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Written Question
State Retirement Pensions: Women
Thursday 21st March 2024

Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to support women affected by changes to the state pension age with the cost of living.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Government is committed to ensuring that older people can live with the dignity and respect they deserve, and the State Pension is the foundation of state support in retirement. Last year the State Pension saw its biggest ever cash rise, increasing by 10.1%. From April, the basic and new State Pensions will increase by 8.5%, in line with the Triple Lock.

The Government is delivering a comprehensive package of support to help those aged 50 and over to remain in and return to work. We are also committed to providing a financial safety net for those who need it, including when they near or reach retirement, through the welfare benefits system. Support is available to those who are unable to work or are on a low income but are not eligible for pensioner benefits because of their age.

In addition, the government has provided support from 2022-23 to 2023-2024 to help households with the cost of living totalling £96 billion. We are providing further support for 24/25, including uprating working age benefits by 6.7%, raising the National Living Wage and uplifting Local Housing Allowance to the 30th percentile of local rents which will benefit 1.6 million private renters by, on average, £800 a year.

The government is also providing an additional £500m to enable the extension of the Household Support Fund, including funding for the Devolved Administrations through the Barnett formula to be spent at their discretion. This means that Local Authorities in England will receive an additional £421m to support those in need locally through the Household Support Fund. This will enable further targeted support for people who require assistance to get back to a stable financial position as inflation continues to fall.


Written Question
Pensions: Financial Assistance Scheme
Thursday 21st March 2024

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 estimate of the cost of uprating pensions payable through the Financial Assistance Scheme to the same level as those payable through the Pension Protection Fund.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The indexation rules for the Pension Protection Fund and the Financial Assistance Scheme are the same. Payments based on benefits accrued after April 1997 are increased in line with the Consumer Price Index, capped at 2.5 per cent. There is no award of increases on payments based on benefits accrued before April 1997.


Written Question
State Retirement Pensions
Tuesday 19th March 2024

Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)

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 implications of the state pension rise from April 2024 for the sustainability of pension funding.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The new State Pension was introduced in April 2016 with the aim of providing a clearer, sustainable foundation for State Pensions for decades to come.

Each year, the Government Actuary’s Department publishes a report showing the impact of uprating decisions on the National insurance Fund. The most recent report in January this year took into account the 8.5% increase in the basic and new State Pensions which will come into force from 8 April. The assessment was that the Fund would have enough money to self-finance for at least the next five years. HM Treasury has the ability to top up the National Fund from the Consolidated Fund when needed, even if receipts do not match expenditure. The report said that a Treasury Grant would not be needed in the next five years.


Written Question
Statutory Sick Pay
Monday 4th March 2024

Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to Q102 of the oral evidence given by Lorraine Jackson to the Work and Pensions Select Committee on 31 January 2024, HC 148, when the constant review of statutory sick pay began; what steps his Department is taking to conduct this review; and what sources of information are included in this review.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

As with all government policy, Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) policy is kept under review. The department through the Joint work and Health directorate, monitors feedback from correspondence and reviews evidence from a range of organisations. The rate of SSP is also reviewed each year as part of the annual uprating exercise.

The government reviewed SSP as part of both the ‘Work, health and disability green paper: improving lives’ consultation (2017) and the ‘Health is Everyone’s Business consultation’ (2019, HiEB). In response to the HiEB consultation (2021) we maintained that SSP provides an important link between the employee and employer but Ministers confirmed it was not the right time to introduce changes to the sick pay system.


Written Question
Homelessness: Local Housing Allowance
Wednesday 14th February 2024

Asked by: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)

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 increasing discretionary housing payments to help reduce homelessness.

Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Current rental data and the broader fiscal context were considerations in the Secretary of State’s review of Local Housing Allowance rates last Autumn.

As announced in the Autumn Statement (AS) from April 2024 the Government is investing £7bn over five years to increase Local Housing Allowance rates to the 30th percentile of local market rents in 2024/25. This is in addition to the around £30bn spent annually on housing support. Taken together with the wider benefits uprating, this will improve housing affordability for low-income households on benefits renting in the private sector, helping them afford their rent and reducing the risk of rent arrears and homelessness.

Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) can be paid to those entitled to Housing Benefit or the housing element of Universal Credit who face a shortfall in meeting their housing costs This is not restricted to those who meet the statutory definition of being at risk or homeless, which allows DHPs to be used to stabilise tenancies and thus preventing the need to access to homelessness services.

We’re providing £300m for DHPs between 2022-25. In addition to the central government contribution, English and Welsh local authorities can top up DHP funding up to a maximum of two and a half times this figure using their own funds.

In addition, there has been an investment of over £1bn in DLUHC’s Homelessness Prevention Grant (HPG) over three years, including a £109m top-up this year (2023-24). There has also been funding of £120m to help councils address Ukraine and homelessness pressures in 2024/25, including funding for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.


Written Question
Social Security Benefits
Thursday 11th January 2024

Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has made an estimate of the number of households that will be subject to the benefit cap due to (a) increases in the local housing allowance and (b) the uprating of benefits in 2024-25.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

No estimate has been made. There are various factors that determine whether a household is brought into scope of the benefit cap.


Written Question
State Retirement Pensions: Canada
Monday 11th December 2023

Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Viscount Younger of Leckie on 26 October (HL10597), when they last had discussions with the government of Canada about uprating UK State Pensions paid to UK pensioners residents in that country; and what was agreed at that meeting.

Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Government of Canada last raised this issue during a meeting on 17 April 2023. Following this meeting, the UK Government reiterated in writing that it is not intending to change the existing social security relationship with Canada under the arrangements made in 1995 and 1998.


Written Question
Social Security Benefits: Poverty
Thursday 7th December 2023

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, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Autumn Statement 2023 on levels of poverty among benefit claimants.

Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

We are providing support to households to help with the high cost of living worth £104 billion over 2022-23 to 2024-25. This includes, subject to Parliamentary approval, raising working age benefits by 6.7% and State pensions by 8.5% from April next year on top of this year’s 10.1% uprating for all State pensions and benefits.

To support low-income households with increasing rent costs, the government will also raise Local Housing Allowance rates to the 30th percentile of local market rents for private renters from April 2024. This will benefit 1.6m low-income households by on average £800 a year in 24/25.

We are also, from April, increasing the National Living Wage for workers aged 21 years and over by 9.8% to £11.44 representing an increase of over £1,800 to the gross annual earnings of a full-time worker on the National Living Wage.

We estimate that in 2024/5 around 20 million families will benefit from the uprating of DWP and HMRC benefits in Great Britain. This will include around 8 million pensioner and around 11 million working age families and around 1 million mixed age couples.

In 2024/25, around 5.5 million Universal Credit families are forecast to benefit from uprating with an average annual gain for a family on Universal Credit estimated to be £470 (equivalent to an increase of around £39 per month), however gains will vary depending on the elements received by different family types. An assessment of the benefit uprating policy has been published here.

On average, households in the poorest income deciles are gaining the most in cash terms and as a percentage of net income in 2023-24 as a result of government policies announced at Autumn Statement 2022. This Government has overseen significant falls in absolute poverty since 2009/10. In 2021/22 there were 1.7 million fewer people in absolute poverty after housing costs than in 2009/10, including 400,000 fewer children and 1 million fewer working age adults.


Written Question
Social Security Benefits: Children
Wednesday 6th December 2023

Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an estimate of how many children would be lifted out of poverty if the household benefit cap was (a) uprated with inflation since 2016 and (b) abolished.

Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

It is not possible to produce robust estimates of the effect of the impact of uprating the household benefit cap by inflation on the number of children in child poverty or similar impacts of the removal of the household benefit cap on the same group.

There was a significant increase to the benefit cap levels following a review last year. The benefit cap continues to provide a strong work incentive and fairness for working taxpaying households and encourages people to move into work, where possible.

Where possible it is in the best interests of children to be in working households and, of course, returning to employment will significantly increase the likelihood of a household not being affected by the cap.

Both rates and numbers of children in absolute poverty (60% of 2010/11 median income, both before and after housing costs) were lower in 2021/22 than in 2009/10. In 2021/22 there were 400,000 fewer children in absolute low income after housing costs than in 2009/10.


Written Question
Social Security Benefits
Tuesday 5th December 2023

Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an estimate of the potential cost to the public purse of applying the triple lock to the uprating of social security benefits in financial year 2024-25.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The triple lock is this Government’s commitment to increase the new and basic State Pensions annually in line with the highest of the increase in prices, the growth in average earnings, or 2.5%.

Accordingly, the Secretary of State has decided that – subject to Parliamentary approval – for the financial year 2024/25, the new and basic State Pensions, along with the Standard Minimum Guarantee in Pension Credit, will increase by 8.5%, in line with the growth in average earnings. Working-age and extra-costs disability benefit rates will – also subject to Parliamentary approval – increase by 6.7%, in line with the increase in prices and in accordance with the provisions of the Social Security Administration Act 1992.

Using 8.5% instead of 6.7% for these benefits would potentially add approximately £2.3bn to the cost of the social security system in that year.