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Written Question
Department for Work and Pensions: Forms
Thursday 14th March 2024

Asked by: Virendra Sharma (Labour - Ealing, Southall)

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 ensure that the forms it issues are accessible to people with limited ability to complete a form by hand.

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

The department’s forms are designed to be accessible for people who use assistive technology. Our online PDFs are compliant with Work Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 accessible standards. Claim form design and standards are regularly tested to ensure they continue to meet user needs.

DWP seeks to identify individuals who require additional support to enable them to access our services, providing a tailored service and ensuring appropriate support is quickly made available.

Jobcentre Plus provides access to services for claimants who need face-to-face support.

Help to Claim is a service delivered independently by Citizens Advice and in partnership with Citizens Advice Scotland, for those who are claiming Universal Credit.

DWP Visiting supports those who are unable to complete requirements through any of the other channels.


Written Question
Social Security Benefits and Taxation: Nationality
Thursday 14th March 2024

Asked by: Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government why the Department for Work and Pensions and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs have stopped publishing data on tax contributions and welfare payments by nationality.

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

Following the review by the Office for Statistics Regulation, HMRC proposed changes to 25 statistics publications in a public consultation that ran from 24 October 2022 to 16 January 2023. In response to the user consultation the annual Income Tax, NICs, tax credits and child benefit statistics for non-UK nationals release was discontinued. The consultation suggested the statistics to be of limited value to users, due to the decrease in data coverage as tax credits claimants move across to Universal Credit, and the lack of timeliness in the data.

Separately the DWP reviewed the ‘Nationality at point of National Insurance number registration of DWP working age benefit recipients’ statistics and announced in July 2022 that it would be ceasing publication of these statistics as they no longer met the purpose for which they were created. The statistics reflected the nationality status of the benefit claimants at the point of National Insurance number (NINo) registration, which does not necessarily reflect the nationality at the point of claiming the benefit, as the allocation of a NINo can be made many years, or even decades, before an individual claims a benefit. Therefore, benefit recipients who were non-UK nationals and subsequently obtained British citizenship would have been counted in those statistics as non-UK nationals.

The proposals and outcomes from the consultation on changes to HMRC statistics publications are published on GOV.UK.

HMRC does publish information on non-UK nationals in PAYE employment by nationality, region and industry on GOV.UK.


Written Question
Social Security Benefits: Fraud
Thursday 14th March 2024

Asked by: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the (a) Integrated Risk and Intelligence Service, (b) Enhanced Checking Service, (c) Risk Review Team, (d) Enhanced Review Teams, (e) Universal Credit advances claims decision risk model, (f) Common Risk Engine, (g) General Matching Service, (h) Fraud Referral and Intervention Management System (i) Targeted Case Review and (j) any other systems have been used as part of fraud surveillance in the benefits system in the last year.

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

None of the teams or systems referenced carry out surveillance in the benefits system.


Written Question
Sickness Benefits: Wolverhampton
Thursday 14th March 2024

Asked by: Pat McFadden (Labour - Wolverhampton South East)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in Wolverhampton South East constituency are on long-term sickness benefits; and how many were on such benefits in each of the past five years.

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

People on ‘long-term sickness benefits’ have been assumed as those in the main phase of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and the Universal Credit (UC) Limited Capability to Work (LCW) and Limited capability for work and work-related activity (LCWRA) groups. The Department regularly publishes Benefit Combination statistics on Stat-Xplore and these were extended inFebruary 2024 to include additional information for those on ESA and the UC Health Journey, so can now be used to provide the information, from quarter ending May 2019 to the end of the latest quarter, August 2023.

The figures can be obtained from the ‘Benefit Combinations - Data from May 2019 for England and Wales’ dataset using the ‘Additional Claim Details’ options. The ‘ESA Phase of Claim’ and ‘UC Health Journey’ options should be used to identify quarterly totals for ESA Support Group (SG), ESA Work-related Activity Group (WRAG), Universal Credit Limited Capability to Work (LCW) and Limited capability for work and work-related activity (LCWRA) groups, and those on one benefit but not the other using the ‘Not On’ options. The ‘Geography’ option can then be used to filter by the relevant Westminster Parliamentary Constituency.

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.

Using the Benefit Combinations data on Stat-Xplore, the number of people on long-term sickness benefits in the Wolverhampton South East constituency is provided in the table below:

Aug 2019

Aug 2020

Aug 2021

Aug 2022

Aug 2023

Total

4,150

4,440

4,690

5,080

5,830

Source: Stat-Xplore

Notes:

  1. Totals are rounded to 10.
  2. UC Data is not available prior to 2019 as some UC claims were recorded on an interim operational system called UC Live Service (UCLS). Figures for UCLS Health claimants are not currently collated and to develop that information would incur disproportionate cost.
  3. A person can claim both ESA and be on the UC health caseload and these claimants would be counted in each separate caseload in the published data on Stat-Xplore. Benefit Combinations data on Stat-Xplore allows these 'Dual claims' to be identified and only counted once in the above.

Written Question
Universal Credit: Armed Forces
Wednesday 13th March 2024

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, with reference to the Answer of 8 June 2023 to Question 187857 on Universal Credit: Armed Forces, how many Universal Credit claimants have been identified as (a) serving and (b) having served in the armed forces for the assessment period ending on 1 February 2024.

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

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) started collecting data on the Armed Forces status of Universal Credit (UC) claimants in Great Britain (GB) in April 2021. From July 2021 onwards, UC agents have also been able to record claimants’ Armed Forces status if they are told about this via other means such as journal messages, face-to-face meetings or by telephone.

Data coverage continues to improve over time and by January 2024 data was held on the status of approximately 71% of the GB UC caseload. It should be noted that Armed Forces status is self-reported by claimants and is not verified by the Ministry of Defence or Office for Veterans’ Affairs. A claimant’s status can be recorded as “currently serving”, “served in the past”, “not served” or “prefer not to say”. Data is not collected on the specific branch of the Armed Forces that claimants are serving in or have served in in the past. The table below shows the proportion of claimants who have disclosed their Armed Forces status.

UC caseload month

Proportion of caseload with a recorded status

Currently serving

Served in the past

Not served

Prefer not to say

No recorded status

July 2022

51%

3,000

39,000

2,800,000

21,000

2,800,000

August 2022

53%

3,200

40,000

2,900,000

22,000

2,700,000

September 2022

54%

3,200

41,000

3,000,000

22,000

2,600,000

October 2022

56%

3,300

43,000

3,100,000

23,000

2,500,000

November 2022

57%

3,300

44,000

3,200,000

24,000

2,500,000

December 2022

58%

3,400

45,000

3,300,000

25,000

2,400,000

January 2023

59%

3,500

46,000

3,400,000

25,000

2,300,000

February 2023

61%

3,500

48,000

3,500,000

26,000

2,300,000

March 2023

62%

3,600

48,000

3,500,000

27,000

2,200,000

April 2023

63%

3,700

50,000

3,600,000

28,000

2,200,000

May 2023

64%

3,800

50,000

3,700,000

28,000

2,100,000

June 2023

65%

3,900

51,000

3,800,000

29,000

2,100,000

July 2023

66%

4,000

52,000

3,900,000

30,000

2,100,000

August 2023

66%

4,000

53,000

3,900,000

30,000

2,000,000

September 2023

67%

4,000

54,000

4,000,000

30,000

2,000,000

October 2023

68%

3,900

54,000

4,100,000

30,000

2,000,000

November 2023

69%

3,900

55,000

4,200,000

31,000

1,900,000

December 2023

70%

3,900

57,000

4,300,000

31,000

1,900,000

January 2024 (provisional)

71%

4,000

58,000

4,400,000

32,000

1,900,000

The way the data is collected means the claimants for whom an Armed Forces status is recorded may not be representative of the UC caseload as a whole. This means it is not yet possible to produce reliable estimates of the overall number or proportion of UC claimants who are currently serving in the Armed Forces or who have served in the past.

Increases in the numbers of claimants with a recorded status of “currently serving” or “served in the past” do not necessarily mean the overall numbers of claimants who are currently serving or have served in the past have increased and may reflect increases in the number of claimants for whom data is held as data coverage improves over time.

Notes:

1. Figures are for Great Britain. Data is not collected on the Armed Forces status of UC claimants in Northern Ireland.

2. Figures in the table have been rounded according to the Department’s Official Statistics rounding policy.

3. In line with the latest published People on UC official statistics, provisional figures relating to January 2024 are provided. These figures will be subject to revision in subsequent releases.

4. These figures are based on the Official Statistics UC caseload definition. Some previous figures have used an alternative caseload definition based on assessment period end dates.

5. Further information on the caseload definition used for the UC official statistics can be found on Stat-Xplore: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/


Written Question
Welfare Tax Credits
Tuesday 12th March 2024

Asked by: Liz Kendall (Labour - Leicester West)

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 and proportion of tax credit claimants that have closed a claim rather than migrate to Universal Credit in each of the last three years.

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

The requested information and can be found in Table 2 here: Completing the move to Universal Credit: Statistics related to the move of households claiming TaxCredits and DWP Benefits to Universal Credit: data to end of December 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) and in Annex A: Completing the move to Universal Credit: Learning from the Discovery Phase - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)


Written Question
Universal Credit
Tuesday 12th March 2024

Asked by: Liz Kendall (Labour - Leicester West)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of Universal Credit claimants have received a budgeting advance in each of the last three years.

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

Table 1 below provides the number and proportion of Universal Credit households who received a Budgeting Advance in each of the last three years.

Year

Number of Universal Credit households who received a Budgeting Advance

Proportion of Universal Credit households who received a Budgeting Advance

Dec 2020 - Nov 2021

1,045,000

18%

Dec 2021 - Nov 2022

1,026,000

18%

Dec 2022 - Nov 2023

1,092,000

18%

Notes:

1. Figures have been rounded to the nearest 1,000.

2. Figures are provisional and are subject to retrospective change as later data becomes available.

3. Data up to November 2023 has been provided in line with the latest available UC Household Statistics.


Written Question
Housing Benefit
Tuesday 12th March 2024

Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much his Department spent on housing benefits in the last financial year; and how much of that was spent on housing provided by (a) local authorities, (b) other social housing providers and (c) private sector landlords.

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

In 2022/23 the Department spent £28.97 billion on Housing Benefit and Universal Credit Housing Element combined.

£15.00 billion was spent on Housing Benefit and £13.97 billion was spent on Universal Credit Housing Element. The quoted Housing Benefit expenditure excludes expenditure funded by Local Authorities.

Housing Benefit expenditure by tenure in 2022/23:

  1. £4.05 billion spent on Local Authority accommodation.
  2. £7.17 billion spent on accommodation provided by Registered Social Landlords.
  3. £3.78 billion spent on private rented sector accommodation.

Universal Credit Housing Element expenditure by tenure in 2022/23:

  1. £7.20 billion spent on social rented sector accommodation. The available data does not allow us to breakdown expenditure on social rented sector into accommodation provided by (a) local authorities and (b) other social housing providers.
  2. Available data does not allow us to split out expenditure on accommodation provided by (b) other social housing providers.
  3. £5.95 billion spent on private rented sector accommodation.
  4. £0.83 billion spent on other/unknown tenancy types.

  1. The expenditure figures include only amounts subsidised by the Department for Work and Pension and do not include housing expenditure funded by local authorities.
  2. Figures may not sum due to rounding.

Written Question
Social Security Benefits
Tuesday 12th March 2024

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 report entitled Beneath the trends: A detailed look at the issues facing claimants going through managed migration, published by the Child Poverty Action Group on 13 February 2024.

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

There is no evidence to suggest slowing down Move to UC is necessary. We have recently published our latest findings; Move to Universal Credit – insight on Tax Credit migrations and initial Discovery activity for wider benefit cohorts - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk), further research is planned to improve our understanding of the service we deliver, to better support those transitioning to UC under managed migration.


Written Question
Universal Credit
Tuesday 12th March 2024

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 reasons that people on Universal Credit may require budgeting advance loans.

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

No formal assessment has been made.