Tag: Julie Hilling

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julie Hilling on 2014-03-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate his Department has made of the effect of the removal of the under-occupancy penalty on the number of children living in relative income poverty.

Esther McVey

This information could be only provided at disproportionate cost.

This Government has made good progress in tackling the root causes of child poverty and has recently published the 2014-17 draft child poverty strategy for consultation which outlines the actions we are taking. The latest figures from 2011/12 show that 2.3m (17%) children are in relative income poverty – down 300,000 since 2009/10. These are the lowest level since the mid-1980s.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julie Hilling on 2014-03-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Answer of 15 January 2013, Official Report, column 715W, on child poverty, what estimate his Department has made of the effect of (a) the new timetable for the implementation of universal credit and (b) changes to work allowances on the level of relative income poverty among (i) children and (ii) adults.

Esther McVey

After full roll-out, the Department’s latest analysis suggests that Universal Credit will reduce the number of individuals in relative income poverty by some 600,000; including up to 300,000 children and up to 350,000 adults (numbers do not sum due to rounding).

This figure does not take into account the expected increase in numbers of people in work as a result of universal credit, and excludes the impact of the minimum income floor for the self-employed which is designed to encourage those affected to improve their income levels and for which the behavioural response is very difficult to model.

This estimate is not affected by the timetable for the implementation of Universal Credit, and changes to the policy on uprating of work allowances make negligible difference to the impact of Universal Credit on child or adult poverty as measured by relative income.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julie Hilling on 2014-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what proportion of local authorities in England and Wales require a Disclosure and Barring Service check on applicants before issuing a (a) taxi and (b) private hire vehicle licence.

Stephen Hammond

The Department for Transport does not hold this information. Local authorities are under a statutory duty to ensure that any person to whom they grant a taxi or private hire vehicle driver’s licence is a “fit and proper person”. As part of this process they can undertake criminal record checks on applicants but we do not keep details of the assessment policies and procedures adopted by local authorities.