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 assessment he has made of the adequacy of the benefits cap for families with children living in poverty.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The latest statistics show that in 2022/23 there were 100,000 fewer children in absolute poverty after housing costs than in 2009/10.
Where possible, it is in the best interests of children to be in working households and the benefit cap provides a clear incentive to move into work. Children living in workless households were over 6 times more likely to be in absolute poverty after housing costs than those where all adults work.
To ensure the most vulnerable are supported, exemptions also apply to households who are entitled to disability benefits and/or carer benefits.
Asked by: Dean Russell (Conservative - Watford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent progress NHS England has made on developing a neuropsychiatric service specification.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
NHS England remains committed to the continued development and improvement of all services, including neuropsychiatry. Neuropsychiatry covers a broad spectrum of mental health support, for people with a broad spectrum of neurological conditions, and as such, provision of neuropsychiatry falls within the care pathway of a range of services.
The provision of neuropsychiatry is included in, and will be strengthened within, the updated neurology service specification, neurosurgery specification, and complex rehabilitation service specification. The requirement and scope of a standalone neuropsychiatry service specification is being discussed with the Royal College of Psychiatry and mental health colleagues.
The Neurology Clinical Reference Group (CRG) will continue to lead this work and take forward discussions with the Royal College of Psychiatry, which is represented on both the Neurology CRG and Complex Rehabilitation and Disability CRG, and is contributing to the development of the service specifications listed above.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, what recent steps his Department has taken to implement the FCDO disability inclusion and rights strategy 2022 to 2030, published on 16 February 2022.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
Our commitment to the Disability Inclusion and Rights Strategy was recently reaffirmed in the International Development White Paper that I [Minister Mitchell] presented to the House. To deliver on our strategy the FCDO seeks to embed disability inclusion across the full range of FCDO's diplomacy, policy, and programming, working with local partners around the world. For example, the Girl's Education Department has recently developed a new internal policy paper drawing on what works to get children with disabilities into quality and inclusive education. Our progress against the strategy is regularly reviewed by a board of independent experts from civil society and academia.
Asked by: Owen Thompson (Scottish National Party - Midlothian)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many staff have been trained in disability awareness in (a) his core Department and (b) Jobcentres in each of the last three years.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is unable to provide the information you seek within the appropriate cost limit as you have asked for information that is contained across a wide range of learning journeys.
All staff new to DWP undergo mandatory learning followed by role specific learning, this encompasses vulnerabilities and complex needs training which is threaded throughout learning. Staff continue to build on this in the workplace through accessing policy guidance and point of need learning products.
Please refine your request, for example to mandatory learning to enable data to be provided.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many nurses have worked in NHS community health services on average in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England publishes Hospital and Community Health Services workforce statistics for England. These include staff working for hospital trusts and integrated care boards, but excludes staff working for other providers such as in primary care, general practice or social care. This data is drawn from the Electronic Staff Record, the human resources system for the National Health Service.
The latest statistics on NHS nursing workforce by area of nursing and care setting can be found in the link below within the ‘Nurses by Setting’ worksheet:
Within this data there are nurses working in community settings within several staff groups including community health nurses, community learning disability nurses, community mental health nurses, and as health visitors.
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 impact the under occupancy penalty has had on levels of (a) child poverty and (b) child poverty for children with a disability.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No assessment has been made of the impact of the Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy (RSRS) on child poverty. It is not possible to produce a robust assessment of the impact of RSRS on child poverty because we do not have the data to fully measure behavioural impacts that may have resulted from the policy.
The latest statistics show that in 2022/23 there were 100,000 fewer children in absolute poverty after housing costs than in 2009/10.
Statistics on the number of Children living in absolute and relative poverty by disability in the UK are published annually in the “Households Below Average Income” publication in “table 1_7c” and “table 1_7d” (respectively) of “summary-hbai-timeseries-1994-95-2022-23-tables” found here. The latest statistics published on 21 March 2024 are for the financial period 2022/23. The latest available data can also be found on Stat-Xplore here.
The RSRS policy applies to claims for housing support where the claimant is living in a social rented sector property that is considered to have more bedrooms than the household requires.
The policy helps to encourage mobility within the social rented sector to make better use of the existing social housing stock and strengthens work-incentives.
There are easements available which allow for the provision of an additional bedroom in certain circumstances, such as to support families of disabled children, foster carers and parents who adopt.
For individuals who may require additional support, Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) may be available. DHPs are paid entirely at the discretion of the local authority and since 2011 the Government has provided nearly £1.7 billion to local authorities.
Asked by: Baroness Gale (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to provide targeted financial support for people with long-term conditions such as Parkinson’s disease during the cost of living crisis.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living, including people with Parkinson’s disease. Over recent years, the government has demonstrated its commitment to supporting the most vulnerable with one of the largest support packages in Europe. The total support over 2022- 2025 to help households and individuals with higher bills amounts to £108 billion – an average of £3,800 per UK household.
We provided a Disability Cost of Living Payment of £150 in June/July 2023 to people in receipt of certain disability benefits such as Personal Independence Payment (PIP) or Disability Living Allowance (DLA). This is in addition to the £150 payment paid in September 2022.
We estimate that nearly 60 per cent of individuals who received an extra costs disability benefit would have received the means-tested benefit Cost of Living Payments, worth up to £900. Over 85 per cent would have received either or both of the means-tested and the £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment.
We also increased extra costs disability benefits by 10.1 per cent from April 2023 and by 6.7% from April 2024 in line with the Consumer Price Index.
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 recent assessment he has made with Cabinet colleagues of the potential impact of the Disability Confident scheme on the disability employment gap.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Disability Confident (DC) is one of a range of policies to support disabled people into work and to close the disability employment gap. It is difficult to isolate the direct impact of individual policies on the disability employment gap as numerous, interacting factors are at play, including overall labour market trends and changes to the composition of the disabled population, in addition to the effects of disability employment policies and programmes in themselves.
When an employer signs up to DC, they agree to commitments which encourage employers to think differently about disability and to take positive action to address issues disabled employees face in the workplace. There are currently over 19,000 DC members and they estimate 11.5 million employees in total working in their businesses.
In September 2023, the Department published findings from a survey with members of the DC scheme, conducted by an independent research agency[1]. The research explored the effect that signing up to the DC scheme had on members’ recruitment and retention attitudes towards disabled people.
The DWP and Cabinet officials regularly meet with Ministerial Disability Champions to drive this agenda across Government. The Champions’ role is to ensure disability inclusion is a priority in their Department’s work. They are helping to deliver our commitment to support disabled people in the UK through creating more opportunities, protecting their rights and ensuring they fully benefit from, and can contribute to, every aspect of our society.
[1] The survey was conducted in February to March 2022. In total 1,233 survey interviews were conducted with scheme members.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to ensure (a) blind, (b) partially sighted, (c) deaf and (d) hearing impaired patients receive (i) care and (ii) communications related to their heath in an accessible format; and if she will make an estimate of the cost to the public purse of missed appointments due to (A) inaccessible and (B) missed communications.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Under the Equality Act (2010), health and social care organisations must make reasonable adjustments to ensure that disabled people, including blind, partially sighted, deaf, and hearing impaired patients, are not disadvantaged. Since 2016, all National Health Service organisations and publicly funded social care providers in England are required to comply with the Accessible Information Standard (AIS).
NHS England is responsible for the AIS, and have completed a review of the AIS to help ensure that the communication needs of people with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss are met in health and care provision. The AIS review included input from individuals with lived experience and voluntary sector organisations for blind, partially sighted, deaf, and hearing impaired patients.
One of the aims of the review was to strengthen assurance of implementation of the AIS, and a self-assessment framework has been developed to support providers of NHS and social care services, to measure their performance against the AIS and develop improvement action plans to address gaps in implementation. The AIS self-assessment framework is designed to enable enhancements around assurance and allows organisations, commissioners, and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to judge performance and compliance.
NHS England will publish a revised AIS in due course. Following publication, NHS England will continue work to support its implementation with awareness raising, communication and engagement, and updated e-learning modules on the AIS to ensure NHS staff are better aware of the standard, and their roles and responsibilities in implementing it.
NHS England collects data on the total costs of missed appointments, but that data is not broken down sufficiently to enable us to make an estimate of appointments missed due to inaccessible or missed communications.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in (a) Preston, (b) Lancashire and (c) England have (i) applied for and (ii) received Personal Independence Payments for inflammatory bowel disease in each year since 2020.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The latest available data on personal independence payment (PIP) clearances and awards can be found here. The requested data can be found on the ‘PIP Clearances’ dataset by going to ‘Geography’, ‘National – Regional – LAs – OAs’ and following the drop downs to the relevant areas. Similarly, you can filter for those with inflammatory bowel disease through ‘Disability’, ‘Gastrointestinal disease’ and selecting ‘Inflammatory bowel disease’. To further filter just for those awarded, you can go to ‘Clearance Type Detail’ and select ‘Awarded’.
A lookup which shows which Local Authorities are in Lancashire is available here.
Data is based on primary disabling condition as recorded on the PIP computer systems. Claimants may often have multiple disabling conditions upon which the decision is based but only the primary condition is shown in these statistics.
Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here. An account is not required to use Stat- Xplore, the ‘Guest Login’ feature gives instant access to the main functions.