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19 Nov 2007 : Column 538W—continued
Ministerial Policy Advisers
Mike Penning: To ask the Leader of the House who the special advisers in her Office are; what expertise each has; and what the cost of employing them was in the latest year for which figures are available. [163418]
Mr. Hoban: To ask the Leader of the House what the office costs for her Department’s special advisers for 2007-08 are expected to be, including costs of support staff; and how many full-time equivalent civil servants work in support of such special advisers. [164923]
Helen Goodman: The annual list of special advisers will be published shortly. I will write to the hon. Members once the information is publicly available.
There are two full-time civil servants who work in support of the special advisers in both my roles as Deputy Leader of the House and Minister for Women and Equality.
Parliamentary Questions
John Hemming: To ask the Leader of the House if she will bring forward proposals to prevent questions from falling as a result of the Prorogation. [164342]
Helen Goodman: Prorogation signifies the formal end of a Session and brings to an end almost all parliamentary business. There are no plans to change the procedure for PQ answers at Prorogation which were reviewed and improved as recently as 2004. In the new Session Members are free, if they so wish, to re-table questions which have fallen at Prorogation.
As the hon. Member is aware, the Procedure Committee is currently conducting an inquiry into written parliamentary questions which will consider the procedures, scope and rules governing the answering of parliamentary questions.
Work and Pensions
Foreign Workers
14. Mr. Rob Wilson: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate he has made of the change in the proportion of foreign workers in the UK labour force since 1997. [165004]
15. Sir Nicholas Winterton: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate he has made of the change in the proportion of foreign workers in the UK labour force since 1997; and what assessment he has made of the effects of that trend. [165006]
21. Richard Ottaway: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate he has made of the change in the proportion of foreign workers in the UK labour force since 1997. [165012]
22. Mr. David Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what estimate he has made of the change in the proportion of foreign workers in the UK labour force since 1997 and what assessment he has made of the effects of that trend. [165013]
Caroline Flint: According to the latest estimates available about 7-8 per cent. of those in employment are foreign nationals. In 1997 the figure was 3-4 per cent.
The UK labour market remains very buoyant. As reported last week, employment is at record levels, employment rates for UK nationals are higher than they were in 1997 and over 660,000 vacancies exist in the economy.
Debt Advice and Assistance
16. Christine Russell: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what steps he is taking to provide advice and assistance to benefit claimants on matters relating to debt. [165007]
Mr. Plaskitt: The now let's talk money campaign is raising awareness among the financially excluded (including benefit claimants) of the availability of free face-to-face financial/debt advice, the availability of more affordable credit and the value of opening a bank account.
Jobcentre Plus is fully joined up with the now let's talk money campaign and advisers are sign-posting customers to free face-to-face money advice (offered by Citizens Advice and other money advice organisations) and affordable credit (offered by credit unions and community development finance institutions) where this is appropriate.
Child Poverty
17. Mr. Spellar: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will make a statement on the methodology his Department uses for estimating levels of child poverty. [165008]
Caroline Flint: The central measure of the three indicators we use is relative low income. This counts those children living in households below 60 per cent. of contemporary median equivalised household income, before housing costs. Equivalisation takes account of the fact that larger families need more money to maintain the same standard of living as smaller ones. Our data come from the Family Resources Survey.
Online Benefits Applications: Operating Systems
18. Dr. Pugh: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will take steps to enable online benefits applications to be made using personal computers with any operating system. [165009]
Mr. Mike O'Brien: Over 90 per cent. of citizens can access online benefits applications through a pilot system developed using Windows technology. A review of the pilot is due to complete by the end of the year, which will identify lessons learnt and determine how the system may be made available to more citizens.
Winter Fuel Allowance
19. Willie Rennie: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the level of the winter fuel allowance; and if he will make a statement. [165010]
Mr. Mike O'Brien: Since its introduction the value of the winter fuel payment has increased substantially. When it was introduced—for the winter of 1997-98—every household with someone over state pension age who was receiving certain qualifying benefits got a payment of £20 to help with their winter fuel costs. Now, households including someone age 60 to 79 are entitled to a payment of £200, with households including someone aged 80 or over entitled to £300. This represents a significant contribution to the costs of winter fuel for older people, and should re-assure them that they can afford to keep warm through the winter months.
Pay: Gender Inequalities
20. Mr. McGovern: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what steps the Government are taking on gender inequalities in pay. [165011]
Barbara Follett: The Government are implementing the Women and Work Commission recommendations for narrowing the gender pay gap. To galvanise this, closing the pay gap is now one of the indicators in the new Equalities Public Service Agreement. And we are considering suggestions made by people responding to our consultation on the Equality Bill about how the law on equal pay could be strengthened.
Job Opportunities: Benefit Recipients
23. Kerry McCarthy: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what steps he is taking to encourage employers to provide job opportunities for people on benefits. [165014]
Caroline Flint: Jobcentre plus already works with 400,000 employers every year and takes over 10,000 new vacancies every working day.
Local employment partnerships build on this success by providing employers with a premium service in return for a stronger than normal commitment to taking on jobless people.
Child Support Agency
24. Mr. Heppell: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what improvements in performance have been made as a result of the Child Support Agency’s operational improvement plan. [165015]
Mr. Plaskitt: The agency is half way through its three year operational improvement plan and is showing significant improvements in client service. Uncleared applications have been more than halved and stand at their lowest point for at least eight years.
The agency is now assessing cases faster than ever; more than half of all new applications are now routinely cleared in less than six weeks.
While these improvements are important and welcome, the real test is the difference made for children by collecting or arranging maintenance. Having established a platform of improved service, the focus for the remaining 18 months is enforcement.
State Pension: Women
Ben Chapman: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what steps the Government is taking to ensure that more women are entitled to a full state pension. [165002]
Mr. Mike O'Brien: As a result of the Pensions Act 2007 the proportion of women reaching state pension age entitled to a full basic state pension is expected to rise to around three quarters in 2010 and to over 90 per cent. in 2025. Almost half a million extra women over state pension age are expected to be entitled to a full basic state pension in 2025 as a result of reform.
Children: Maintenance
Jo Swinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many unrecovered child maintenance payments are outstanding in each constituency in Scotland; and how much in each case is not expected to be recovered. [163464]
Mr. Plaskitt [holding answer on 12 November 2007]: The administration of the Child Support Agency is a matter for the Chief Executive. He will write to the hon. Member.
Letter from Stephen Geraghty, dated 19 November 2007:
You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many unrecovered child maintenance payments are outstanding in each constituency in Scotland; and how much in each case is not expected to be recovered.
The Agency does not hold information in the format requested. Such information as is available is shown in the attached table which sets out the total amount of debt owed by non-resident parents in cases processed on the new system (CS2). The Agency is not able to estimate debt on old rules cases processed on the old system (CSCS) at parliamentary constituency level. Although the Agency does estimate the collectability of debt, this estimate is based on past performance and on an Agency wide sample exercise which does not take account of geographic or regional variation. Therefore the Agency is not able to provide a geographic analysis of the collectability of debt.
This debt is owed by non-resident parents as a result of their failure to meet their responsibilities to their children. Debt recovery is very much dependent on the willingness of non-resident parents to co-operate with the Agency. Some non-resident parents do their utmost to avoid their responsibilities—for example by moving house or changing jobs whenever the Agency tries to collect maintenance.
The Agency is working hard to collect more maintenance arrears and benefit more children. Measures introduced under the Agency’s Operational Improvement Plan, such as enabling credit and debit card payments and employing the services of external debt collection agencies are helping the Agency in this aim.
I hope you find this answer helpful.
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