and impartial money and debt advice. We also remain committed to His Majesty’s Treasury’s Breathing Space policy, which provides those with problem debt the right to legal protections from creditor action for a period of 60 days to enable them to receive debt advice and enter into an appropriate debt solution.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help increase staff (a) recruitment and (b) retention in the adult social care sector.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are investing at least £250 million over the next two years on workforce reforms, a key objective of which is to improve retention and turnover rates.
In July we announced the £570 million Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund -Workforce Fund to support increased adult social care capacity, improve market sustainability, and enable local authorities to make tangible improvements to adult social care services, with a particular focus on workforce pay. Local authorities can choose to use this funding to increase adult social care workforce and improve retention.
We are also supporting recruitment and retention by delivering our ongoing National Recruitment Campaign; working with the Department of Work and Pensions to promote adult social care careers to jobseekers; and supporting international recruitment.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps her Department are taking to support consumers who have accumulated energy debt as a result of using pre-payment meters.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Ofgem rules require energy suppliers to provide extra support where appropriate, including an obligation to make emergency and friendly-hours credit available to all pre-payment meter customers. When assessing how a customer will repay any credit offered, suppliers must also consider their ability to pay.
The Government introduced the ‘Breathing Space’ scheme, which aims to address consumers’ ability to tackle debt and offers legal protections from creditors for 60 days. A standard breathing space is available for anyone with problem debt, administered by debt advice providers and local authorities who provide debt advice to residents.
Customers may also be eligible for cost-of-living payments from the Department for Work and Pensions.
Asked by: Jonathan Gullis (Conservative - Stoke-on-Trent North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department plans to take steps to improve Statutory Sick Pay.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Government’s 2019 Health is Everyone’s Business Consultation proposed a package of reforms which aimed to reduce ill-health related job loss and support disabled people and people with health conditions to stay in, and thrive in, work. This included proposals for (limited) reform of SSP.
In response to the consultation (2021), the Government maintained that SSP provides an important link between the employee and employer but that this was not the right time to introduce changes to the sick pay system. The Government is continuing to keep the SSP system under review.