The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve Rotheram on 2015-10-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many universal credit claimants have been sanctioned in (a) Liverpool, Walton constituency and (b) Liverpool since the implementation of that policy.
Priti Patel
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to Question 11863 asked on 14 October 2015
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Hendrick on 2015-10-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the number of people with cancer who will be affected by proposals under the Welfare Reform and Work Bill to reduce the amount paid to new claimants in the employment and support allowance work related activity group.
Priti Patel
The Government set out its assessment of the impacts of the policies in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill on 20th July. These are available on the Parliament website: http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2015-16/welfarereformandwork/documents.html
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Frank Field on 2015-10-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 19 October 2015 to Question 11226, for what reasons decisions were not made on 118,039 of the applications his Department received in the period between October 2014 and September 2015 for Short Term Benefit Advance.
Priti Patel
We only collect limited data on those requests for a Short Term Benefit Advances that are refused although we do know that the vast majority of refusals are either because:
(i) There was a doubt about whether the claimant would be entitled to the benefit being claimed and, therefore, we could not be sure that there was any benefit to advance or
(ii) Actual benefit was paid instead, which is a better outcome for the claimant.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-10-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will publish an impact assessment of the Universal Credit (Work Allowance) Amendment Regulations 2015.
Priti Patel
The Explanatory Memorandum that was published alongside the work allowance regulations contained the reference to the existing Universal Credit (UC) Impact Assessment. Whilst it is not standard practice to publish separate impact assessment for each change to the UC Regulations, Ministers gave full consideration to the impacts of these changes before the work allowance regulations were laid.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-10-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many employment and support allowance claimants who are in the support group were previously in the work-related activity group.
Priti Patel
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve Rotheram on 2015-10-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many universal credit claimants there have been in (a) Liverpool, Walton constituency and (b) Liverpool city region since that policy’s implementation.
Priti Patel
The information requested can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/universal-credit-statistics.
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2015-10-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what (a) guidelines and (b) recommended timescales exist for processing last-minute Access to Work extra support requests.
Justin Tomlinson
The Access to Work guidance and policy for fast track application requests is that applications are identified and marked as urgent then allocated to an advisory team on the same day. This includes the Access to Work adviser making contact with the customer on the same day to ensure that their request is progressed as far as possible to the point of decision on the level of support if possible.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2015-10-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many complaints his Department has received about the assessment assistance offered by CAPITA.
Justin Tomlinson
Complaints about the assessment service offered by Capita are processed by Capita and not the Department for Work and Pensions.
Capita has received a total of 1,288 complaints for 2015 in relation to their contractual delivery of the Personal Independence Payment Assessment process. This represents 1% of their total assessment referral volume.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2015-10-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 16 October 2015 to Question 11269, whether a personal independence payment assessment provider would be breaking the terms of its contract with his Department if it were to provide audio equipment for use in assessments which complied with the required specifications.
Justin Tomlinson
There is no contractual agreement between DWP and assessment providers around the provision of audio equipment. If claimants wish for their assessments to be recorded they may do so using their own equipment, provided they comply with the conditions put in place which were outlined in the response provided to your previous question on this subject on 9 September 2015 and 16th of October 2015.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-10-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people who were subject to the benefit cap between May 2015 and August 2015 had been in receipt of working tax credit at any point during the 12 months prior to May 2015.
Justin Tomlinson
Benefit cap statistics for the period to August 2015 have been pre-announced for publication on 5th November 2015, however the information you have requested cannot be provided due to disproportionate costs.