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  • Jessica Morden – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    Jessica Morden – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jessica Morden on 2015-10-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what plans he has to tackle nuisance calls.

    Mr Edward Vaizey

    Tackling nuisance calls is a priority for the Government. Our commitment to tackle this problem was outlined in our Nuisance Calls Action Plan, which was published on 30 March 2014. Since publication, we have progressed legislative and non-legislative measures, including ensuring improved information sharing between regulators and lowering the legal threshold for the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Currently we are encouraging and seeking more innovative and cost effective call blocking products and have launched a competition fund with Innovate UK to do this.

  • Nick Smith – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    Nick Smith – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nick Smith on 2015-10-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to ensure that fans buying tickets for sporting and cultural events are not disadvantaged by organised gangs of online touts in the secondary ticket market.

    Tracey Crouch

    The Government announced last week that Professor Michael Waterson has been appointed to chair the independent review of consumer protection measures in the secondary ticket market. The review will look into existing protections for consumers and how tickets come to be available on the secondary market.

  • Emily Thornberry – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Emily Thornberry – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    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.

  • Roger Godsiff – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Roger Godsiff – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    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.

  • Steve McCabe – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Steve McCabe – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    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.

  • Steve McCabe – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Steve McCabe – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    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.

  • Steve Rotheram – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Steve Rotheram – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    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.

    “

  • Emily Thornberry – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Emily Thornberry – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    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.

  • Emily Thornberry – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Emily Thornberry – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    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.

  • Frank Field – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Frank Field – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    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.