Estimates for Pension Credit take-up in a financial year are only available at the Great Britain level and are available in the “Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up” publication which can be found on the statistics section of gov.uk. The latest publication relates to the financial year 2019 to 2020.

Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year 2019 to 2020 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Pension Credit provides vital financial support to our most vulnerable pensioners. In Inverclyde some 2,600 pensioners already receive Pension Credit, but we want all those who are eligible to claim it. That’s why the Department launched a £1.2m nationwide communications campaign in April to raise awareness of Pension Credit and increase take-up. The campaign included:

• Promotion of Pension Credit on social media, via internet search engines and sponsored advertising on targeted websites that pensioners, their friends and family are likely to visit;
• Information screens in Post Offices and GP surgeries across GB;
• Advertising in regional and national newspapers and on national and local broadcast radio;
• Advertising on the sides of buses, interior bus panels and digital street displays;
• Leaflets and posters in Jobcentres, as well as digital versions which could be used by stakeholders and partners across local communities;
• Engagement with Local Authorities nationwide through the Government Communication Service local network and promotional materials to enable them to support the campaign; and
• In June, we held a second Pension Credit awareness media ‘day of action’ working in close collaboration with broadcasters, newspapers and other partners such as Age UK, Independent Age and the private sector to reach out to pensioners to promote Pension Credit through their channels.
• An updated digital toolkit with information and resources that any stakeholder can use to help promote Pension Credit.

In December further press and radio advertising and social media activity is planned. We will be focusing on highlighting to pensioners that if they apply for Pension Credit by 18 December, it will not be too late to qualify for a £324 Cost of Living Payment – subject to Pension Credit backdating rules.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Lords) and I have also written to MPs and Peers asking for their support and inviting them to a Pension Credit event on 7 December, where I intend to update them on our communications campaign.

In the new year, DWP will again write to over 11 million pensioners as part of the annual uprating of State Pension. The accompanying leaflet has been updated to include the prominent campaign messaging promoting Pension Credit.

Estimates for Pension Credit take-up in a financial year are only available at the Great Britain level and are available in the “Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up” publication which can be found on the statistics section of gov.uk. The latest publication relates to the financial year 2019 to 2020.

Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year 2019 to 2020 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Pension Credit provides vital financial support to our most vulnerable pensioners. In Inverclyde some 2,600 pensioners already receive Pension Credit, but we want all those who are eligible to claim it. That’s why the Department launched a £1.2m nationwide communications campaign in April to raise awareness of Pension Credit and increase take-up. The campaign included:

• Promotion of Pension Credit on social media, via internet search engines and sponsored advertising on targeted websites that pensioners, their friends and family are likely to visit;
• Information screens in Post Offices and GP surgeries across GB;
• Advertising in regional and national newspapers and on national and local broadcast radio;
• Advertising on the sides of buses, interior bus panels and digital street displays;
• Leaflets and posters in Jobcentres, as well as digital versions which could be used by stakeholders and partners across local communities;
• Engagement with Local Authorities nationwide through the Government Communication Service local network and promotional materials to enable them to support the campaign; and
• In June, we held a second Pension Credit awareness media ‘day of action’ working in close collaboration with broadcasters, newspapers and other partners such as Age UK, Independent Age and the private sector to reach out to pensioners to promote Pension Credit through their channels.
• An updated digital toolkit with information and resources that any stakeholder can use to help promote Pension Credit.

In December further press and radio advertising and social media activity is planned. We will be focusing on highlighting to pensioners that if they apply for Pension Credit by 18 December, it will not be too late to qualify for a £324 Cost of Living Payment – subject to Pension Credit backdating rules.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Lords) and I have also written to MPs and Peers asking for their support and inviting them to a Pension Credit event on 7 December, where I intend to update them on our communications campaign.

In the new year, DWP will again write to over 11 million pensioners as part of the annual uprating of State Pension. The accompanying leaflet has been updated to include the prominent campaign messaging promoting Pension Credit.

Innovation Accelerators are a pilot approach to supporting three UK city regions, including Glasgow, to become major, globally competitive centres for research and innovation.

In Glasgow, a locally led partnership convened by the Glasgow City Region, involving leaders in local government, business and R&D institutions, supported by UK Government and R&D funders, is making good progress in developing a plan to boost innovation and attract new R&D investment.

Funding for Innovation Accelerators will run for the duration of the Spending Review and we will put in place a monitoring and evaluation framework to assess their impact

I have spent many happy hours in Greenock and am looking forward to many more. I imagine that time there can only be enhanced, whether in Cappielow or anywhere else, with the hon. Gentleman.

The key thing about the levelling-up fund is that constituencies across the United Kingdom, including in Scotland, have benefited. I look forward to working with him and others to ensure that—[Interruption.] As a Morton fan, he will appreciate that patience is a virtue.

The Secretary of State cannot fail to have noticed the number of questions in this session that have centred on the White Paper. Councils around the UK want to know what the timetable is, what the criteria are and when it will be published. Inverclyde wants to apply for this levelling-up funding. Will he help me? Does he want to visit Greenock, so I can show him the projects?

The Cold Weather Payment scheme is administered at weather station level rather than at a constituency or regional level. The coverage area for each weather station is determined by the Met Office, which assesses the most appropriate weather station for each postcode area. Cold weather payments are triggered when the average temperature recorded at the weather station has been recorded as, or is forecast to be, 0^oC or below over seven consecutive days, during the Cold Weather season (November to March)

The constituency of Inverclyde covers all or part of the following postcode areas: PA11, PA13, PA14, PA15, PA16, PA17, PA18 and PA19.

These postcode areas are covered by the weather station Bishopton, which also include constituencies other than Inverclyde.

Table 2 summarises the number of triggers in the Bishopton weather station over the last 5 complete Cold Weather Payment seasons and the estimated number of payments in the Bishopton weather station area.

Where there have been no cold weather triggers in the Bishopton weather station area, no payments were made to eligible recipients.

Notes

1. The number of eligible claimants given here is an estimate as information on the exact number is not readily available. These figures are produced by determining the volume of eligible recipients in each weather station area at the start of the winter season. These figures are then used throughout the winter to estimate payments and expenditure based on the actual triggers recorded.

2. The number of payments made is not necessarily the total number of individuals benefitting from a Cold Weather Payment. Any individuals making a joint claim for one of the qualifying benefits, such as a couple living together, will receive one payment between them rather than one payment each. Furthermore, if a weather station triggers more than once throughout a cold weather season then the recipients will receive more than one payment.

No impact assessment has been made.

The Chancellor announced a temporary six-month extension to the £20 per week uplift at the Budget on 3 March to support households affected by the economic shock of Covid-19. Universal Credit has provided a vital safety net for six million people during the pandemic, and the temporary uplift was part of a COVID support package worth a total of £407 billion in 2020-21 and 2021-22.

The latest poverty figures (2019/20) demonstrate that absolute poverty rates (both before and after housing costs) for working-age adults in working families have fallen since 2009/10. In 2019/20, 8% of working age adults in working families were in absolute poverty (before housing costs), compared to 9% in 2009/10.

There have been significant positive developments in the public health situation since the uplift was first introduced. With the success of the vaccine rollout and record job vacancies, it is right that our focus is on helping people back into work.

Through our Plan for Jobs, we are targeting tailored support schemes of people of all ages to help them prepare for, get into and progress in work. These include: Kickstart, delivering tens of thousands of six-month work placements for UC claimants aged 16-24 at risk of unemployment; Restart, which provides 12 months’ intensive employment support to UC claimants who are unemployed for a year; and JETS, which provides light touch employment support for people who are claiming either Universal Credit or New Style Jobseekers Allowance, for up to 6 months, helping participants effectively re-engage with the labour market and focus their job search. We have also recruited an additional 13,500 work coaches to provide more intensive support to find a job. In total, our Plan for Jobs interventions will support more than two million people.

The information requested on the number of households in Inverclyde are eligible for pension credits but do not claim is not available at constituency level.

Official statistics on the take-up of income related benefits at Great Britain level, including Pension Credit, can be found in the ‘Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up in 2016 to 2017’ publication.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/income-related-benefits-estimates-of-take-up-financial-year-2016-to-2017

Information on the number of individuals and couples receiving Pension Credit in Inverclyde from most recent data (as of November 2018) is set out below:

Pension Credit recipients in Inverclyde

Source: DWP Stat-Xplore

This information is published and available at Stat-Xplore:

https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk

Guidance for users is available at:

https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html

We are not in a position to provide volumes at detailed geographic breakdowns, as the volumes at this level would be small and therefore disclosive. We are working at pace to ensure that claimants receive any additional entitlement to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) as soon as possible.

The information requested is not collated centrally. This would require the merging of several complex datasets, and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

The number of paying parents with any unpaid maintenance, and the corresponding amount of money outstanding of such unpaid maintenance as of June 2018 for the constituency of Inverclyde are outlined in the table below. This includes all paying parents with unpaid maintenance regardless of whether there is an ongoing maintenance liability.

Paying parents are rounded to the nearest 10; unpaid maintenance is rounded to the nearest £10,000.

The information requested is provided in the table below.

1. Social Security and Child Support (SSCS) data are normally registered to the venue nearest to the appellant’s home address. We cannot retrieve data based on the appellant’s actual address, but can produce reports detailing the numbers of cases that were dealt with at one of our Regional centres or heard at a specific venue. Inverclyde appeals are attributed to the Greenock venue, except Child Support (attributed to Glasgow).

2. By Financial Year - from April to March.

3. PIP replaced Disability Living Allowance (DLA) for people aged 16 to 64 from 8 April 2013. As such, volumes received by HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) in 2013-2014 are low. Data include PIP Reassessment.

4. Includes ESA and ESA (Reassessments)

5. The total number of Appeals disposed of, inclusive of both those cleared at hearing and those cleared without the need of a tribunal hearing.

6. Data April 17 to March 18 are provisional data and subject to change.

~ HMCTS has chosen not to provide an exact figure in cases where the true number falls between one and five. However, it should not be assumed that the actual figure represented falls at any particular point within this scale; 'five or fewer' is used as a replacement value from which it would be difficult to isolate or extract any individual data.

Although care is taken when processing and analysing the data, the details are subject to inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale case management system and are the best data that are available.

The data are a subset of official statistics extracted from the case management system on a different date.

Latest figures indicate that since PIP was introduced, more than 3.1 million decisions have been made, and of these under 9% have been appealed and 4% have been overturned. For ESA, 8% of decisions made were appealed and 4% have been overturned at tribunals.

The information requested is provided in the table below.

1. Social Security and Child Support appeals are normally registered to the venue nearest to the appellant’s home address. We cannot retrieve data based on the appellant’s actual address, but can produce reports detailing the number of cases that were dealt with at one of our regional centres or heard at a specific venue. Inverclyde appeals are registered to the Greenock venue, with the exception of Child Support Appeals which are registered to the Glasgow venue.
2. Data for Glasgow will include all Child Support Appeals heard at that venue, not just those living in the Inverclyde Area.
3. Social Security Appeals include all appeals received in the First-tier Tribunal (Social Security and Child Support) with the exception of those in relation to specific Child Support Benefits (e.g. Child Support Assessments, Child Support Reform).
4. Child Support relates to appeals relating to Child Support Benefit (e.g. Child Support Assessments, Child Support Reform).
5. By financial year - from April to March.
6. Data April 17 to March 18 are provisional data and are subject to change.

Although care is taken when processing and analysing the data, the details are subject to inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale management system and are the best data available.

The data may differ slightly to those of the published stats as these data were run on a different date.

The information requested could only be provided at a disproportionate cost.

DWP provides volumes of Mandatory Reconsiderations at a national level in the following statistical publications.

“Personal Independence Payment: Official Statistics to April 2018” – Tables 7a and 7b, available on line at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-independence-payment-april-2013-to-april-2018

“ESA: outcomes of Work Capability Assessments including mandatory reconsiderations and appeals: June 2018” – Tables 12 to 15, available on line at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/esa-outcomes-of-work-capability-assessments-including-mandatory-reconsiderations-and-appeals-june-2018

“Benefit sanctions statistics to January 2018” – Tables 1.8, 2.6, and 3.6, available on line at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/benefit-sanctions-statistics-to-january-2018. Further breakdowns of these statistics for Parliamentary Constituencies can be found via Stat-Xplore:

https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk. Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here:

https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html.

“Child Maintenance Service: Aug 2013 to Mar 2018 (experimental)” – Table 15, available on line at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/child-maintenance-service-aug-2013-to-mar-2018-experimental

I refer the Hon. Member to the statement made by myself, Official Report, 30 January 2018, Column 703.

I absolutely understand the importance for the future of our maritime sector—of shipping goods by sea. Indeed, I recently had the pleasure of visiting Montrose port to see the important work that it does for the east of Scotland. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the maritime sector, while often not the highest-profile sector in these questions, is enormously important to this country.

In my constituency we have the Greenock ocean terminal, from which goods are imported and exported around the world. What assurances can the Minister give me that Brexit will not adversely affect the transportation of goods by sea from my Inverclyde constituency?