Asked by: Steve McCabe (Labour - Birmingham, Selly Oak)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 29 February 2024 to Question 14790 on Universal Credit: Armed Forces, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of collecting data on the specific branches of the armed forces in which Universal Credit claimants (a) are serving and (b) have served.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No such assessment has been made for the reasons set out in the response to the previous answered PQ14790.
Asked by: Deidre Brock (Scottish National Party - Edinburgh North and Leith)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of the National Audit Office report entitled Progress in implementing Universal Credit, published on 27 February 2024, HC 552.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department welcomes the National Audit Office report which reflects the positive progress made by the programme implementing Universal Credit (UC).
The Department is assured that the recommendations made by the National Audit Office reflect the activities already in place within the UC Programme to effectively deliver Move to UC.
Asked by: Diane Abbott (Independent - Hackney North and Stoke Newington)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential correlation between poverty levels and the lower standard allowance of Universal Credit for those people under 25.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No such assessment has been made.
Asked by: Diane Abbott (Independent - Hackney North and Stoke Newington)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in London in receipt of Universal Credit are aged under 25.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department regularly publishes Universal Credit statistics. Statistics of the number of people who are on Universal Credit each month, by age and region, are published monthly and are currently available to January 2024 on Stat-Xplore.
Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest user and, if needed, can access guidance on how to extract the information required.
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of automating data-sharing between his Department's Disability Service Centre and its Universal Credit section.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is always looking to make improvements to the design of the service and continues to review the way in which processes can be further automated.
Asked by: Steve McCabe (Labour - Birmingham, Selly Oak)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has made a recent assessment of the impact of the level of employment support for veterans in jobcentres on trends in the number of veterans finding employment.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP supports people across the country to move into and progress in work through a range of support including face-to-face time with work coaches, job-search advice and more intensive employment programmes.
Veterans were eligible for the Work and Health Program (WHP), through the Early Access Group (EAG), which was on a voluntary basis. Evidence from the participant surveys suggests that the WHP has had some positive impacts on participants’ work readiness compared with the control group. This is most evident for voluntary WHP participants relative to their control group. Among both mandatory and voluntary participants, six in ten thought the support received had increased their chances of moving into work.
Veterans will also be eligible for the Universal Support (US) programme which is currently in development. This will be evaluated to provide evidence on the effectiveness of the program for its participants.
The is currently no analysis of veteran’s outcomes on Universal Credit (UC). The armed forces marker on UCFS was introduced in 2021. Coverage is not yet at the level required for robust analysis.
Asked by: Steve McCabe (Labour - Birmingham, Selly Oak)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 26 January 2024 to Question 11564 on Universal Credit: Veterans, for what reason the Department did not seek to capture data on the number of veterans that claimed Universal Credit prior to April 2021.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Once it became clear that an “identifier” on the Universal Credit system would be the best way to help ensure that veterans and other members of the armed forces community received appropriate help and support, we introduced it as soon as operationally feasible, taking account of other high priority changes required for the Universal Credit systems.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool, Riverside)
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 close the gender pension gap.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The gender pension gap is a complex issue tied to the labour market, the private pensions system and demographic differences, but one the government takes very seriously.
Addressing the gender pensions gap will only be possible through the collective effort of government, employers and industry.
The new State Pension was designed to correct some of the historic unfairness in the previous system, in particular for women. Our reforms are working, under the pre-2016 system women receive 85% of the amount received by men. This is currently 97% under the new State Pension.
Automatic enrolment (AE) has helped millions more women to save into a pension, with pension participation rates among eligible women in the private sector rising from 40% in 2012 to 86% in 2022.
The government is committed to build on this success and is making progress on implementing the measures as set out in the 2017 review of AE. The Pensions (Extension of Automatic Enrolment) Act 2023 was introduced into Parliament with government support and provides the necessary powers.
Once implemented, the measures will disproportionately increase the pension saving of lower earners; a woman working part-time earning National Living Wage could see her pension almost double as a result when saving over her career.
Our labour market policies will also help. Working parents will soon be even better supported through the extension of free childcare announced in the Spring budget in 2023. DWP also announced generous additional financial help to encourage and support lead carers of children who are receiving Universal Credit to move into or progress in work.
By 2027-28, the Government will expect to be spending in excess of £8bn every year on free childcare hours and early education, helping working families with their childcare costs. This represents the single biggest investment in childcare in England ever.
And we are working with stakeholders across government to better understand the challenge of the gender pension gap. In June, DWP published an official measure of this wealth gap, which is currently 35% between men and women shortly before they retire. The wealth gap between men and women who are eligible for automatic enrolment is lower, at 32%.
The publication of an official annual measure will help us track the collective efforts of government, industry and employers to reduce the Gender Pension Gap.
Asked by: Kwasi Kwarteng (Conservative - Spelthorne)
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 support people with disabilities that impact their ability to work.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government has a wide range of initiatives to support disabled people and people with health conditions to start, stay and succeed in work. These include:
Building on existing provision and the £2 billion investment announced at the Spring Budget 2023, we announced a new package of support in Autumn Statement 2023. This includes:
From 2025, we are reforming the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) to reflect new flexibilities in the labour market and greater employment opportunities for disabled people and people with health conditions, whilst maintaining protections for those with the most significant conditions. Alongside these changes, a new Chance to Work Guarantee will effectively remove the WCA for most existing claimants who have already been assessed without work-related requirements removing the fear of reassessment and giving this group the confidence to try work.
People on low, or no income or earnings, who have a health condition or disability which restricts the amount of work they can do or prevents them from working altogether, and where they meet the entitlement criteria, can claim Universal Credit and/or New Style Employment and Support Allowance with medical evidence, usually a valid Statement of Fitness for work, commonly known as a ‘fit note’, from a clinician.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when Ministers in his Department last requested information from officials on the (a) number, (b) age and (c) disabilities of children living in households subject to a Universal Credit sanction.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Ministers frequently ask officials for data and information on a wide range of subjects both informally and formally.
Statistics are published regularly showing the number of Universal Credit full-service customers with a payment that has been reduced due to a sanction. These can be found in the Universal Credit sanction rates dataset on Stat-Xplore (https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/jsf/login.xhtml). Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, they can also access guidance (https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html) on how to extract the information required.