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Disability Living Allowance

Sandra Gidley: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether he has any plans to change the upper age limit for eligibility for the Disability Living Allowance; and if he will make a statement. [177511]

Maria Eagle: No. It is normal for pensions and benefits schemes to contain different provisions for people at different stages of their lives and disability living allowance is focused on providing extra help to people who are severely disabled early, or relatively early, in life.

Attendance allowance provides help with the disability-related extra costs of people who experience the onset of disability after age 65. Based on the need for personal care, this help is part of the wide range of support that the Government make available to older people so that they can have a decent and secure income in retirement and share fairly in the rising prosperity of the country.

Employers' Liability Insurance

Brian Cotter: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many businesses have been prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive for operating without employers' liability compulsory insurance in each of the last five years; and what the total level of fines imposed upon these businesses was. [176981]

Jane Kennedy: The number of businesses which have been prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive for operating without Employers' Liability Compulsory Insurance in each of the last five years is as follows.
 
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Prosecutions (cases heard)

1999–2000	4
2000–01	4
2001–02	12
2002–03	9
2003–04	6
Total	35

The total level of fines imposed upon these businesses for each of the last five years was:
Total fines

1999–2000	1,150
2000–01	1,950
2001–02	16,300
2002–03	4,425
2003–04	3,050
Total	26,875

Mr. Willetts: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what progress has been made since his Department's report in June 2003 on employer liability insurance on proposals to reduce the numbers of uninsured firms. [177528]

Jane Kennedy: The Department published a Second Stage Report on Employers' Liability Compulsory Insurance (ELCI) on 4 December 2003 which outlines current and future work on enforcement issues to reduce the number of uninsured firms. A copy of the report is available in the Library.

Enforcement is undertaken on a day-to-day basis by Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspectors and recent HSE research indicates a high level of compliance, over 99 per cent. Despite this high level of
 
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compliance the Department is considering the costs and benefits of a compliance database with HSE and the Association of British Insurers (ABI).

In addition, in April we published through the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) website new Government procurement guidance to ensure compliance from bodies that contract with the public sector. A notice has been issued centrally to heads of procurement in other Government Departments and public bodies about the guidance and uptake and operation of the guidance will be evaluated in October.

On 30 March the Department published a Partial Regulatory Impact Assessment about a review of the requirement for ELCI for limited companies that employ only their owner. A copy is available in the Library.

Football Supporters

Mr. Willetts: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many football supporters who have travelled abroad to football championships (a) have been investigated for possible infringement of benefit rules, (b) have had benefits withdrawn and (c) had overpayments identified, broken down by football championship. [177534]

Mr. Pond: The information is not available.

Health and Safety (Corporate Responsibility)

Ross Cranston: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will place in the Library a copy of the Health and Safety Commission's report on the effectiveness of the current strategy to promote director's responsibility for health and safety. [177446]

Jane Kennedy: The Health and Safety Commission wrote to the Minister for Work in January of this year advising of progress and the way forward on the measures to improve corporate responsibility for Health and Safety including Directors responsibility.

This advice, which the Minister of Work accepted, was based on research which concluded that further legislation was not necessary, that the voluntary approach was working and that this approach should be continued.

I am placing a copy of the research reports in the Library.

Health and Safety Executive

Andrew Bennett: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how the Health and Safety Executive is financing the revenue costs of the 12 extra Band Five posts it is internally recruiting for in the North West region of the Executive; and what their total annual revenue costs will be in a full financial year. [176722]

Jane Kennedy: Eleven Band 5 posts are being filled in the North West Division by HSE's internal vacancy filling process in June 2004. Eight of these posts formed part of the North West pilot project which was set up in June 2003 to strengthen HSE's front line capacity and engage with more stakeholders. To ensure that the pilot was cost neutral, a number of inspectors in the division were redeployed to other parts of HSE.
 
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Following the success of the pilot, these eight posts are being consolidated. In addition, three other Band 5 posts are being created to extend the model to the Construction Division in the North West. These will be funded through a change in the grade mix in HSE's Field Operations Directorate.

The substantive filling of these posts will attract no additional costs.

Housing Benefit

Mr. Willetts: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what changes have been made to housing benefit to support the policy that 16 to 17-year-old lone parents should be housed in semi-independent adult-supervised accommodation. [177541]

Mr. Pond: The ODPM have extended the Homelessness (Priority Need for Accommodation) (England) Order 2002, to give priority need to homeless 16 and 17-year-olds (who are not relevant children under the purposes of section 23a of the Children Act 1989). In practice, this means 16 and 17-year-olds will be assisted under Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996 (priority need) and applies to a person to whom a local authority owes a duty to provide accommodation under Section 20 of the Children Act 1989 (provision of accommodation for children in need).

No changes to housing benefit were required to support this policy.

Income Support

Mr. Webb: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions for what reason income support recipients are not automatically transferred to pension credit, housing benefit and council tax benefit when they reach 60 years. [177394]

Mr. Pond: Pension credit is not a continuation of income support but is a different social security benefit with different qualifying conditions. Anyone receiving income support who reaches age 60 on or after 6 October 2003 will have to make a new application for pension credit. Arrangements have been put in place to ensure customers are informed of this in advance of reaching age 60.

Housing benefit and council tax benefit are different benefits with different qualifying conditions based on a liability to pay rent and council tax respectively. Determining entitlement to housing benefit and council tax benefit, and notifying customers of their entitlement is also the responsibility of local authorities.

Pension Credit

Mr. David Stewart: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many pensioners in Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber are eligible for pension credit; and what the take-up rate is. [177037]

Malcolm Wicks: Information on the number of people who are eligible for pension credit is not available in respect of individual constituencies. However, we estimate that approximately 350,000 pensioner households in Scotland (rounded to the nearest 50,000) are eligible for pension credit in 2004–05. At 31 May 2004 there were 3,555 households, comprising 4,210
 
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individuals (rounded to the nearest five), in receipt of pension credit in the Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber constituency.

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