The UK Government is firmly opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances and every country, especially Iran. We raise human rights issues at all appropriate opportunities, including with the Iranian Embassy in London and through our Ambassador in Tehran. We last raised our objections to the death penalty on 17 May. On 9 January and 8 December, the Foreign Secretary ordered the summoning of Iran's most senior diplomat in the UK, to protest Iran's continued imposition of the death penalty on protesters. We will continue to work closely with our international partners to ensure Iran is held to account on the world stage, including through the establishment of a UN Fact Finding Mission.

We are committed to working with international partners to mitigate the impact of Russia's actions globally. The UK regularly engages with international counterparts, including the US and South Africa, across a range of defence and economic interests in the region. Most recently, the Foreign Secretary met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on 17 January to discuss how we can best support Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression. The Minister for Development and Africa, Andrew Mitchell also discussed a range of issues, including the Ukraine conflict, with South African Deputy Foreign Minister Botes on 19 January. Our High Commission in Pretoria regularly engages South African counterparts on Russia-related matters, and keeps in close touch with US colleagues.

The environment for freedom of religion or belief across China is restrictive, including the persecution of Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Falun Gong practitioners and others on the grounds of their religion or belief.

We regularly raise the human rights situation in China directly with the Chinese authorities at the highest levels. Most recently, the Foreign Secretary did so in a meeting with his Chinese counterpart on 20 September.

We also work within the UN, OSCE, Council of Europe, International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance and other international organisations and networks to promote and protect freedom of religion or belief for all where it is threatened.

We have called upon the Government of Israel to fully respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of human rights defenders and organisations and to allow them to freely operate in Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories. We regularly raise the issue of the high numbers of Palestinians killed and injured by Israeli Defence Forces in the West Bank and Gaza with the Israeli authorities. We encourage them to carry out swift, transparent and thorough investigations and, if wrongdoing is found, that those responsible be held to account. We will continue to stress the importance of the Israeli security forces providing appropriate protection to the Palestinian civilian population and urge restraint in the use of live fire. The UK remains committed to a two-state solution, as the Minister for the Middle East, Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon, made clear during his visit to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories on 10-13 January.

Of the PQs received in 2022, the FCDO responded to (a) 82 per cent of Ordinary PQs and (b) 83 per cent of Named day PQs on time.

The Government attaches great importance to the effective and timely handling of written parliamentary questions and correspondence from MPs, either directly or on behalf of their constituents. All departments have access to regular training led by the Parliamentary Capability Team through the Government Campus.

Following the significant increase in numbers since 2020, the FCDO has an ongoing focused programme of work to streamline processes and improve response times to tackle the high volume. Annual and Quarterly data on MP/Peer letter performance, published on https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/data-on-responses-to-correspondence-from-mps-and-peers shows the FCDO has improved from 50% on time in 2021 to 72% so far this year. The latest House of Commons Procedure Committee report published in July 2022 records the FCDO improvement in answering ordinary written parliamentary questions from 87% for 2019-21 Session to 94% for 2021-22, and similarly for named day written parliamentary questions from 84% to 89%.

The Government is committed to managing the public finances in a responsible way by targeting the £650 Cost of Living Payment support at low income means tested households where it is most needed.

The guidance with the full list of support can be found at:

Overall government support for the cost of living: factsheet - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Cost of Living Payments have been designed to target support for households with low incomes, on means-tested benefits. These payments are in addition to the £400 of support for energy bills that the Government is providing through the expansion of the Energy Bills Support Scheme, doubling the £200 of support announced earlier this year and making the whole £400 a non-repayable grant. In addition, individuals may be able to benefit from the disability and pensioner Cost of Living Payments if they are in receipt of disability benefits or eligible for Winter Fuel Payments.

From October 2022, Government is also providing an additional £500 million to help households with the cost of essentials, bringing the total funding for this support to £1.5 billion. In England, £421m will be used to further extend the Household Support Fund (October 2022 – March 2023). Guidance and individual local authority indicative allocations for this further extension to the Household Support Fund will be announced in due course.

In addition to the new support, people on low incomes but not means-tested benefits may also benefit from previously announced measures to help people tackle the cost of living, including frozen alcohol duty and fuel duty, raising the NICs threshold, council tax rebates and the further rise in the National Living Wage to £9.50 an hour from April 2022.

The Government recognises the importance of supporting the welfare of claimants who have incurred debt. We seek to balance recovery of debt against not causing hardship for claimants and their families. Processes are in place to ensure deductions are manageable, and in April 2021 we further reduced the cap on deductions from Universal Credit awards to 25% of a claimant’s Standard Allowance enabling them to retain more of the award

Protocols are in place to ensure deductions are manageable and customers can contact DWP Debt Management if they are experiencing financial hardship to discuss a reduction in their rate of repayment, or a temporary suspension, depending on financial circumstances.

The latest published statistics show, of the 4,728,957 households on Universal Credit, in February 2022, there were 2,100,800 UC households in Great Britain with a deduction; of these 107,700 were in Wales and 3,500 in the Newport East Constituency.

We do not give prospective Universal Credit (UC) claimants personalised information on potential deductions from their benefits before moving to UC. This is because the Department only holds limited information about any potential debts a new claimant before a claim is made.

When considering a voluntary move to Universal Credit (as outlined in our recent publication), claimants should check how outstanding debts they may have are recovered through universal credit. They can do this by using an independent benefits calculator and by seeking independent advice, such as through the Help to Claim Service.

Once claimants make a claim, they are not entitled to move back to legacy benefits. This reflects the overarching principle that Universal Credit will replace legacy benefits by the end of 2024.

The Government has committed to annual statistics releases related to the operation of the policy to provide support for a maximum of two children. Statistics related to the period up to April 2021 were published in July 2021 and can be accessed at Universal Credit and Child Tax Credit claimants: statistics related to the policy to provide support for a maximum of 2 children, April 2021 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Statistics related to the period up to April 2022 will be published in the summer.

No such assessment has been made.

Discretionary Housing Payments continue to be an important element of an extensive cross-Government housing support package. Since 2011, the government has provided almost £1.5 billion in Discretionary Housing Payments to local authorities.

The proportion of working Universal Credit recipients who are paid in a non-monthly-cycles is 37.0%.

Notes:

1. Percentages have been rounded to 1 decimal place.
2. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs’ (HMRC) Real Time Earnings (RTE) data has been used to identify pay frequency and number of employers. This does not include self-reported or self-employed earnings.
3. Pay frequency as reported by the employer has been used to determine pay cycle.
4. Category 'Non-Monthly Pay Cycle' includes those claimants paid weekly, fortnightly, four-weekly or another non-monthly pay cycle
5. UC claimants present in the UC Household Statistics in August 2021 have been included, some of these will have zero entitlement due to earnings.
6. Only Great Britain UC claimants are included in the breakdown.
7. Most recent data of August 2021 has been provided in line with the latest available UC Household Statistics.
8. Figures are provisional and subject to retrospective change as later data becomes available.

Where there is a suspicion of fraud, the Department takes the issue extremely seriously. DWP’s Integrated Risk and Intelligence Service coordinates the detection of, and response to, fraud risks from organised crime groups detecting and shutting down systematic attacks. Last year, this led us to suspend 152,000 Universal Credit claims and prevented £1.9 billion in benefits from being paid to people trying to defraud the system.

The table below shows the number of Fraud Investigations concluded in each of the requested years where the allegation was recorded as Identity Fraud and the primary benefit in payment was Universal Credit. Also shown is the value associated to these Investigations.

*As this was identified as a result of serious and organised fraud this figure reflects the number of referrals made and not the number of individual claims that may be incorporated in that referral.

**These cases and values do not include the large number of additional Identity Fraud attempts during 2020/21 (many of which were the result of co-ordinated attacks) which we spotted and stopped before they went into payment, as the cases are still ongoing.

DWP’s Debt Management system does not match recovery to specific fraud type, so it is not possible to state how much money has been recovered in relation to closed cases classified as Identity Fraud.

Covid-19 restrictions have impacted prosecution cases as it has not been possible to carry out face to face interviews. This is because a face to face interview under caution, carried out in accordance with the requirements of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, is a legal requirement before a case can be referred for either prosecution or for an administrative penalty to be issued.

However, DWP is making considerable progress in securing Covid safe rooms across the country for its fraud investigators and is also securing digital facilities, which will enable interviews to be conducted remotely.

DWP will always look to prosecute this type of offence to the full extent where possible and conducted 4 prosecutions for this offence in 2018/19, 9 in 2019/20 and 3 in 2020/21.

There will always be a time lag between the formal investigation and the court’s final verdict, but a number of investigations into hijacked identity are currently being pursued and will come to court in due course.

DWP is currently considering how future legislative change could help target fraud and error even more acutely moving forwards.

All cases where ‘Departmental error’ leads to overpayments of Universal Credit are logged on DWP’s Debt Management system as Official Error cases. These debts are recoverable. The table below shows the total number of these cases recorded on the system in each of the last 3 years.

*figures rounded to nearest 1000

Ensuring benefit correctness is a DWP priority. Despite an additional 3 million claimants to Universal Credit as a result of Covid-19, published National Statistics on Fraud and Error in the Benefit System show that Universal Credit Official Error fell in 2020/21 from 1.3% to 0.9% of benefit expenditure.

Note that the data supplied in this response is derived from unpublished management information which was collected for internal Departmental use only and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. The data should therefore be treated with caution.

Where there is a suspicion of fraud, the Department takes the issue extremely seriously. DWP’s Integrated Risk and Intelligence Service coordinates the detection of, and response to, fraud risks from organised crime groups detecting and shutting down systematic attacks. Last year, this led us to suspend 152,000 Universal Credit claims and prevented £1.9 billion in benefits from being paid to people trying to defraud the system.

The table below shows the number of Fraud Investigations concluded in each of the requested years where the allegation was recorded as Identity Fraud and the primary benefit in payment was Universal Credit. Also shown is the value associated to these Investigations.

*As this was identified as a result of serious and organised fraud this figure reflects the number of referrals made and not the number of individual claims that may be incorporated in that referral.

**These cases and values do not include the large number of additional Identity Fraud attempts during 2020/21 (many of which were the result of co-ordinated attacks) which we spotted and stopped before they went into payment, as the cases are still ongoing.

DWP’s Debt Management system does not match recovery to specific fraud type, so it is not possible to state how much money has been recovered in relation to closed cases classified as Identity Fraud.

Covid-19 restrictions have impacted prosecution cases as it has not been possible to carry out face to face interviews. This is because a face to face interview under caution, carried out in accordance with the requirements of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, is a legal requirement before a case can be referred for either prosecution or for an administrative penalty to be issued.

However, DWP is making considerable progress in securing Covid safe rooms across the country for its fraud investigators and is also securing digital facilities, which will enable interviews to be conducted remotely.

DWP will always look to prosecute this type of offence to the full extent where possible and conducted 4 prosecutions for this offence in 2018/19, 9 in 2019/20 and 3 in 2020/21.

There will always be a time lag between the formal investigation and the court’s final verdict, but a number of investigations into hijacked identity are currently being pursued and will come to court in due course.

DWP is currently considering how future legislative change could help target fraud and error even more acutely moving forwards.

All cases where ‘Departmental error’ leads to overpayments of Universal Credit are logged on DWP’s Debt Management system as Official Error cases. These debts are recoverable. The table below shows the total number of these cases recorded on the system in each of the last 3 years.

*figures rounded to nearest 1000

Ensuring benefit correctness is a DWP priority. Despite an additional 3 million claimants to Universal Credit as a result of Covid-19, published National Statistics on Fraud and Error in the Benefit System show that Universal Credit Official Error fell in 2020/21 from 1.3% to 0.9% of benefit expenditure.

Note that the data supplied in this response is derived from unpublished management information which was collected for internal Departmental use only and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. The data should therefore be treated with caution.

COVID-19 saw an unprecedented surge in Universal Credit claims, demanding an extraordinary response from DWP to ensure the welfare safety net continued to catch all those in urgent need.

Whilst a small number of people deliberately misrepresented their circumstances or looked to exploit our response to the pandemic, the verification of claimants’ identities remains at the core of our checks and we quickly introduced new and robust verification procedures following initial easements. Face to face interviews are now being re-established, subject to the latest COVID-19 advice.

Where fraud does occur, the Department takes the issue extremely seriously. Our Integrated Risk and Intelligence Service coordinates the detection of, and response to, fraud risks from organised crime groups, detecting and shutting down systematic attacks. Last year, this led us to suspend 152,000 Universal Credit claims and prevented £1.9 billion in benefits from being paid to people trying to scam the system.

Identity fraud is a complex issue, and it is not always possible to be definitive about every case, but our Enhanced Checking Service and our Serious Organised Crime teams disrupted or corrected over 298,000 claims (including the 152,000 mentioned above) in 2020-21.

We are not able to describe the robust processes we have in place, as to do so may compromise the effectiveness of our operations. However, DWP continues to work across Government to address this issue.

Where citizens allege that their identity has been used to make a fraudulent claim for Universal Credit, DWP considers each case on its own merits. Decisions are made on the strength of the evidence provided. If a claimant has been the victim of a scam, and has not benefited from it in any way, they will not be held liable for any debt. In these cases, we will seek to recover any losses from the perpetrator of any fraud.

COVID-19 saw an unprecedented surge in Universal Credit claims, demanding an extraordinary response from DWP to ensure the welfare safety net continued to catch all those in urgent need.

Whilst a small number of people deliberately misrepresented their circumstances or looked to exploit our response to the pandemic, the verification of claimants’ identities remains at the core of our checks and we quickly introduced new and robust verification procedures following initial easements. Face to face interviews are now being re-established, subject to the latest COVID-19 advice.

Where fraud does occur, the Department takes the issue extremely seriously. Our Integrated Risk and Intelligence Service coordinates the detection of, and response to, fraud risks from organised crime groups, detecting and shutting down systematic attacks. Last year, this led us to suspend 152,000 Universal Credit claims and prevented £1.9 billion in benefits from being paid to people trying to scam the system.

Identity fraud is a complex issue, and it is not always possible to be definitive about every case, but our Enhanced Checking Service and our Serious Organised Crime teams disrupted or corrected over 298,000 claims (including the 152,000 mentioned above) in 2020-21.

We are not able to describe the robust processes we have in place, as to do so may compromise the effectiveness of our operations. However, DWP continues to work across Government to address this issue.

Where citizens allege that their identity has been used to make a fraudulent claim for Universal Credit, DWP considers each case on its own merits. Decisions are made on the strength of the evidence provided. If a claimant has been the victim of a scam, and has not benefited from it in any way, they will not be held liable for any debt. In these cases, we will seek to recover any losses from the perpetrator of any fraud.

Schedule 6 of the Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment, Jobseeker's Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance (Claims and Payments) Regulations 2013 sets out the priority order in which Departmental staff must consider all deductions from Universal Credit, including Child Maintenance. The deductions contained in that priority order are all priority debts and social obligations that are important for claimants to address.

The Department recognises the importance of Child Maintenance payments and these deductions are already prioritised above others such as benefit overpayments of Housing Benefit, Tax Credit and DWP overpayments and Recoverable Hardship and Social Fund loans.