Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of its use of algorithmic decision-making tools on levels of risk of (a) bias and (b) discrimination.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP is committed to regularly assessing AI use in the Department to ensure it meets business needs, is quality assured, and does not lead to a risk of discrimination or harm. In some areas, the Department uses automated decision-making to make benefit awards, but AI is not used as part of that process. DWP has a legal requirement to ensure appropriate safeguards are in place when carrying out automated decision-making or the use of AI, using tools such as Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) and fairness assessments to highlight any potential bias or discrimination risks associated with AI and automation. The Department carries out regular checks to ensure our systems are working as intended.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to ensure (a) transparency and (b) accountability in its use of AI systems in public services.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
We have AI governance in place to ensure we use AI in a safe, ethical, and transparent way. DWP is committed to publishing details of its use of algorithms against the cross-Government Algorithmic Transparency Reporting Standard (ATRS). We ensure our generative AI tools can trace outputs back to the source data so that humans can understand how the output has been created. Outputs from our use of AI technology are traceable for governance purposes.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether benefit claimants are informed when their claims are assessed using algorithmic tools.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP’s Personal Information Charter (PIC) (Personal information charter - Department for Work and Pensions - GOV.UK) outlines how DWP processes personal data related to and its use of both Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automated Decision Making (ADM).
DWP does not use AI to replace human judgement to determine or deny a payment to a claimant.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether any of the algorithmic systems used by her Department are subject to independent oversight.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is committed to publishing details of its use of complex algorithms in line with the cross-Government Algorithmic Transparency Reporting Standard (ATRS). We also engage with external bodies, such as the Information Commissioner's Office, the National Audit Office, and Parliament as required.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many people received a driving lessons grant from the Motability scheme in each of the past five years, broken down by the qualifying benefits those people received in each year.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Data about the receipt of driving lesson grants from the Motability Scheme is not held by the Department.
The Motability Scheme is overseen by the Motability Foundation and is delivered by Motability Operations Ltd.
Motability is independent of the government and is wholly responsible for the terms and administration of the Scheme.
Asked by: Baroness Stedman-Scott (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many passports and driving licences have been removed from paying parents as a result of them not paying their child maintenance.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department for Work and Pensions uses sanctions such as sending Paying Parents to prison, disqualifying them from holding, or obtaining a passport or driving licence as a last resort and only used when every other method of recovering unpaid child maintenance has been tried. The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) on behalf of the Department only pursues these sanctions when they believe the Paying Parent can pay but is refusing to do so. In these circumstances enforcement powers will have a deterrent effect on Paying Parents.
From the latest Child Maintenance Service official statistics, table 6.2, in the National tables, provides the outcome information where the CMS applied to courts to sanction Paying Parents for non-compliance. The latest statistics show there were three immediate passport confiscations and seven immediate driving disqualifications in Great Britain between July 2019 and March 2025.
Asked by: Lord Agnew of Oulton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many households received aggregate annual benefits, including Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment, housing support and other entitlements, in excess of (1) £50,000, (2) £60,000, and (3) £70,000, in each of the past five years; and what proportion of those households included (a) more than one child, (b) a claimant of disability benefits, and (c) a foreign national.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of extending transitional protection under Universal Credit to include couples who form a household which becomes eligible for Universal Credit and consequently (a) reduce the overall level of welfare expenditure and (b) free up social housing.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No assessment has been made.
Transitional Protection was introduced as part of the Move to UC journey to ensure legacy benefit customers maintain the same level of entitlement on moving to UC at the point of transition.
Transitional protection is considered for both single and couple households that manage migrate to UC. It is not extended to customers in receipt of the transitional element that have a significant change of circumstances or where a couple forms and makes a new claim to UC.
The Universal Credit (Managed Migration Pilot and Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2019 made provision for transitional protection. DWP has no plans to amend the regulations to extend transitional protection to include couples who form a household after they have moved to Universal Credit.
Jul. 25 2025
Source Page: Sector-based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs) Management Information, April 2021 to June 2025Jul. 25 2025
Source Page: Sector-based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs) Management Information, April 2021 to June 2025