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22 Mar 2010 : Column 43W—continued
No Department for Work and Pensions benefit fraud investigators are based abroad. However, there are 16 Foreign and Commonwealth Office staff based abroad funded by the Department for Work and Pensions whose duties include undertaking information gathering on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions to assist UK-based fraud investigators in their work.
The Department for Work and Pensions has Memoranda of Understanding with the Republic of Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium and Australia and information sharing arrangements with New Zealand and the USA to ensure the correct administration of social security and prevention of benefit fraud.
The budget for the 2009-10 Targeting Benefit Thieves campaign is £5 million. To the end of February the budget committed for 2009-10 is £4,803,420.52.
Social Security Benefits: Lone Parents
Mr. Flello: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if she will investigate the situation whereby a non-resident parent in receipt of certain benefits including pensions paid on medical grounds can receive an income of almost £25,000 per annum and the resident parent receives the minimum weekly maintenance payment of £5 per week, irrespective of the number of children involved. [318499]
Helen Goodman: The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission is responsible for the child maintenance system.
I have asked the Child Maintenance Commissioner to write to the hon. Member with the information requested in respect of the current position and I have seen the response.
I should also add that as part of the development of regulations for the future child maintenance scheme, the policy affecting cases such as these is being reviewed.
In reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about the Child Support Agency, the Secretary of State promised a substantive reply from the Child Maintenance Commissioner as the Child Support Agency is now the responsibility of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission.
You asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will investigate the anomaly whereby a non-resident parent in receipt of certain benefits including pensions paid on medical grounds can receive an income of almost £25,000 per annum and the resident parent receives the minimum weekly maintenance payment of £5 per week, irrespective of the number of children involved. [318499]
Non-resident parents in receipt of prescribed benefits will only be assessed as being able to pay the £5 per week flat rate of maintenance. This is not affected by the amount of benefit paid.
It is possible for the parent with care to apply for a variation on the grounds that the non-resident parent receives other income which has not been taken into account. The Child Support (Variations) Regulations 2000 specifically provides for the initial £5 per week maintenance liability to be varied where the non-resident parent receives other income, which would have otherwise been taken in to account in the initial maintenance calculation process, were it not for the fact that the non-resident parent was receiving a prescribed benefit.
I hope you find this answer helpful.
Social Security Benefits: Travelling People
Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions whether (a) council tax and (b) housing benefit may be awarded to Travellers occupying camps without planning permission. [323443]
Helen Goodman: Council tax benefit is available to anyone who is liable for council tax.
Where a Traveller's caravan occupies a non-established site or pitch for a period materially less than 12 months, with no sign of likely future use, this will generally be regarded as too transient to establish the pitch as a dwelling. For established sites or pitches, even if the occupier changes often, a banding will apply and a liability to council tax will exist.
It is established rating law, applicable to council tax that a transitory occupation of land does not amount to rateable occupation. Whether the necessary permanence of occupation has been established for liability to arise will depend on the facts in each case.
On the subject of housing benefit I refer the hon. Member to the written answer I gave him on 8 March 2010, Official Report, column 75W.
State Retirement Pensions
Paul Flynn: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the effects would be on (a) public service and (b) other occupational pension schemes if the level of the basic and additional state pensions were both increased by 1.5 per cent. instead of 2.5 per cent. in April 2010; and how many pensioners would (i) gain and (ii) lose as a result. [319356]
Angela Eagle: Current social security legislation provides for public service pension to be adjusted by the same rate as the additional pension, and for such adjustments to take place only if there has been an increase in the prices over a given period.
The effect of increasing both the basic state pension and additional pension by 1.5 per cent., compared with increasing the basic state pension by 2.5 per cent., would be to reduce the average increase in state pension overall as a result of uprating in April 2010, from around £2 a week to around £1.50 a week.
More detailed data on pensioners' overall income split by detailed source are not available.
Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the take-up rate of basic state pension was (a) nationally, (b) in Essex and (c) in Southend in the latest period for which figures are available; and what it was in each year since 1997. [320646]
Angela Eagle: The information requested can be found in the following tables where available. The figures relate to the proportion of the population in receipt of basic state pension, who are estimated to be over state pension age and alive at the end of March 2009.
| Pensioners in Great Britain in receipt of basic state pension | ||
| Number | Proportion over state pension age (percentage) | |
| Pensioners in Southend in receipt of basic state pension | ||
| Number | Proportion over state pension age (percentage) | |
| Pensioners in Essex in receipt of basic state pension | ||
| Number | Proportion over state pension age (percentage) | |
| Notes: 1. The latest population and administrative data are from 2009. The latest population figures for Essex and Southend are from the ONS Mid-2008 Population Estimates. 2. The earliest available regional caseload data only go back to 2002. Figures for Essex relate to Essex local authority district and for Southend relate to Southend-on-Sea unitary authority. 3. GB estimates are rounded to the nearest 100,000 people, those for Essex and Southend to the nearest 100 people. 4. The remaining pensioners not in receipt of a basic state pension, but eligible, will be in the process of deferring their state pension. Following a period of state pension deferral a claimant can either: (i) take a lump sum that will have accrued at a rate of two percentage points above the Bank of England base rate or; (ii) receive extra state pension whereby an additional one per cent. is added to the value of the state pension for every five weeks of deferral. | ||
Lindsay Roy: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many (a) men and (b) women in (i) Glenrothes, (ii) Scotland and (iii) the UK qualify for the full basic state pension. [322404]
Angela Eagle: The available information is in the following table.
| Total | Male | Female | |
| Notes: 1. Figures are for claimants with a full basic state pension as at March 2009. 2. Figures are subject to a high degree of sampling error and should only be used as a guide. 3. Caseload figures are rounded to the nearest 100. Totals may not sum due to rounding. Source: Department for Work and Pensions, Information Directorate, 5 per cent. sample | |||
Stroud
Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if she will set out, with statistical information related as directly as possible to constituency, the effects on that constituency of the policies and actions of her Department and its predecessor since 2000. [321481]
Jonathan Shaw: DWP leads the Government's response to some of the biggest issues facing the country-welfare and pension reform-and is a key player in tackling child poverty(1). As the biggest delivery department in the UK, DWP makes a difference to millions of people every day, helping them to lead safer, fairer and more rewarding lives that are free from poverty. We want to give people more choice and control over their lives and are committed to providing greater choice and personalised support to everyone who needs it so they have the opportunity to get into and remain in work. We believe that work works. Even in economically challenging times we know that work works for the most vulnerable and the disadvantaged.
Through Jobcentre Plus, we are promoting work as the best form of welfare for people of working age. Since January 1998, the number of people unemployed in Stroud has increased by 31 per cent. to 1,840, and the number unemployed for more than one year has decreased by 35 per cent. to 200. From August 2000 to August 2009 the number of lone parents claiming income support in Stroud has decreased by 25 per cent. to 660.
Our New Deals have helped lone parents, the young unemployed, the long-term unemployed, disabled people, the over-50s and partners of unemployed people to move from benefit into work. Since their inception, over 2.2 million people in Great Britain have found work with the support of the New Deal, and 2,670 have been helped in Stroud.
We introduced a target to halve child poverty by 2010-11 on the way to eradicating it by 2020. Poverty is measured using a headline indicator of the proportion
of children in households with an income below 60 per cent. of contemporary household median income before housing costs. This is in line with international best practice.
Statistics on the numbers of children living in poverty are not available at the constituency level.
Since 1997 our strategy has been to target help on the poorest pensioners while providing a solid foundation of support for all.
This year we will be spending over £13 billion more on pensioners than if we had continued with the policies that were in place in 1997. Around half of that money will go to the poorest third of pensioners.
In 1997 the poorest pensioners, who received income support, lived on £69 a week (£98 in today's prices). Today pension credit, which was introduced in 2003, means no pensioner needs to live on less than £130 a week, £198.45 for couples. As of August 2009, 4,790 pensioners in Stroud are benefiting from pension credit.
In 2007-08 there were 900,000 fewer pensioners living in relative poverty in UK compared to 1998-99 (measured as below 60 per cent. of contemporary median household income after housing costs).
Statistics on the proportion of pensioners living in relative poverty are not available at constituency level. But the latest data for the south-west Government office region show that the proportion of pensioners in poverty (measured as below 60 per cent. of contemporary median household income after housing costs) fell from 24 per cent. to 18 per cent. since 2000(2).
Pensioners in the UK also benefit from a range of additional support such as the winter fuel payment which this winter is worth £250 for households with someone aged between 60 to 79 and £400 for households with someone aged 80 or over. These payments provide vital reassurance to older people that they can afford to turn up their heating during cold weather. Prior to winter 1997-98 less than £60 million per year was spent helping pensioners meet their fuel bills-we now spend around £2.7 billion on winter fuel payments alone. In winter 2008-09 (the last winter for which information is available) 25,540 people aged 60 and over benefited from winter fuel payments in Stroud.
We have also taken steps to strengthen and protect the private pensions system to ensure people can continue to have confidence to save for their future through the establishment of the Pensions Protection Fund, the Financial Assistance Scheme and a more powerful and proactive pensions regulator.
The protection system ensures that, unlike in 1997, people are not left without a pension even in the event that their employer becomes insolvent.
In total, 751 people in the south-west Government office region are receiving compensation from the Pension Protection Fund (data not available at constituency level)(3).
We have also taken forward a radical package of pension reforms in the Pensions Acts of 2007 and 2008 which will deliver a fairer and more generous state pension and extend the opportunity of workplace pension saving to millions, many for the first time.
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