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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-12-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much and what proportion of his Department’s budget for employment support has been allocated to the Work and Health Programme for each of the next four years.

Priti Patel

In the Autumn Statement, the Chancellor announced a new Work and Health Programme to provide specialist support for claimants with health conditions or disabilities and those unemployed for over 2 years after current Work Programme and Work Choice contracts end.

The Department is currently undertaking its normal prioritisation process to determine how funding secured at the Spending Review is allocated on an annual basis.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-12-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many times participants in the work programme were sanctioned between (a) June 2011 and November 2015 and (b) August 2015 and November 2015.

Priti Patel

The information requested is not available.

The Department publishes Official Statistics on Jobseekers Allowance (JSA), sanctions, including those who have been sanctioned for failure to participate in the Work Programme and Employment Support Allowance (ESA) sanction decisions, for those who have been sanctioned for failure to participate in a work related activity, which will include the Work Programme, and these statistics are published via the following link:

https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/

The latest set of Official Statistics was released on 11 November 2015 and covers all decisions made to 30 June 2015.

Guidance on how to extract the information required from Stat-Xplore can be found at:

https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started—SuperWEB2.html

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-12-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of new claims for (a) jobseeker’s allowance and (b) employment and support allowance were made by (i) UK nationals and (ii) EU nationals from outside the UK in each of the last five years.

Priti Patel

The information requested is not available.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-12-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of his Department’s employees were paid (a) at the national minimum wage and (b) above the national minimum wage but below the voluntary living wage in each of the last five years.

Justin Tomlinson

DWP has paid its employees above the National Minimum Wage throughout the last five years.

DWP has paid its employees above the voluntary living wage with the following exceptions:

– A short period from October 2013 to June 2014, following the October 2013 uprating of the voluntary living wage rate. During that time 229 (less than 0.3%) DWP employees earned 1p per hour below the figure.

– From November 2015 when the voluntary living wage rate was increased by 5.1%. Currently 1,145 (1.4%) employees earn between 4-21p less per hour than the uprated voluntary living wage figure.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-12-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, on how many occasions work programme providers referred participants for a sanction between (a) June 2011 and November 2015 and (b) August 2015 and November 2015.

Priti Patel

The specific information requested is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-12-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what his estimate is of the notional average weekly change in benefit which working families currently claiming housing benefit would face as a result of removing the family premium from the calculation of their housing benefit entitlement.

Justin Tomlinson

This policy only applies to new claims to Housing Benefit (HB), or those who have a first child while claiming HB. The impact for working families will not be as much as the premium itself because of the income taper, which reduces the impact on average to around £10.63 per week.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-12-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the effect of limiting the backdating of housing benefit to a maximum of one month on (a) the ability of tenants to pay any rent arrears accrued after a delay in applying for housing benefit and (b) the willingness of landlords in the private rented sector to let properties to people claiming housing benefit.

Justin Tomlinson

There is no evidence to indicate that limiting the permitted backdating of housing benefit to a month will either increase rent arrears, or affect private landlords’ willingness to let properties to people claiming housing benefit.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-12-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the effect removing the family premium from new claims for housing benefit the ability of claimants affected to move outside their local authority area in order to take up better paid work.

Justin Tomlinson

This policy alters just one premium added to Housing Benefit for working families: support continues through the Child Benefit disregard and for families in receipt of Child Tax Credits.