§ Mr. DavidsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) if he will take steps to ensure that the rules for those receiving benefits and undertaking voluntary work do not prevent them receiving their benefits; and if he will make a statement; [68754]
(2) if he will list the recent changes to the benefit linking rules; and how many people have taken advantage of these in (a) Glasgow, Pollok, (b) the City of Glasgow, (c) Scotland and (d) the United Kingdom. [68809]
§ Malcolm WicksWe encourage jobseekers to participate in voluntary work and recognise that it can play an important role in preparing people for paid employment. People of working age in receipt of benefit can now do unlimited voluntary work as long as the usual entitlement conditions are met, and we have recently extended the disregard of reimbursed expenses for people in receipt of income-related benefits to help those wishing to take up voluntary work. To encourage more unemployed people to participate in voluntary work, the Department's leaflets have been, or are in the process of being, revised to ensure that they contain positive messages on volunteering.
We are also removing other obstacles to work within the benefit system. For example, we have extended the Incapacity Benefit linking rules to 52 weeks, or 2 years for people receiving Disabled Person's Tax Credit, allowing disabled people to try out work safe in the knowledge that they can return to the same rate of benefit if the job doesn't work out. We estimate that 10,7001 people in Great Britain have benefited from this change since October 1998 and, of those, 1,6001 were in Scotland and around one hundred1 in the City of Glasgow. No reliable data are available by parliamentary constituency.
In addition, linking rules for people receiving income-based Jobseeker's Allowance or Income Support were changed from 9 April 2001 to allow them to re-qualify for help with mortgage interest straight away if they reclaim benefit within 52 weeks of starting full-time employment. In Great Britain, we estimate that around one hundred people2 in receipt of income-based Jobseeker's Allowance have benefited from this change. No reliable data are available by country, local authority area or parliamentary constituency. Data for those in receipt of Income Support benefiting from this measure are not held centrally.
1555W1. Figures are drawn from 5 per cent. samples of the Incapacity Benefit computer system and are subject to a degree of sampling error. They exclude a small number of clerically held cases. Figures have been rounded to the nearest hundred.
2. Figure is drawn from Jobseeker's Allowance Quarterly Statistical Enquiries May 2001 to February 2002, and is subject to a high degree of sampling variation. It should therefore be treated as a guide to the number benefiting only. The figure has been rounded to the nearest hundred.