Asked by: Tonia Antoniazzi (Labour - Gower)
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 end child poverty.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government is committed to reducing child poverty and supporting low-income families. We will spend around £276bn through the welfare system in Great Britain in 2023/24 including around £124bn on people of working age and children.
With 1.12 million job vacancies across the UK, our focus remains firmly on supporting individuals, including parents, to move into, and progress in work, an approach which is based on clear evidence about the importance of employment - particularly where it is full-time - in substantially reducing the risks of child poverty and in improving long-term outcomes for families and children. The latest statistics show that in 2021/22 children living in workless households were around 5 times more likely to be in absolute poverty after housing costs than those where all adults work.
At the Spring Budget, the Chancellor announced an ambitious package of measures designed to support people to enter work, increase their working hours and extend their working lives. The government’s employment package will focus on supporting inactive individuals aged 50+, disabled people, people with long-term health conditions, welfare claimants and parents. We are investing billions in additional childcare support for parents of toddlers, investing in wraparound childcare in schools, and increasing financial support for, and expectations of, parents claiming Universal Credit.
From April, we are uprating benefit rates and State Pensions by 10.1%. In order to increase the number of households who can benefit from these uprating decisions the benefit cap levels are also increasing by the same amount.
To further support those who are in work, including parents, from 1 April 2023, the National Living Wage (NLW) will increase by 9.7% to £10.42 an hour for workers aged 23 and over - the largest ever cash increase for the NLW.
For 2023/24, we have also announced further cost of living support. Households on eligible means-tested benefits will get up to £900 in Cost of Living Payments. This will be split into three payments of around £300 each across the 2023/24 financial year. A separate £300 payment will be made to pensioner households on top of their Winter Fuel Payments and individuals in receipt of eligible disability benefits will receive a £150 payment. Also, the government is maintaining the Energy Price Guarantee at £2,500 for a further three months, from April 2023.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
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 increase the level of private pension savings among single mothers.
Answered by Laura Trott - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Automatic Enrolment has increased the number of women contributing to a workplace pension. Pension participation among eligible women in the private sector was 87% in 2021, up from just 40% in 2012. We are taking steps to further increase women’s participation in workplace pensions.
We remain committed to implementing the measures recommended in the 2017 review of Automatic Enrolment in the mid 2020s. These will disproportionately benefit lower earners, including people working in multiple low-paid part time jobs, who are predominantly women. We are supporting Jonathan Gullis MP’s Private Member’s Bill which passed committee stage on Wednesday 15 March, as this presents an immediate route for the legislative powers to expand the Automatic Enrolment framework in the current Parliamentary session.
Changes to Universal Credit announced in the Spring Budget 2023 will support more parents into work or to increase their hours, both of which are likely to increase private pension saving. Parents can claim £300 more per month for childcare for one child or £500 for two children, and lead carers of children aged 1 to 12 will be required to attend more Work Focused Interviews, or increase their Work Related Activity hours.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the (a) cost and (b) requirement on staff hours of manually correcting National Insurance contributions records for people within four months of state pension age because the universal credit system has not transferred National Insurance class 3 credits electronically to HMRC in the last twelve months.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
No estimate has been made. The Department has been working with HMRC to resolve this issue. We expect NI records will be fully updated by HMRC over the course of 2023/24, any State Pension entitlement will be reassessed, and any underpayment addressed accordingly.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to her Answer to the Question from the hon. Member for York Central on 23 February 2023, Official Report, column 301, on what evidential basis she said that working additional hours can help tackle food poverty.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The latest available data from the Department for Work and Pensions on in-work poverty shows that in 2019/20, working age adults in households where all adults were in work were six times less likely to be in absolute poverty (after housing costs) than adults in a household where nobody works.
The data also shows that there was only a 3% chance of children being in poverty (absolute, before housing costs) where both parents worked full-time compared with 42% where one or more parents in a couple was in part-time work.
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the press statement by the Department for Work and Pensions on 27 January 2022, what assumptions were made (including regarding family type) to inform the statement that "people are at least £6,000 better off in full time work than on benefits".
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The actual amount an individual could gain from work depends on wage rates, the number of hours worked and family circumstances, such as having children, and whether the claimant receives the UC housing element.
The main assumption the Department used was that people earn the minimum wage of £9.50 an hour and that full time work is 35 hours a week. The Department’s publication Completing the Move to Universal Credit (publishing.service.gov.uk) shows that:
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
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 impact of freezing the maximum amount of support for childcare costs in Universal Credit in 2023-24 at 2022-23 levels on living standards.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No such assessment has been made.
In Universal Credit, working families can claim up to 85%, increased from 70% in legacy benefits, of their eligible registered childcare costs each month regardless of the hours worked. This equates to a maximum support of £646.35 per month for one child and £1,108.04 per month for two or more children.
The current childcare offer is comprehensive, broad ranging and reflects different family circumstances, covering children over a range of ages. We believe that helping parents with their childcare costs is one of the best ways to help people into work, support families with the cost of living, and ensure every child has the opportunity of a high quality early education.
Asked by: Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to increase (1) awareness, and (2) the take-up, of their childcare schemes.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Improving parents’ awareness and take-up of childcare schemes is a government priority.
Delivered in partnership with the Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue and Customs, the Childcare Choices campaign aims to increase awareness of government childcare support to ease the pressures for working parents, and signposts to the Childcare Choices website to make it easy for people to claim: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/.
The campaign has been delivered in two bursts through radio, search, digital outdoor (e.g. bus stop advertising) and social media advertising, with the first burst running over the summer period from 30 June to 31 August. We also delivered a press partnership with the Metro (online and print), the Sun Online and the Independent Online in August. The second campaign burst went live on 31 October, with a short pause over Christmas, before it resumes again in the new year.
The campaign has driven extensive reach, with ads being viewed through digital and search over 59 million times. There has also been strong engagement in the campaign, with over 559,000 Childcare Choices website sessions. The first burst of the campaign has also demonstrated a solid conversion rate, with 77,995 referrals to GOV.UK pages from Childcare Choices for each element of childcare support:
We will be able to report on final GOV.UK referral numbers when the second burst of the campaign is complete. We continue to work across government to increase awareness and encourage families to use the government-funded support they are entitled to.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many and what proportion civil service staff are employed (a) on zero hours contracts, (b) on fixed-term contracts, and (c) via employment agencies broken down by Government Department.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The number of civil servants employed on zero hour contracts is not held centrally by the Cabinet Office. Zero hours contracts are not the normal practice within the Civil Service. Departments may use them in very limited circumstances to help meet exceptional or fluctuating demands on the business.
The number of civil servants by department on a fixed-term contract of up to 12 months, including those on casual contracts, is published quarterly by Office for National Statistics (ONS) as part of their quarterly public sector employment statistics and is available at:
An extract of the relevant data published by ONS is presented at Table 1 below. Information on civil servants on contracts of more than 12 and less than 24 months are not held centrally as these employees are counted as permanent in the statistics, in line with official ONS public sector headcount methodology.
Civil servants are employed by departments and their agencies and not by employment agencies. However, information on the numbers of employment agency staff working at departments are published by individual departments each month for transparency purposes on their gov.uk departmental webpages as part of their Monthly Workforce Management Information.
Table 1: Civil servants on temporary/casual contracts [1] as at June 2022
Department | Headcount | Full-Time equivalent |
Attorney General’s departments | 200 | 190 |
Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy | 70 | 70 |
Cabinet Office | 10 | 10 |
Other Cabinet Office agencies | 40 | 40 |
Charity Commission | 20 | 20 |
Competition and Markets Authority | 20 | 20 |
Defence | 20 | 20 |
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport | 50 | 50 |
Education | 210 | 200 |
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | 210 | 200 |
Estyn | 0 | 0 |
Export Credits Guarantee Department | 10 | .. |
Food Standards Agency | 30 | 30 |
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office | 60 | 60 |
Health and Social Care | 1,820 | 1,680 |
HM Land Registry | 10 | 10 |
HM Revenue and Customs | 560 | 550 |
HM Treasury | 30 | 30 |
Chancellor’s other departments | 0 | 0 |
Home Office | 1,220 | 880 |
International Trade | 0 | 0 |
Justice | 1,240 | 1,190 |
Levelling Up, Housing and Communities | 50 | 40 |
The National Archives | 20 | 20 |
National Crime Agency | 0 | 0 |
Northern Ireland Office | 0 | 0 |
Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills | 20 | 20 |
Office of Gas and Electricity Markets | 150 | 150 |
Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation | 20 | 20 |
Office of Rail and Road | .. | .. |
Office of the Secretary of State for Scotland | 0 | 0 |
Office of the Secretary of State for Wales | .. | .. |
Ofwat | 10 | 10 |
Transport | 580 | 550 |
UK Statistics Authority | 120 | 110 |
UK Supreme Court | 10 | 10 |
Work and Pensions | 3,520 | 3,450 |
Scottish Government | 1,940 | 1,450 |
Welsh Government | 30 | 30 |
TOTAL | 12,280 | 11,080 |
Temporary or casual employees are those with a fixed term contract of 12 months or less, or employed on a casual basis
Numbers are rounded to the nearest ten, and numbers less than five are represented by “..”. Data not available are represented by “-”.
Department totals include Executive Agencies, Ministerial and Non-Ministerial Departments
Source: Public Sector Employment Statistics, Office for National Statistics
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in the context of the cost of living crisis and potential rises in sickness and disability benefits caseloads, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of reinstating an MPs hotline.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
While some hotlines were closed during COVID-19 measurers, most have now been reinstated.
We offer a range of ways for MPs to contact DWP, including through dedicated MP hotlines within Disability Services, Child Maintenance Services, Retirement Services and more recently Working Age Benefits. Information about how MPs and their staff can best contact us is published on the Parliamentary website.
Enquiries received by MP hotlines are managed as part of DWP’s correspondence teams. We closely monitor the performance of these teams and regularly review the resource allocated to this work and where process improvements can be made.
All MP hotlines are regularly checked during operating hours and calls from MPs are either answered directly or allow a voicemail message to be left, which will be picked up and responded to as soon as possible.
Asked by: Ian Byrne (Labour - Liverpool, West Derby)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact for (a) employers and (b) employees of women needing to reduce their working hours due to the menopause; and the affect this may have on the gender pay gap.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Department does not collect data on the impact of the menopause on employees leaving the workforce or reducing their hours.
The former Minister for Employment commissioned the roundtable on older workers to look at the menopause and employment as an issue, emphasising the importance of the support and understanding by employers. An independent menopause and the workplace report was published and the Government’s response was outlined in July.
Alongside this, and separately, The Women’s Health Strategy sets out a range of commitments including encouraging employers to implement evidence-based workplace support and introduce workplace menopause policies.