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 changes to the eligibility criteria for carers allowance on local authority care services.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

From 7 April 2025 the weekly earnings limit in Carer's Allowance increased to £196 net earnings, the largest cash increase ever. All things being equal, the earnings rule change will result in more people being entitled to Carer’s Allowance. There are no other planned changes to the entitlement conditions. Local authorities are responsible for their own "care service" arrangements and these may differ between authorities.

In our recent Pathways to Work Green Paper we announced a broad package of reforms to the health and disability benefit and support system, including changes to Personal Independence Payment. For those who are affected by the new eligibility changes, including for linked entitlements such as Carer’s Allowance, we are consulting on how best to support this group, including how to make sure health and eligible care needs are met.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of new style Employment and Support Allowance claims have been in payment for at least (a) three, (b) six, (c) 12, and (d) 18 months for (i) the Work Related Activity Group and (ii) the Support Group.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The following table shows the volume of new style Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) Work Related Activity Group (WRAG) and Support Group (SG) claims that have been in payment for at least three, six, 12 and 18 months.

Volumes of ESA claims that have been in payment for at least three, six, 12 and 18 months

Source: DWP administrative data for Employment and Support Allowance

Volumes have been rounded to the nearest 1,000.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to improve employment capacity in local job centres.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We have interpreted your question to refer to the functionality of Jobcentre Plus and the role they play in increasing employment.

The Government has set a long-term ambition to achieve an 80% employment rate, building on our plan for growth. The Get Britain Working White Plan sets out the fundamental reforms needed to realise our ambitions, including the vision to reform Jobcentres - to a new Jobs and Careers Service to meet the needs of local labour markets, people and employers.

Across Great Britain, the new service will enable everyone to access support to find good, meaningful work, and support to help them to progress in work, including through an enhanced focus on skills and careers. Central to the new service will be our use of technology, enabling us to reinvest time in supporting people more effectively.

We are starting a test and learn approach to develop the new service. We are currently running two large-scale tests testing reducing the frequency of engagement with customers and the mode of mandatory engagement for Universal Credit claimants that are looking for work or are in lower paid jobs. These will help us to better understand what will work best for the individual.  

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Code of Practice in the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill in protecting the (a) rights and (b) privacy of (i) vulnerable people and (ii) people living in poverty.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

As outlined in the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill, DWP will publish three Codes of Practice to sit alongside its Information Gathering, Debt Recovery and Eligibility Verification measures. These are in development and we are already engaging with key stakeholders on the principles of the Codes. There will be public consultations to provide an opportunity for all interested parties to review and respond.

It is important to note these Codes of Practice are not legislation and so will not contain statutory provision themselves. They offer guidance and guidelines on how the Bill’s measures will be operationalised and detail the Bill’s practical application including the application of safeguards included in the Bill itself.

The Department is confident the Bill’s powers are compliant with the government’s duties under the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), including the right to private life under Article 8. The measures are justified, lawful and proportionate and the Departments’ detailed analysis on ECHR is set out in the published ECHR Memorandum, available here.

The Impact Assessment which accompanies this Bill can be found here.

The Bill includes safeguards to provide assurance the new powers are used proportionately and effectively, and in a way that protects vulnerable people and people living in poverty. More information can be found here: Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill 2025: factsheets - GOV.UK

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025, what estimate she has made of the number of people who will enter the workforce in the (a) 2026-27, (b) 2027-28 and (c) 2028-29 financial years as a result of the reforms set out in that paper.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Information on the impacts of the “Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper” will be published in due course, with some information already published alongside the Spring Statement.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

We will continue to work with the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to estimate the potential labour market impacts of these proposals.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on best practice in joined up systems supporting people with long term health issues to (a) find work and (b) achieve long term employment.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Regular cross government collaboration takes place at both Ministerial and official level. Examples of this can be seen through the publication of the Get Britain Working White Paper and the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits, Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, the Industrial strategy, the Joint Health and Work Directorate and the Make work pay legislation.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if her Department will undertake a health impact assessment of proposed changes to health and disability benefits in her Department's Green Paper entitled Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working, published on 18 March 2025.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, with some information published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found here ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of her Department's proposed reforms to eligibility for Personal Independence Payment on employment.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, and some information was published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of the total (a) value and (b) number of payments made by her Department to Motability in each year since 2010.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Department for Work and Pensions retains financial information for 7 years in compliance with the fifth principle of the Data Protection Act, therefore we are unable to provide historic data back to 2010. We can provide the requested estimated total Motability values data for the previous three calendar years, DWP has paid:

2022 - c£607 million

2023 - c£600 million

2024 - c£600 million

We are unable to provide volumes data, and value data for earlier years within the timescales required for this request, due to the time required to interrogate our systems to obtain this level of information.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of false complaints to social services by parents paying child maintenance on the well-being of receiving parents and their children.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Child Maintenance Service is committed to ensuring that it delivers a safe service that is sensitive to the needs of all the parents that use its service.  We recognise that some parents may face difficult circumstances, particularly at a time of separation.

All caseworkers receive extensive training and follow a well-managed process with clear steps to support vulnerable clients, including those facing domestic abuse. However, the department has no jurisdiction relating to Social Services investigations.

The CMS has access to a list of resources which helps caseworkers provide signposting to supporting organisations, which is regularly reviewed and strengthened on the basis of customer insight.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that companies and charities are paid on time in the Access to Work Plus Scheme.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

To enable charities and companies to receive timely payments, officials have been working in collaboration with these organisations to explore how the Access to Work Plus claims process can be made easier for their employees. In March 2025, to ensure payments can be made swiftly, a streamlined claims process was put in place to clear outstanding claims for payment. Guidance on the new process has been issued to charities and companies, and officials continue to work with the charities and companies to develop longer term improvements to the employees’ claims process.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people receiving Universal Credit assessed as having Limited Capability for Work and Work-Related Activity died (a) in total and (b) under the Special Rules for Terminal Illness in the last year for which information is available.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Department supports people nearing the end of life through special benefit rules – called the Special Rules for End of Life (SREL). These enable people who are nearing the end of their lives to get faster, easier access to certain benefits, without needing to attend a medical assessment, serve waiting periods and in most cases, receive the highest rate of benefit.

This table shows the total number of Universal Credit claimants who had a Limited Capability for Work and Work-Related Activity (LCWRA) award during 2024 broken down by the number with a LCWRA award under SREL and the number who died during the year.

Notes:

Numbers are rounded to 100.

Data is taken from Universal Credit analytical systems but results have not been quality assured to Official Statistics publication standard and are subject to retrospective change.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people claiming the standard level of the Personal Independence Payment who did not score four points in any of the 10 descriptors have a claim where someone else receives the carers component of Universal Credit in (a) Blyth and Ashington constituency, (b) Northumberland, (c) the North East and (d) England.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, with some information published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people claiming the enhanced level of the Personal Independence Payment who did not score four points in any of the 10 descriptors have a claim where someone else receives the carers component of Universal Credit in (a) Blyth and Ashington constituency, (b) Northumberland, (c) the North East and (d) England.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, with some information published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people receiving the enhanced level of PIP did not score four points in any of the ten descriptors allowing someone else to receive carers allowance in (a) Blyth and Ashington constituency, (b) Northumberland, (c) the North East and (d) England.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, with some information published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people under the age of 16 are claiming Disability Living Allowance in (a) Blyth and Ashington constituency, (b) Northumberland, (c) the North East and (d) England.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The latest available data on the number of children claiming Disability Living Allowance can be found at https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/. The requested data can be found in the ‘DLA: Cases in Entitlement’, which allows you to view the number of individuals that are entitled to DLA. To filter for information related to children only, this can be found by expanding ‘Client Type’ and selecting ‘Children’. The specific areas requested can be found by expanding ‘Westminster Parliamentary Constituency 2024’ or ‘National – Regional – LA – OAs’.

Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html. An account is not required to use Stat- Xplore, the ‘Guest Login’ feature gives instant access to the main functions.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of what the weekly reduction in income would be for a household where one person receives (a) Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and does not have four points in any descriptor and (b) Carer's Allowance and the care component of Universal Credit, in the context of her proposed reforms to PIP.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

No estimate has yet been made.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, with some information published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has had discussions with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on raising the level of the personal tax-free allowance in line with the basic state pension.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The DWP Secretary of State engages regularly with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As the Minister for Pensions, I also serve as a Parliamentary Secretary at HM Treasury. Currently the Personal Allowance, which is the amount an individual can earn before paying tax, is higher than the full rates of both the basic and new State Pensions. This means pensioners whose income is solely the full new State Pension or basic State Pension will not pay any income tax.

The previous Government made the decision to freeze the income tax Personal Allowance at its current level of £12,570 until April 2028. At our first Budget, we decided not to extend the freeze on personal tax thresholds.

Under the previous Government the vast majority of pensioners already pay Income Tax. When individuals’ wider income was taken into account in 2022/23 over 80% of pensioners had an income over the Personal Allowance Tax Threshold.

This Government is absolutely committed to supporting pensioners and giving them the dignity and security they deserve in retirement.

Over 12 million pensioners will benefit from our commitment to protect the Triple Lock which is set to increase spending on the State Pension by around £31 billion and will increase people’s yearly State Pensions by up to £1,900 this Parliament.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many single pensioners there are who earn less than £20,000 a year and more than the threshold required for pension credit.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The income threshold for eligibility for Pension Credit is dependent on personal circumstances, and not all forms of income are taken into account when determining eligibility. Therefore it is not possible to produce a robust estimate of how many single pensioners exceed this threshold due to earned income.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what is the average processing times for pension credit applications in each of the last five years.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

Pension Credit application Average Actual Clearance Times (AACT) are measured weekly. Please see attached annex for details of Pension Credit applications average processing times back to October 2022. We do not hold this information prior to October 2022.

Please note, The Average Actual Clearance Time figures shown are unpublished management information, collected and intended for internal departmental use and have not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. The figures are rounded to the nearest working day and based on the week the claim was cleared, rather than the week the claim was made.

DWP currently works to a planned timescale of 50 working days to clear Pension Credit claims. The next publication of the Annual Reporting and Accounts will include claims processed in the Financial Year 2024 to 2025, which is due for publication in the summer.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the potential impact of the Spring Statement 2025 on the number of benefit claimants at risk of poverty in (a) Yeovil constituency and (b) Somerset.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The government's impact assessment regarding Health and Disability Reform is available at Spring Statement 2025 health and disability benefit reforms – Impacts.

An assessment of the poverty impacts of the reforms is not available at the constituency or local authority area level.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claims for Personal Independence Payment were stopped due to the death of the claimant where they received a Daily Living component but less than four points for each Daily Living activity in their last assessment in the last year for which information is available.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

This information is not readily available.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, and some information was published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department's Green Paper entitled Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working, published on 18 March 2025, what steps her Department is taking to consult (a) disabled people and (b) organisations representing disabled people on the Green Paper.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We have set out proposals to reform the health and disability benefits proposals in the Pathways to Work Green Paper published on 18 March 2025. A full 12-week consultation will begin from the point all accessible versions are published on GOV.UK. We want to improve and refine our plans by consulting on certain measures as described within the paper. We are committed to putting the views and voices of disabled people and people with health conditions at the heart of everything we do.

The Green Paper is an important staging post on a journey of reform, building on the vision and approach set out in the Get Britain Working White Paper in November 2024. It sets out our vision, strategy and proposals for change. We would like to hear views from a wide group of people, in particular disabled people and people with health conditions and disability organisations and encourage responses to the consultation through the online form, email and post.

We also intend to run a number of accessible virtual and face-to-face events on the Green Paper to hear from stakeholders, including disabled people and their representative organisations, directly. More information on these events and registration will be advertised on the consultation pages on GOV.UK in due course.

In the Green Paper, we have also announced that we will set up collaboration committees to develop parts of our reforms further. This will involve bringing together disabled people and other experts with civil servants around specific issues to collaborate, provide ideas, challenge, and input into recommendations.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to paragraph 139 of the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025, for what reason it is her policy that people should no longer be eligible for the daily living component of the Personal Independence Payment if they need (a) assistance to be able to cut up food, (b) supervision or prompting to be able to wash or bathe, (c) assistance to be able to wash either their hair or body below the waist, (d) assistance to be able to get in or out of a bath or shower, (e) supervision or prompting to be able to manage toilet needs, (f) assistance to be able to dress or undress their lower body and (g) supervision, prompting or assistance to be able to manage medication and, or, to be able to monitor a health condition.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We have committed to introducing a new requirement whereby, in addition to the existing eligibility criteria, people must score a minimum of four points in at least one daily living activity to be eligible for the daily living component of Personal Independence Payment. Our intention is that – subject to parliamentary approval – the changes will apply to new claims and award reviews from November 2026.

A high number of people get PIP by having multiple but low-level functional needs across several activities. These could individually be managed with small interventions or the addition of aids or appliances. This change will focus PIP more on those with the greatest needs, ensuring those who are unable to complete activities at all, or who require more help from others to complete them, still get support.

Through the Green Paper we are consulting on how best to support those who may lose any entitlement because of this change.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department's report entitled Spring Statement 2025 health and disability benefit reforms - Impacts, published on 26 March 2025, what financial support her Department plans to provide to Personal Independent Payments claimants affected by the proposed changes to the entitlement rules.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The changes to PIP eligibility will ensure we can focus the benefit more on those with higher needs. There will be no immediate changes to anybody’s entitlement. Our intention is that the new eligibility requirement in Personal Independence Payment, where people must score a minimum of four points in one daily living activity to be eligible for the daily living component, will - subject to parliamentary approval - apply to new claims and award reviews from November 2026.

We are mindful of the impact this change could have on people. That is why, in the Green Paper Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working (published on 18 March), we are consulting on how best to support those who lose entitlement due to the reforms, including how to make sure health and eligible care needs are met.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 31 March 2025 to Question 40633 on Social Security Benefits: Reform, when her Department plans to publish the full suite of accessible versions of the Green Paper.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The remaining accessible formats of the Green Paper have now been published and can be accessed here: Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper - GOV.UK. A full suite of accessible versions is available including Audio, British Sign Language, Braille, Large Print and Easy Read.

The consultation will close in 12 weeks on 30 June 2025, to ensure that everyone has sufficient time to engage with and respond to the consultation.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people claiming the standard level of the Personal Independence Payment who did not score four points in any of the 10 descriptors have a claim where someone else receives Carer's Allowance in (a) Blyth and Ashington constituency, (b) Northumberland, (c) the North East and (d) England.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, with some information published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Green Paper entitled Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working, published on 18 March 2025, what criteria she plans to use to identify claimants with serious and lifelong health conditions to ensure they will never face reassessment.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The assessment process is an important part of claiming PIP and WCA to ensure that people receive the right level of support.

However, for some people with very severe health conditions and disabilities, by the time they come to make a claim, they have already undergone intensive assessments and provided detailed evidence about their condition to receive support from other services. That is why in PIP, we are also exploring ways in which we could use evidence from eligibility for other services to reduce the need for some people with very severe health conditions to undergo a full PIP functional assessment. For example, for young people with very severe long-term conditions who have already been assessed for and awarded support from Disability Living Allowance for children before claiming PIP for the first time.

For those on UC with the most severe, life-long, conditions who we know will never be able to work, we will aim to exempt them from ever needing to be reassessed.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what criteria will be used to determine suspicious bank account activity that would result in the Department requiring access to the individuals bank account under the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

DWP’s information gathering powers may be used where there is a reasonable suspicion of fraud. In such cases the Department can issue an information notice, where necessary and proportionate, to any information holders who DWP believe hold relevant information, including banks. When gathered, this information can be used to either prove or disprove the allegation of fraud.

This is distinct from the new Eligibility Verification measure contained within the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill, where banks and financial institutions will be required to share limited data with DWP on benefit-receiving account holders and accounts relating to specified benefits, where it suggests someone may be receiving an incorrect payment. For example, where a person is in receipt of Universal Credit and has savings over £16,000. This is done without any presumption of fraud.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of the average amount received in benefits by benefit claimant households in each year since 2010, broken down by local authority.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Monthly statistics for the number of households on Universal Credit and Housing Benefit in Great Britain by local authority are published quarterly on Stat-Xplore.

Universal Credit statistics, by monthly average award amount, are available from August 2015 to November 2024 in the Households on Universal Credit dataset.

Housing Benefit statistics, by weekly average award amount, are available from November 2008 to March 2018 in the Housing Benefit – Data to March 2018 dataset and from April 2018 to November 2024 in the Housing Benefit - Data from April 2018 dataset.

Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access guidance on how to extract the information required. There is also a Universal Credit Official Statistics: Stat-Xplore user guide

The information requested for households receiving other benefits is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of benefit claimant households had received welfare payments for (a) five, (b) ten, (c) twenty and (d) more than twenty years in each year since 2010 in the latest period for which data is available, broken down by local authority.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to paragraphs 2.33 to 2.35 of HM Treasury's document entitled Spring Statement 2025, published on 26 March 2025, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the changes in health and disability benefits on (a) the health of those people receiving such benefits and (b) societal health inequalities.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

No such assessment has been made.

However, we have evidence that delivering better and more tailored employment support can get more people off welfare, and into work - alongside a higher expectation to engage with that support.

We are investing £1 billion a year by the end of the decade in new employment, health and skills support – one of the biggest packages of new employment support for sick and disabled people ever.

In addition, corrective action is needed after the value of the basic unemployment benefit was run down to a 40-year low, while incapacity benefits continued to rise. Meaning the rate of Universal Credit for those on the health element is now double that for those on the standard allowance. As a result, all the incentives are to claim incapacity benefits and define yourself as incapable of work, with both the OBR and IFS suggesting this has been a factor in driving higher incapacity benefit claims.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many benefits claimant households received (a) Universal Credit, (b) New Style Jobseekers’ Allowance, (c) New Style Employment and Support Allowance, (d) Personal Independence Payment and (e) legacy benefits in each year since 2010, broken down by local authority.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Monthly statistics for the number of households on Universal Credit and Housing Benefit in Great Britain by local authority are published quarterly on Stat-Xplore.

Universal Credit statistics are available from August 2015 to November 2024 in the Households on Universal Credit dataset.

Housing Benefit statistics are available from November 2008 to March 2018 in the Housing Benefit – Data to March 2018 dataset and from April 2018 to November 2024 in the Housing Benefit - Data from April 2018 dataset.

Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access guidance on how to extract the information required. There is also a Universal Credit Official Statistics: Stat-Xplore user guide

The information requested for households receiving the other benefits is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people receiving the standard level of PIP did not score four points in any of the ten descriptors in (a) Blyth and Ashington constituency, (b) Northumberland, (c) the North East and (d) England.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, with some information published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people receiving the enhanced level of PIP did not score four points in any of the ten descriptors in (a) Blyth and Ashington constituency, (b) Northumberland, (c) the North East and (d) England.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, with some information published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment she has made of the potential merits of pausing the creation of new Carer’s Allowance overpayment debts until the conclusion of the independent review.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Overpayments have caused significant anxiety for some people. It is important to take the time to review what happened independently, to establish what exactly what went wrong and assess how to put things right. We will await the findings of the independent review being conducted by Liz Sayce. The review is not a substitute for legal proceedings and the existence of the review does not prejudice any business-as-usual activity by DWP.

We carefully balance our duty to the taxpayer to recover overpayments with safeguards in place to manage repayments fairly. Carers have a responsibility to ensure they are entitled to benefits and to inform the DWP of any changes in their circumstances that could impact their award. Support remains in place with DWP’s Debt Management Service available to speak to anyone who has had an overpayment about the terms of their repayment.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department's Green Paper entitled Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working, published on 18 March 2025, by what date she expects to publish accessible formats of that Green Paper.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The remaining accessible formats of the Green Paper have now been published and can be accessed here: Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper - GOV.UK. A full suite of accessible versions is available including Audio, British Sign Language, Braille, Large Print and Easy Read.

The consultation will close in 12 weeks on the 30 June 2025, to ensure that everyone has sufficient time to engage with and respond to the consultation.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department's report entitled Spring Statement 2025 health and disability benefit reforms - Impacts, published on 26 March 2025, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the increase of children in relative poverty on (a) those children's health and (b) the societal health inequalities of children.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

No such assessment has been made. However, the proposals have been carefully designed to protect the finances of severely disabled people.

The Department published “Spring Statement 2025 health and disability benefit reforms - Equality Analysis” and “Spring Statement 2025 health and disability benefit reforms – Impacts” alongside the Spring Statement.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department's report entitled Spring Statement 2025 health and disability benefit reforms - Impacts, published on 26 March 2025, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the increase of people in relative poverty on (a) those people's health and (b) societal health inequalities.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

No such assessment has been made. However, the proposals have been carefully designed to protect the finances of severely disabled people.

The Department published “Spring Statement 2025 health and disability benefit reforms - Equality Analysis” and “Spring Statement 2025 health and disability benefit reforms – Impacts” alongside the Spring Statement.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department's Green Paper entitled Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working, published on 18 March 2025, whether she considered the potential merits of producing a health impact assessment of that Green Paper.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, with some information published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found here ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

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 support severely disabled people who cannot work.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The social security system will always be there for those who can’t work. As part of making changes to the payment rates in Universal Credit, we will ensure that those with the most severe, lifelong conditions who will never be able to work have their incomes protected.

For those who are affected by the new PIP eligibility changes, we are consulting on how best to support this group, including how to make sure health and eligible care needs are met.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of the proposed changes to the Personal Independence Payment qualifying criteria and the consequential effect on Carer's Allowance eligibility on the ability of carers to participate in paid employment.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We have committed to introduce a new requirement that, in addition to the existing eligibility criteria, claimants must score a minimum of four points in at least one daily living activity to be eligible for the daily living component of Personal Independence Payment. Our intention is that – subject to parliamentary approval – the changes will apply to new claims and award reviews from November 2026.

We understand the struggles facing many carers. We have launched an Independent Review of Carer’s Allowance which is exploring how earnings-related overpayments have occurred and what changes can be made. We’ve already taken action by boosting the Carer’s Allowance earnings threshold by £45 a week to £196 – a move that will benefit more than 60,000 carers by 2029/30.

As the Green Paper sets out, we will consider the impacts on benefits for unpaid carers as part of our wider considerations of responses to the consultation as we develop our detailed proposals for change. We are also consulting on how best to support those who lose entitlement to Personal Independence Payment due to the reforms, including how to make sure health and eligible care needs are met.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the number of (a) part-time and (b) full-time employment opportunities that will be available by 2029-30 for those disabled people and people with health conditions as outlined in the Green Paper: Pathways to Work, published on 18 March 2025.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

No such estimate has been made.

However, we have evidence that delivering better and more tailored employment support can get more people off welfare, and into work - alongside a higher expectation to engage with that support. Therefore, we are investing £1 billion a year by the end of the decade in new employment, health and skills support – one of the biggest packages of new employment support for sick and disabled people ever.

In addition, corrective action is needed after the value of the basic unemployment benefit was run down to a 40-year low, while incapacity benefits continued to rise. This means that the rate of Universal Credit for those on the health element is now double that for those on the standard allowance. As a result, all the incentives are to claim incapacity benefits and define yourself as incapable of work, with both the OBR and IFS suggesting this has been a factor in driving higher incapacity benefit claims.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 17 March 2025 to Question 37202 on Seasonal workers: Agriculture, how many Health and Safety Executive inspection officials are based in (a) Scotland, (b) England and (c) Wales.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

As the table below shows, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) currently employs 897 full time equivalent (FTE) inspector staff in all grades and roles including trainees, managers and specialists with warrants. There are currently 663 FTE Band 3 and 4 inspectors who undertake the delivery of the operational division workplans. This includes inspections and investigations into reported incidents and concerns and where non-compliance with health and safety legislations is identified, the inspectors take regulatory action in accordance with HSE’s published Enforcement Policy Statement.

Although HSE staff work across England, Scotland and Wales, these figures are based on the office location where the staff are employed.

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 changes to the uptake of Carer’s Allowance as a result of proposed tightening of PIP eligibility criteria on (a) rates of poverty among carers, (b) carers’ labour market participation and (c) levels of demand for public services.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

No assessment has yet been conducted.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, and some information was published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of proposed reductions to the level of the Personal Independence Payment on people in Epsom and Ewell constituency.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

No estimate has yet been made.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, and some information was published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the number of working people in receipt of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) who will be forced to leave work if they cease to receive PIP.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

No estimate has been made. The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost, as it would require a bespoke survey of claimants.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people claiming the daily living part of Personal Independence Payment scored fewer than four points in each of the daily living activities (a) by sex, (b) by age, (c) by ethnicity and (d) in total.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, and some information was published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

The Department does not hold data on the ethnicity of all PIP claimants on its computer systems, since it is not required for the administration of benefit. Information on the ethnicity of PIP claimants is available from the Family Resources Survey: financial year 2023 to 2024 (Table 2.10), but this cannot be related to PIP point scores.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people with disabilities and long-term health conditions will be supported by the £1bn a year funding outlined in the Green Paper: Pathways to Work, published on 18 March 2025.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We announced in the Pathways to Work Green Paper that we would establish a new guarantee of support for all disabled people and people with health conditions claiming out of work benefits who want help to get into or return to work, backed up by £1 billion of new funding across Great Britain.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, with some information already published alongside the Spring Statement. A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025, on people in receipt of carer's allowance.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

This government is committed to supporting unpaid carers, who provide invaluable support to elderly or disabled people.

As the Green Paper sets out, we will consider the impacts on benefits for unpaid carers as part of our wider considerations of responses to the consultation as we develop our detailed proposals for change.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of extending the DWP appointee scheme to cover Child Trust Funds with a value up to £5,000.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The DWP will not be extending its appointeeship scheme to include Child Trust Funds. The scheme only applies to Government benefits which help with day-to-day living expenses, as opposed to a capital asset like a Child Trust Fund which matures overtime. Further, applying benefit rules to Child Trust Funds would not provide the protections currently delivered by the Mental Capacity Act and could expose vulnerable people to risk.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025, what steps she plans to take to help support people with severe lifelong conditions.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The social security system will always be there for those who can’t work. As part of making changes to the payment rates in Universal Credit, we will protect the incomes of those with the most severe, lifelong conditions who will never be able to work.

For those with the most severe, life-long health conditions, who have no prospect of improvement and will never be able to work, will see their incomes protected. We will also guarantee that for both new and existing claims, those in this group who have no prospect of improvement will not need to be reassessed in future.

We also want to improve peoples’ experience of the health and disability benefits system, as set out in the Green Paper. This includes exploring ways to improve PIP assessments through using recording of assessments as a lever for improvement, digitalising transfer of medical information, using evidence from eligibility for other services to reduce the need for people with very severe health conditions to undergo functional assessments and improving communication with people receiving awards who are expected to remain on disability benefits for life.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will publish the budget for (a) UK REACH and (b) GB CLP for 2025-26; and identify (i) income from fees, charges and other sources and (ii) expenditure including staff costs in the (A) Health and Safety Executive, (B) Environment Agency, (C) Office for Product Safety and Standards and (D) UK Health Security Agency.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) does not publish separate budgets for the UK REACH and GB CLP regulatory regimes. For the financial year 2025-26, the full cost of the planned activity is around (a) £6.1m on UK REACH, of which approximately £2.5m are staff costs and (b) £1m on GB CLP, of which approximately £0.44m are staff costs.

These costs will be met by income from several sources, including fees and charges paid by industry and allocations from government which vary each year depending on the activity being carried out. For UK REACH, fees from industry for 2025-26 are forecast to be £1.53m.

The information requested on budgets and expenditures in relation to different agencies are not held by this department. You may wish to contact the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for the Environment Agency, the Department for Business and Trade for Office for Product Safety and Standards, and the Department of Health and Social Care for UK Health Security Agency.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to support partially sighted people into employment in Lincolnshire.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Backed by £240m investment, the Get Britain Working White Paper launched last November will drive forward approaches to tackling economic inactivity and work toward the long-term ambition of an 80% employment rate. We announced in the recent Pathways to Work Green Paper that we would establish a new guarantee of support for all disabled people and people with health conditions claiming out of work benefits who want help to get into or return to work, backed up by £1 billion of new funding. This support is needed to break down barriers, unlock work and open up opportunity. It will get people off welfare and into work – which we know many believe they could do.

Appropriate work is generally good for health and wellbeing, so we want everyone to get work and get on in work, whoever they are and wherever they live. Disabled people and people with health conditions including the partially sighted are a diverse group so access to the right work and health support, in the right place, at the right time, is key. We therefore have a range of specialist initiatives to support individuals to stay in work and get back into work, including those that join up employment and health systems. Measures include support from Work Coaches and Disability Employment Advisers in Jobcentres and Access to Work grants, as well as joining up health and employment support around the individual through Employment Advisors in NHS Talking Therapies, Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care and WorkWell.

It is also recognised that employers play an important role in addressing health and disability. To build on this, the Joint DWP and DHSC Work & Health Directorate (JWHD) is facilitating “Keep Britain Working”, an independent review of the role of UK employers in reducing health-related inactivity and to promote healthy and inclusive workplaces. The lead reviewer, Sir Charlie Mayfield, is expected to bring forward recommendations in Autumn 2025. Additionally, the JWHD has developed a digital information service for employers, continues to oversee the Disability Confident Scheme, and continues to increase access to Occupational Health.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people claiming Carer’s Allowance are caring for a person who scores fewer than four points for each individual descriptor in the daily living part of Personal Independence Payment (a) by sex, (b) by ethnicity and (c) in total.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, and some information was published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

The Department does not hold data on the ethnicity of all PIP claimants on its computer systems, since it is not required for the administration of benefit. Information on the ethnicity of PIP claimants is available from the Family Resources Survey: financial year 2023 to 2024 (Table 2.10), but this cannot be related to PIP point scores.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many letters she has issued to people who registered details of deceased family members on underpaid state pensions in 2025; whether her Department holds other records to assist with validating claims for underpaid state pensions; whether her Department has paused the destruction of state pension payment records; and what the age is of the oldest of those records retained by her Department.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Next of Kin / representatives of a deceased State Pension customer had the opportunity to contact DWP if they thought the customer may be in scope for the State Pension Underpayments exercise.

In reviewing these enquiries, the Department has identified that for a small number, approximately 2,500 customers, our Pension Service Computer System (PSCS) no longer holds a record for the deceased customer. This is in line with our Data Retention Policy.

A pause on the deletion of customer records was implemented at the start of the State Pension Underpayments exercise and remains in place. However, records for customers who died before 16/01/21 will have been deleted in line with our Data Retention Policy.

DWP may be able to review a deceased customer’s State Pension award, if the Next of Kin / representative could supply historical records, such as letters received by the deceased customer from DWP and supporting bank statements.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people died who had been assessed as having Limited Capability for Work and Work-Related Activity under the Normal Rules and received a Daily Living component of Personal Independence Payment but received less than four points for each Daily Living activity in their last assessment in the last year for which information is available.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

This information is not readily available.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, and some information was published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of the level of saving from freezing the health element of Universal Credit in cash terms at £97 per week until 2029-30 for existing recipients.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The table below breaks down the overall savings into the static savings of the two policies and the impact of the expected behavioural changes. The behavioural changes are the expected impact of both policies on claimant behaviour.

DWP costings are produced at a GB level. The final line aligns the DWP estimates to the Spring Statement 2025 policy costing document which includes the impact of the Scotland Block Grant Adjustment and Northern Ireland.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the level of saving from reducing the health element of Universal Credit in cash terms to £50 per week in 2026-27 for new claimants.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The table below breaks down the overall savings into the static savings of the two policies and the impact of the expected behavioural changes. The behavioural changes are the expected impact of both policies on claimant behaviour.

DWP costings are produced at a GB level. The final line aligns the DWP estimates to the Spring Statement 2025 policy costing document which includes the impact of the Scotland Block Grant Adjustment and Northern Ireland.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025, when she plans to publish further information on how her Department plans to use the £1 billion a year funding to help more disabled people and people with health conditions into employment.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

As the Green Paper notes, we are keen to engage widely on the design of this guarantee and the components needed to deliver it. To get this right, we will be seeking input from people who are out of work on health and disability grounds and their representative organisations, and from a wide range of other stakeholders including devolved governments, local health systems, local government and Mayoral Strategic Authorities, private and voluntary sector providers, and employers. We will confirm further details in due course after we have completed our consultation process.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she plans to review the eligibility criteria for Pension Credit.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Government has no current plans to review the eligibility criteria for Pension Credit.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people received Personal Independence Payment in South Holland and The Deepings constituency in each of the last five years.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Data on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) can be found on Stat Xplore. The requested data can be found in the ‘PIP Clearances’ dataset. You can use the ‘Month’ filter to select each month for the last five years and add it as a row or column. You can filter for South Holland and The Deepings by using the ‘Geography’ filter to select ‘Westiminster Parliamentary Constituency 2024’. You can use the ‘Clearance Type Detail’ filter to select those who were awarded PIP.

You can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest user and, if needed, you can access guidance on how to extract the information required.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the uptake of Pension Credit among (a) disabled and (b) non-disabled pensioners.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The latest estimates of Pension Credit take-up cover the financial year 2022/23: Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year ending 2023 - GOV.UK. The take-up does not provide a break down of rates of take-up amongst disabled and non-disabled pensioners.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025, if she will make an estimate of the number of (a) children and (b) adults who will be in relative poverty after housing costs in each region in the 2029-30 financial year.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

An assessment on this basis is not available. The government's impact assessment regarding Health and Disability Reform is available at Spring Statement 2025 health and disability benefit reforms – Impacts.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 19 March 2025 to Question 37203 on Seasonal workers: Agriculture, how many Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations reports were received by the Health and Safety Executive for (a) agricultural and (b) seasonal agricultural workers in each of the last five years.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) does not require dutyholders submitting reports under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR) to specify that the report relates to “seasonal agricultural workers”. Therefore, HSE does not hold specific data on the number of RIDDOR reports submitted for “seasonal agricultural workers” in each of the last five years.

HSE does collect RIDDOR reports on injuries and diseases to agricultural workers. The two tables below show the total number of RIDDOR reports received for “agricultural workers” from 1 April to 31 March over the last 5 years.

Table 1 - Reports of injuries*

*Table 1 - Injury outcomes include fatal, specified injuries, and over-7-day injuries.

Table 2 - Reports of occupational diseases, exposures to biological agents, and occupational cancers*

*Table 2 - Reports of specific occupational diseases, includes those caused by an occupational exposure to a biological agent; and cases of occupational cancer.

Notes on the two tables:

1. These figures for ‘Agricultural workers’ are defined using Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) 01 – ‘Crop and animal production, hunting and related service activities’, this information is selected by the notifier during the reporting process.
2. Reports marked ‘non-reportable’ in the database, are those determined by HSE operational teams as either not meeting the reporting scope of RIDDOR, or reported as a duplicate. These figures are as-reported, no adjustments are made for under-reporting.
3. Data in Tables 1 and 2 is based on RIDDOR reports as notified to HSE. HSE also publish as official statistics numbers of RIDDOR reported injuries. These official statistics have undergone further data quality checks and differ in scope and coverage to numbers in Tables 1 and 2. For more details of official statistics on RIDDOR reported injuries, see www.hse.gov.uk/statistics

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of the introduction of a Commissioner for Older People and Ageing in England.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

DWP offers employment support for eligible older people through the network of Jobcentres across the UK.

The White Paper published on 26 November focuses on support for people who are
economically inactive, people who are looking for work or want to progress, and people who are at risk of economic inactivity despite having a desire to stay in work. This includes and goes beyond people who are claiming benefits. The new national jobs and careers service will be instrumental in achieving this objective. This service will be available for anyone, including older people, who wants to look for work, wants help to increase their earnings, or who wants help to change their career or re-train. The service will be tailored to local needs.

We are committing to the establishment of ‘collaboration committees’ to further develop the reforms set out in our Pathways to Work Green Paper. These we will bring together groups of people for specific work areas, collaborating with civil servants to provide discussion,
challenge, and recommendations. Each group will have a different mix of people including older people.

The department also engages with employers to ensure their recruitment practises attract and support the retention of older people and encouraging employers to sign the Age-Friendly
employer pledge.

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 that the Child Maintenance Service does not allow economic abuse through missed payments by the paying parent.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) takes the issue of domestic and economic abuse extremely seriously and is committed to ensuring that victims of abuse get the help and support they need.

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) possess robust enforcement powers and use them effectively in the collection of arrears. CMS has also implemented significant improvements to speed up action when payments break down, targeting enforcement actions more effectively.

A consultation on proposed reforms to the CMS was published by the previous Government on 8 May 2024. This included proposals to remove the Direct Pay service. These measures will allow the CMS to tackle non-compliance faster as monitoring all payments would enable the CMS to immediately identify any missed, late or partial payments and take swift enforcement action.

The consultation was extended by this Government at the end of July and ran until 30 September 2024. We are currently analysing the responses we have received, and the Government will publish a response in due course.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to monitor outputs arising from the £1bn for guaranteed personalised employment support to help people get back to work.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We anticipate that we will assess effectiveness of Pathways to Work measures in the usual way, including through evaluation of their implementation and the impacts that they have on employment, incomes, benefit receipt and other indicators. We will publish more information on our evaluation strategy in due course.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 27 March 2025 to Question 40390 on Data, Statistics and Research on Sex and Gender Independent Review, what steps her Department is taking to implement the recommendations of the Sullivan Review of Data, Statistics and Research on Sex and Gender, published on 19 March 2025.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The government has now published the independent review of data, statistics and research on sex and gender commissioned by the previous government. We are considering the findings in light of ongoing policy work in this area.

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 increase the take up of means-tested benefits among households with children in poverty.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

I refer the honourable member to the answer given on 27 March 2025 to question UIN 41344.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to reduce delays in the administration of Carer's Allowance; and what steps she is taking to inform carers about the Carer's Allowance earnings threshold.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Recruitment and deployment of additional resources is taking place to enable the Carer’s Allowance (CA) unit to meet the consistent increased demand, which should reduce the clearance times for new claims to CA.

DWP has reviewed its communications to ensure the increase in the CA earnings threshold from 7 April 2025 is clearly visible. These include:

• Advice on GOV.UK,
• Annual benefit uprating notification letters. These are issued to customers over a 7-week period from the beginning of March, and include the new weekly rate of CA and the new earnings limit,
• Use of our advocates’ platform, such as Carers UK,
• Clerical claim form supporting notes,
• Upskilling our telephony agents who deal with inbound customer enquiries,
• Focussed media coverage on the CA threshold increase - press releases, Facebook etc.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, which body will administer the proposed merged housing and pension credit.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Department is committed to delivering the Government’s goal of bringing together the administration of pensioner Housing Benefit and Pension Credit for new claimants from 2026, so that pensioners receive the support they are entitled to.

We are working closely with local authorities, to ensure reforms meet the needs of current and future pensioners.

In addition, we have already improved how we use existing data to target new pensioner Housing Benefit customers to ensure they are prompted to claim and receive any Pension Credit to which they are entitled.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress she has made on merging pension credit and housing benefit.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Department is committed to delivering the Government’s goal of bringing together the administration of pensioner Housing Benefit and Pension Credit for new claimants from 2026, so that pensioners receive the support they are entitled to.

We are working closely with local authorities, to ensure reforms meet the needs of current and future pensioners.

In addition, we have already improved how we use existing data to target new pensioner Housing Benefit customers to ensure they are prompted to claim and receive any Pension Credit to which they are entitled.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of current Personal Independence Payments recipients do not meet four points on a single descriptor on the daily living activities assessment criteria.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, and some information was published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to paragraphs 7.2 to 7.4 of her Department’s publication entitled Final stage impact assessment: Improve access to Statutory Sick Pay by removing the Lower Earnings Limit and removing the waiting period, published on 21 October 2024, what estimate she has made of the proportion of sickness absences that last at least four weeks; and what average length of sickness absence was estimated to calculate the annual cost of Statutory Sick Pay for businesses.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

There is no administrative data collected or recorded when an employee takes a sickness absence. The best evidence available uses findings from the Employee Survey (Employee research Phase 2: Sickness absence and return to work. Quantitative and qualitative research: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64108286d3bf7f02f6e38078/employee-research-phase-2-sickness-absence-and-return-to-work-quantitative-qualitative.pdf.)

The survey showed that 64% of respondents had no sickness absence. Of those that do have a sickness absence, 13% of those who have a sickness absence reported an absence of more than 3 weeks. The majority of sickness absences were for up to a week (57%) followed by between 1 to 2 weeks (20%), and between 2 to 3 weeks (10%). These figures demonstrate that when workers took sickness absence, it was usually for a short period of time.

Of those who have had a sickness absence, many would receive Occupational Sick Pay. The Employee Survey findings suggest 57% of employees said they would receive OSP, while a further 9% said they would receive some combination of both SSP and OSP. 26% would receive SSP, while the remaining 8% do not know.

The estimated cost to business of SSP reforms is derived from a simulation model that incorporates raw sickness absence data from the DWP Employee Survey 2023 alongside characteristic information from the Family Resources Survey. (Family Resources Survey: financial year 2022 to 2023 - GOV.UK)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of extending the Household Support Fund after March 2026.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

This Government is committed to a sustainable, long-term approach to drive up opportunity and drive down poverty across the UK.

That is why we are providing £742 million in England to extend the Household Support Fund by a further year, from 1 April 2025 until 31 March 2026. This will enable Local Authorities to continue to provide vulnerable households with immediate crisis support towards the cost of essentials, and develop their schemes to help prevent poverty locally and build local resilience.

However, no decision has been made at this stage on funding beyond the end of March 2026. As with all other government programmes, any such funding will be considered in the round at Phase 2 of the Spending Review.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 31 March 2025 to Question 40715 on Universal Credit: Disability, what steps she is taking to ensure that savings reinvested into (a) work support and (b) training opportunities impact recipients of Universal Credit health top up in (i) Dunfermline and Dollar constituency, (ii) Scotland and (iii) other devolved administrations.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We announced in the Pathways to Work Green Paper that we would establish a new guarantee of support for all disabled people and people with health conditions claiming out of work benefits who want help to get into or return to work. This is backed up by £1 billion of new funding across the United Kingdom, with the share of funding for devolved governments calculated in the usual way.

In Northern Ireland employment support is fully transferred. In Scotland and Wales, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Scottish and Welsh Governments have concurrent powers to deliver employment support, with some provision delivered and funded directly by DWP and some funding devolved through the block grant.

As outlined in the Get Britain Working White Paper, we are committed to working in partnership with the Scottish and Welsh Governments on shared employment ambitions across devolved and reserved provision, which includes employment support measures in the Health and Disability Green Paper.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Personal Independence Payment claimants there are in each (a) constituency and (b) local authority area.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Data on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) can be found on Stat Xplore. The requested data can be found in the ‘PIP Cases with Entitlement from 2019’ dataset. You can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest user and, if needed, you can access guidance on how to extract the information required.

For data on claimants in receipt of PIP by local authority area there is a pre-populated table with the latest data. For data by constituency, you can filter by using the ‘Geography’ filter to select ‘Westminster Parliamentary Constituency 2024’.

PIP has been devolved to Scotland since April 2020 and existing claims are currently being moved to the Scottish replacement benefit Adult Disability Payment.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many pensioners in receipt of Housing Benefit are not claiming Pension Credit.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Using the latest published benefit combinations statistics from Stat-Xplore, out of the 1.24m benefit claimants of state pension age in Great Britain receiving Housing Benefit in August 2024, 448,500 were not in receipt of Pension Credit.

A DWP benefit claimant is defined as the individual who is claiming benefit on their own behalf, or in the case of Universal Credit, Pension Credit and Housing Benefit, an individual who is part of a single or couple claim for benefit.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 31 March 2025 to Question 40712, what the cost to the public purse was of the Disability Confidence Scheme in each of the last four years.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Disability Confident scheme expenditure is not separately recorded within departmental budgets.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has considered changes to the benefits system to reflect increases in costs for (a) building and contents insurance, (b) home maintenance, (c) boiler servicing and (d) other homeowner-related costs, in the context of those costs not usually applying to renters.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Department has not recently considered changes to the benefit system to reflect increases in costs for (a) building and contents insurance, (b) home maintenance, (c) boiler servicing and (d) other homeowner-related costs.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what data she plans to collect on the impact of changes to the winter fuel allowance.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

Following the decision to target Winter Fuel Payments at pensioners on the lowest incomes, the Government took immediate action to maximise the take-up of Pension Credit.

The latest Pension Credit applications and awards statistics were published on 27 February. Details can be found at: Pension Credit applications and awards: February 2025 - GOV.UK. The statistics show that the Department received 235,000 Pension Credit applications in the 30 weeks since the Winter Fuel Payment announcement – an 81% increase on the comparable period in 2023/24 and made 117,800 new Pension Credit awards – a 64% increase or 45,800 extra awards on the comparable period 2023/24.

Winter Fuel Payment statistics are published annually. The next release of Winter Fuel Payment statistics covering winter 2024 to 2025 will be published on 16 September 2025 and will report on recipients and beneficiaries of Winter Fuel Payment. The statistics will also include a measure of the proportion of the pensioner population who are beneficiaries of the Winter Fuel Payment.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she plans to publish an assessment of the potential impact of the decision to means test the winter fuel payment on the number of excess deaths in winter 2024-25.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

Targeting Winter Fuel Payments was a difficult decision, but the right decision given the challenging public finances. The Government is, however, protecting pensioners on the lowest incomes. Winter Fuel Payments will continue to be paid to pensioner households with someone receiving Pension Credit or other qualifying means-tested benefits or tax credits. They will continue to be worth £200 for eligible households, or £300 for eligible households with someone aged 80 or over.

A very wide range of factors impact changes in mortality. Details of excess winter deaths in England and Wales can be found at: Winter mortality in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to share data between her Department and HMRC to identify households eligible for Pension Credit.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

HMRC and DWP already have well established data-sharing processes and procedures, which are governed by the rules on how data can be accessed, shared and used whilst safeguarding individuals’ data and privacy.

DWP officials are currently working with HMRC to explore how to use data more effectively to help identify pensioner households most likely to be eligible for Pension Credit and to target them directly.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Green Paper: Pathways to Work, published on 18 March 2025, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the proposed changes to (a) health and (b) disability benefits on health inequalities.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Government is committed to building a fairer Britain, to ensure people can live well for longer, and spend less time in ill health, regardless of where they are born or their financial circumstances. We are working with the Department for Health and Social Care to ensure that health is built into our policies, including those outlined in the Pathways to Work Green Paper.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, with some information published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found here ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the number of under 22 year olds who will no longer receive limited capability to work payments.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Information on the impacts of the “Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper” will be published in due course, with some information already published alongside the Spring Statement.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

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 planned reforms to Personal Independence Payment on people that receive (a) housing allowances and (b) higher rate housing allowances.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

No such assessment has yet been made.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, and some information was published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of simplifying application forms for social security entitlements.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Department continues to review the experience of users of its services, and seeks to balance application simplicity with obtaining the information needed for an accurate award. A key objective of DWP’s Service Modernisation Programme, drawing on end user research, is to assess how applications should be made in the future, and consider the opportunities for more user friendly and easily accessible services.

DWP Agents and third-party organisations are available to support customers with applications. For those without third party support, DWP provides various support to assist with benefit applications. The Department’s Visiting Service offers the most vulnerable applicants help with form completion.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people who receive (a) enhanced daily living Personal Independence Payment awards and (b) standard daily living Personal Independence Payment awards did not score four or more points on any individual activity descriptor in 2024-25 in Tipton and Wednesbury constituency.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The requested information is not readily available.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, and some information was published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the welfare reforms proposed in her Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, last updated 28 March 2025, on (a) reducing levels of and (b) preventing homelessness among disabled people.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

No assessment has yet been made.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, and some information was published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Fifty-seventh Report of the Committee of Public Accounts of Session 2022-23 on AEA Technology Pension Case, HC 1005, published on 14 June 2023, and to Questions 329 and 330 of the oral evidence given by the Minister for Pensions to the Work and Pensions select committee on 10 January 2024, HC 144, what steps she is taking to implement a redress scheme.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

In its response to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report on the AEA Technology case, the department agreed to consider the PAC recommendation to ‘ensure that people have an adequate route of appeal when considering complaints about their occupational and personal pensions, through a review of the Ombudsman’. Progress on the PAC and subsequent WPC recommendations were paused due to the General Election. The department remains committed to providing the PAC with an update once the Cabinet Office has considered how it would like departments to scope and schedule a new series of reviews for public bodies.

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 effectively communicate to eligible people over State Pension age that they may be entitled to Carer’s Allowance.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is constantly working to improve the way it communicates information and is committed to encouraging older people to claim Carer’s Allowance where they are entitled to it.

Information and advice about entitlement to Carer’s Allowance may be available from a range of outlets including DWP and other helplines, gov.uk and other internet sites, local authorities, Citizens Advice and welfare benefit offices, Social Services, voluntary organisations, such as, Age UK, Carers UK and Carers Trust and MacMillan, public libraries, health clinics, doctors' surgeries and health visitors.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with the RNIB on its report entitled Access to Work - Cost benefit analysis, published on 5 September 2015, in the context of her Department's consultation on its Green Paper on Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 26 March 2025.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Since 2015, the style, scope and cost of support that disabled people require has changed significantly, as has the labour market, yet Access to Work has stayed broadly the same. We believe there is a strong case for looking at the future role and purpose of Access to Work, given the significant operational challenges it faces, its limited reach (it only supports around 1% of the working disabled population) and rising costs. We want to improve accessibility and support more disabled people into work and think Access to Work has a significant role in this.

In March 2025, the Pathways to Work Green paper launched a consultation on the future of Access to Work, and we are keen to hear the views and voices of disabled people and representative organisations, such as RNIB. We will consider all evidence during the review of Access to Work.

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 making access to work schemes the responsibility of employers on small and medium-sized businesses.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

As outlined in the Pathways to Work Green Paper published on 18 March, we need to get the balance right between supporting employers to understand and provide reasonable adjustments as part of their legal duties, and interventions that go beyond this this to enable employment. There are no plans to require employers to provide measures beyond a reasonable adjustment.

We will assess any new intervention through evaluation, ensuring its impact and value for money.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department plans to introduce a substantial risk element into the PIP assessment process.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

In our Green Paper, Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working, we announced our plans to scrap the Work Capability Assessment and use the single Personal Independence Payment assessment to assess entitlement for the Universal Credit health element. We are considering how change of this kind could affect individuals who currently meet limited capability for work and work-related activity criteria due to non-functional special circumstances; including those currently classed as having substantial risk.

We also announced plans to launch a process to review the PIP assessment. We will bring together a range of experts, stakeholders and people with lived experience to consider how best to do this and to start the process as part of preparing for a review. Any changes to the PIP assessment will need to work alongside the reforms set out in the Green Paper.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government when they will provide the Office for Budget Responsibility with the necessary information to enable an assessment of the impact on poverty of the measures announced in the Spring Statement on 26 March that includes those aimed at increasing employment.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The government’s impact assessment regarding Health and Disability reform is available at: Spring Statement 2025 health and disability benefit reforms – Impacts.

This assessment does not include the impact of the £1 billion a year, by 2029/30, funding for measures to support those with disabilities and long-term health conditions into employment, which we expect to mitigate the poverty impact among people it supports into work.

We are engaging with the OBR to enable them to make a full assessment of the policies including employment impacts ahead of the next fiscal event.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what changes her Department plans to make to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) reassessments for claimants suffering from longer-term degenerative conditions.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Award reviews are an important feature of Personal Independence Payment to ensure people receive the correct level of benefit, both for those whose needs will increase and those whose needs may decrease. People who receive the highest level of PIP and whose needs will not improve, receive a PIP award for a continuous period with a light touch review at the 10-year point.

In the Green Paper Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working published on 18 March we outline plans to consider changes to improve the experience for people who receive these ongoing awards in PIP. These include improving the information we provide when we write to people about ongoing PIP award decisions, what support is offered between ‘light touch’ reviews and reviewing the length of time between ‘light touch’ reviews.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department plans to make an assessment of the potential impact of making access to work schemes the responsibility of employers on the employability of people with disabilities.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

As outlined in the Pathways to Work Green Paper published on 18 March, we need to get the balance right between supporting employers to understand and provide reasonable adjustments as part of their legal duties, and interventions that go beyond this this to enable employment. There are no plans to require employers to provide measures beyond a reasonable adjustment.

We will assess any new intervention through evaluation, ensuring its impact and value for money.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to improve enforcement against paying parents who repeatedly miss Child Maintenance Service payments.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is committed to ensuring separated parents support their children financially, taking robust enforcement action against those who do not.

The CMS has a range of strong enforcement powers that can be used against those who consistently refuse to meet their obligations to provide financial support to their children including deducting directly from earnings, bank accounts and forcing the sale of a property.

The Child Support (Enforcement) Act 2023 proposed regulations to support the introduction of administrative liability orders (ALOs), removing the requirement to obtain a court issued liability order. Introducing this process should enable the Child Maintenance Service to take faster action against those paying parents who actively avoid their responsibilities and get money to children more quickly. We are working with His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service and the Scottish Government to establish a process for implementing ALOs and plan to introduce regulations to Parliament by the end of this year.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the National Audit Office report entitled Supporting people to work through jobcentres, published on 31 March 2025, what steps her Department plans to take to increase the number of jobcentre work coaches in the next 12 months; and whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of the number of work coaches on jobcentres’ ability to provide the intended level of support.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We are reforming both the welfare and employment support systems to make best use of our work coaches’ time, ensuring a system that is fit for purpose.

We are targeting support where it is needed most to tackle ill-health and disability-related economic inactivity. This includes £1 billion per year of new funding across the United Kingdom by the end of the decade to establish a new guarantee of support for all disabled people and people with health conditions claiming out of work benefits who want help to get into or return to work.

We are also reforming our Jobcentres, bringing together Jobcentre Plus and the National Careers Service to meet the needs of local labour markets, people and employers whilst embracing technology to improve customer service and free up work coach time.

Through reforming how we deliver our support, we can ensure people get the level of support they need and that we can get Britain Working. We will have further updates to this change programme in due course.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many times her Department has used (a) section 71 and (b) section 71ZE of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 to recover assets from people found to have committed fraud in each of the last five years.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Department has not recovered assets from the debtor, such as through a writ of possession or charging order, under either section 71 or section 71ZE of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 in the last five years. Debts under section 71 are currently recovered by deduction from benefit or a Direct Earnings Attachment. However, the Department does use The Proceeds Of Crime Act to recover assets following criminal prosecutions.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the written statement of 4 March 2025, HCWS495, on Household Support Fund, what estimate she has made of the number of local authorities that are using the fund to provide support for pensioners in lieu of the reductions to Winter Fuel Allowance.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Local Authorities can use the Household Support Fund (HSF) to provide support with energy costs to households in need.

Management Information on how funding has been spent in previous years, including the proportion spent on households with pensioners and the proportion spent on energy and water, can be found here: Household Support Fund management information - GOV.UK

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 support people who have been made redundant to access (a) training and (b) skills support in the West Midlands.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Get Britain Working White Paper focuses on building a thriving labour market, reducing economic inactivity and increasing the number of people in work, which is central to growing the economy.

DWP provides Rapid Redundancy Support (RRS) to both Employers and Individuals following notification from the National RRS team or via the DWP Strategic Relationship Team and Insolvency Service.

Local Employer Advisors will make contact the Employers/or Individuals to offer support as a matter of urgency. Support is tailored and can vary depending on the scale of the redundancy and the level of support required. This can include:

• Group Information sessions or 121 sessions with individuals
• Providing information on the local labour market
• Individual Job Search Support
• Local Skills and Training support for specific sectors
• Support with CVs and Applications
• Information on Support for those with Health Conditions and Disabilities
• Information on Universal Credit and Pensions

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the number of households no longer eligible for both PIP and other passported benefits.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

No estimate has yet been made.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, and some information was published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

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 raise awareness of the impact of migraines in the workplace.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Department for Work and Pensions and Department for Health and Social Care are committed to supporting disabled people and people with health conditions, including people with migraines, with their employment journey.

The Disability Confident Scheme encourages employers to create disability inclusive workplaces and to support disabled people to get work and get on in work. A digital information service for employers, (Support with Employee Health and Disability), has been developed to offer guidance on making reasonable adjustments, supporting employees to remain in work, and understanding legal requirements.

Backed by £240m investment, the Get Britain Working White Paper launched last November will drive forward approaches to tackling economic inactivity and work toward the long-term ambition of an 80% employment rate. We announced in the recent Pathways to Work Green Paper that we would establish a new guarantee of support for all disabled people and people with health conditions claiming out of work benefits who want help to get into or return to work, backed up by £1 billion of new funding.

In addition to this work, the Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions and Business and Trade have launched the Keep Britain Working Review. This review will consider how to support and enable employers to recruit and retain more disabled people and people with health conditions; promote healthy workplaces and support more people to stay in or return to work from periods of sickness absence.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of endometriosis on women in the workplace.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Backed by £240m investment, the Get Britain Working White Paper launched last November will drive forward approaches to tackling economic inactivity and work toward the long-term ambition of an 80% employment rate. We announced in the recent Pathways to Work Green Paper that we would establish a new guarantee of support for all disabled people and people with health conditions claiming out of work benefits who want help to get into or return to work, backed up by £1 billion of new funding.

In addition to this work, the Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions and Business and Trade have launched the Keep Britain Working Review. This review will consider how to support and enable employers to recruit and retain more disabled people and people with health conditions; promote healthy workplaces and support more people to stay in or return to work from periods of sickness absence.

The Department for Work and Pensions and Department for Health and Social Care are committed to supporting disabled people and people with health conditions, including women with endometriosis, with their employment journey.

The Disability Confident Scheme encourages employers to create disability inclusive workplaces and to support disabled people to get work and get on in work. A digital information service for employers, (Support with Employee Health and Disability), has been developed to offer guidance on making reasonable adjustments, supporting employees to remain in work, and understanding legal requirements.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made in the Pathways to Work Green Paper of the adequacy of (a) ill health and (b) disability benefits.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Personal Independence Payment (PIP) provides a contribution to the extra costs that may arise from a disability or health condition. DWP pays close attention to estimates of the extra costs faced by disabled people; including academic research, analysis by Scope, and DWP’s own commissioned research on the Uses of Health and Disability Benefits from 2019.

In order to improve the evidence in this area, DWP is now undertaking a new survey of Personal Independence Payment customers to understand more about their disability related needs. It is expected to produce findings in Autumn 2025.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she has taken to support women impacted by increases to the State Pension Age in South Shropshire.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Government seeks to support people who can work, by helping them to retain, return to or progress in employment. That is why the Government is reforming employment support to ensure it helps everyone who needs it.

DWP currently offers employment support for eligible customers of all ages, through the network of Jobcentres across the UK, and through contracted employment programmes. A dedicated offer for older workers seeks to provide tailored support for those affected by low confidence, menopause, health and disability or caring pressures, and out of date skills or qualifications. Through Midlife reviews, delivered in Jobcentres across the UK, and online, we support older people to assess their health, finances and skills.

In South Shropshire, Employer and Partnership Teams in Jobcentres work with a range of employers and partners to enhance the skills and employment support available locally for customers.

We have also appointed a Menopause Employment Ambassador who will work closely with employers across the country to improve workplace support for women experiencing menopause and wider women’s health issues.

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 impact of the proposed reforms to Personal Independence Payments on blind and partially sighted people.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is assessed on needs arising from a long-term health condition or disability rather than the health condition or disability itself. Individuals can be impacted by their health conditions in different ways and the assessment considers the effect on a person’s day to day life.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, and some information was published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Found: Council relating to Free home care Correspondence with the Secretary of State for the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: retention and, to be brutally frank, our pay scales in central London, we cannot compete with the likes of DWP

Found: Q18 Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: We had a hearing with the DWP where two bits of AI had to be dropped

Found: deliver skills programmes across vocational skills, employability programmes and careers for the DfE, DWP

Found: Our partnership with DWP is exactly the integration between businesses and government we have been calling

Found: Industrial Strategy Council, Skills England, the Migration Advisory Committee, the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: Stronger collaboration with the DWP and Jobcentre Plus could help embed employability skills into support

Found: cross-government approach to skills and drive partnerships with key government departments such as DBT, DWP

Found: implementation of the curriculum including, for example, local NHS health trusts, county councils, DWP

Found: The funding that is available for job coaches via the DWP is long and complex and deters from accessing

Found: and care needs, states that everyone should have their health care needs met by the NHS, and that DWP

Found: Towards the end of the session, I asked what engagement you had had with the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: AFC0070 22 Crawford, Chris AFC0027 23 Department of Health and Social Care AFC0079 24 Department for Work and Pensions

Found: was looking at some sort of umbrella organisation involving the mayor, the local authority and the DWP

Found: There is evidence from the DWP itself on the effectiveness of the Child Maintenance Service, which

Found: When I, as an elected Member, submit a written question to the DWP saying, “When are you going to publish

Found: When I, as an elected Member, submit a written question to the DWP saying, “When are you going to publish

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether she has considered reallocating Child Tax Credit payments previously claimed by a child’s parents prior to their entering foster care to that child while in care.

Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury

Child Tax Credit has been fully replaced by Universal Credit and Pension Credit since 6 April 2025. The Department for Work and Pensions has invited all eligible customers to claim. There are consequently no plans to review past Child Tax Credit rules or arrangements.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will make it her policy to provide hon. Members with an economic and fiscal outlook assessment by the Office for Budget Responsibility of the measures in the Pathways to Work Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025, before bringing forward legislative proposals on the measures.

Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) published their latest Economic and Fiscal Outlook on 26 March 2025 alongside Spring Statement 2025. This included an assessment of some of the changes in the Pathways to Work Green Paper which the Government is legislating on, with the relevant legislation being introduced in due course. In their March 2025 Economic and Fiscal Outlook, the OBR stated they “plan to work with the Treasury and DWP to further scrutinise both the direct and indirect effects of these welfare and employment support policies ahead of our next forecast, alongside the effects of any further measures from the Green Paper that have been sufficiently developed”.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will work with Versus Arthritis to (a) bring down waiting times for people with arthritis and (b) support them while waiting for treatment.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

On 6 January 2025, NHS England published the new Elective Reform Plan, which sets out a whole system approach to hitting the 18-week referral to treatment target by the end of this Parliament.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning services that meet the needs of their populations, including for those with arthritis. To support this, the Department of Health and Social Care is delivering the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) Musculoskeletal (MSK) Community Delivery Programme jointly with NHS England and the Department for Work and Pensions. With a £3.5 million funding boost, GIRFT will work with the ICBs to reduce MSK community waiting times.

The Department funds research into MSK conditions, including arthritis, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). Through that route, the Department spent approximately £26.3 million on MSK research in 2023/24, and £79.2 million since 2019/20. In particular, the Leeds Biomedical Research Centre aims to improve treatment for osteoarthritis. The NIHR, in collaboration with Versus Arthritis, also funds a dedicated UK MSK Translational Research Collaboration, aligning investment in MSK translational research and creating a United Kingdom-wide ambition and focus to drive cutting edge research and improve outcomes for patients.

The GIRFT programme in NHS England has had a paediatric rheumatology workstream since April 2024. The team has assembled the largest ever set of data and information about paediatric rheumatology in England and is visiting every department in England to discuss its findings. It will produce its national report with recommendations later this financial year. This will include a focus on supporting young people and their parents as they transition to adult services.

The GIRFT team will be working with the British Society for Rheumatology and rheumatology departments in England to implement the findings and recommendations of the GIRFT paediatric rheumatology national report.

NHS England Specialised Commissioning has a Clinical Reference Group for specialised paediatric rheumatology, which has produced a service specification naming juvenile idiopathic arthritis as one of the conditions that should be managed by a specialist paediatric rheumatology team. The service specification also sets out that specialised paediatric rheumatology teams will provide transitional care to facilitate transfer to, and ongoing care in, adult rheumatology. Specialised paediatric rheumatology services are expected to be commissioned in line with this service specification.

The Department will continue to work with Versus Arthritis as we consider how best to provide National Health Services for people with MSK conditions such as arthritis.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will work with Versus Arthritis to improve (a) care and (b) support for young people with arthritis.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

On 6 January 2025, NHS England published the new Elective Reform Plan, which sets out a whole system approach to hitting the 18-week referral to treatment target by the end of this Parliament.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning services that meet the needs of their populations, including for those with arthritis. To support this, the Department of Health and Social Care is delivering the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) Musculoskeletal (MSK) Community Delivery Programme jointly with NHS England and the Department for Work and Pensions. With a £3.5 million funding boost, GIRFT will work with the ICBs to reduce MSK community waiting times.

The Department funds research into MSK conditions, including arthritis, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). Through that route, the Department spent approximately £26.3 million on MSK research in 2023/24, and £79.2 million since 2019/20. In particular, the Leeds Biomedical Research Centre aims to improve treatment for osteoarthritis. The NIHR, in collaboration with Versus Arthritis, also funds a dedicated UK MSK Translational Research Collaboration, aligning investment in MSK translational research and creating a United Kingdom-wide ambition and focus to drive cutting edge research and improve outcomes for patients.

The GIRFT programme in NHS England has had a paediatric rheumatology workstream since April 2024. The team has assembled the largest ever set of data and information about paediatric rheumatology in England and is visiting every department in England to discuss its findings. It will produce its national report with recommendations later this financial year. This will include a focus on supporting young people and their parents as they transition to adult services.

The GIRFT team will be working with the British Society for Rheumatology and rheumatology departments in England to implement the findings and recommendations of the GIRFT paediatric rheumatology national report.

NHS England Specialised Commissioning has a Clinical Reference Group for specialised paediatric rheumatology, which has produced a service specification naming juvenile idiopathic arthritis as one of the conditions that should be managed by a specialist paediatric rheumatology team. The service specification also sets out that specialised paediatric rheumatology teams will provide transitional care to facilitate transfer to, and ongoing care in, adult rheumatology. Specialised paediatric rheumatology services are expected to be commissioned in line with this service specification.

The Department will continue to work with Versus Arthritis as we consider how best to provide National Health Services for people with MSK conditions such as arthritis.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average time taken to diagnose ankylosing spondylitis was in each of the last five years.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

We do not hold data in the format requested. To support health and care professionals in the early diagnosis of musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions, such as ankylosing spondylitis, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published expert guidance on the diagnosis and management of spondyloarthritis in over 16 year olds, which is available at the following link:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng65

The NICE guidance aims to raise awareness of the features of spondyloarthritis and provide clear advice on what action to take when people with signs and symptoms first present in healthcare settings.

As announced in the Get Britain Working white paper, we are delivering the joint Department for Work and Pensions, Department of Health and Social Care, and NHS England Getting It Right First-Time (GIRFT) MSK Community Delivery Programme. With a £3.5 million funding boost, GIRFT teams will deploy their proven Further Faster model to work with integrated care board leaders to further reduce MSK community waiting times, including for those with ankylosing spondylitis, and improve data, metrics, and referral pathways to wider support services.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if HMRC will provide (a) National Insurance records, (b) historic income tax records showing taxable payments of state pensions and (c) any other related records of deceased people to bereaved family members for claims for underpaid state pensions.

Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)

His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) operates a strict duty of confidentiality to protect customers’ data. Therefore they can only supply information regarding the deceased to family members in certain circumstances permitted in law, for example to enable the tax and National Insurance affairs of the deceased to be settled.

At present HMRC does not have the power to provide families with tax and National Insurance information for the purpose mentioned.

The State Pension is a matter for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and HMRC shares information via an established legislative gateway with DWP for its administration.

Thousands of people in the UK have a disability, physical or otherwise, and many of these people use Disability Benefits provided by the government as a means to survive. By putting a stop to the proposed benefit cuts, disabled people will continue to have the freedom and independence they need.

Found: In the financial year ending 2024, the DWP reported an estimated 0.1% PIP claims overpaid due to fraud

We want the government to stop with their plan to introduce further cuts to the UK benefits system, in regards to the proposed changes to the PIP system. The PIP system is exploitative, humiliating, & not fit for purpose. The system should be assessed by health professionals prior to a tribunal.

Found: Currently, PIP is assessed by the DWP prior to a tribunal with no review from an independent medical

To recognise that Type 1 Diabetes is a severe disability. People especially children deserve to have adequate disability benefits and care provide, schools should have a fully funded care package and the DWP should see type 1 is a severe disability that justifies higher care a mobility rates.

Found: adequate disability benefits and care provide, schools should have a fully funded care package and the DWP

Found: departments, including but not limited to the Department for Business and Trade, the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: departments, including but not limited to the Department for Business and Trade, the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: departments, including but not limited to the Department for Business and Trade, the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: (e) To evidence a pension: (i) Official documentation from: (1) The Department for Work and Pensions

Found: bullying and harassment. 9.15 The Contractor shall co-operate with the Department and Department for Work and Pensions

Found: (e) To evidence a pension: (i) Official documentation from: (1) The Department for Work and Pensions

Found: sets out the agreed working relationship between the OBR, HM Revenue and Customs, the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: (2) On 2 November 2016, Mr Joshi made a claim to the Department for Work and Pensions (the “DWP”

Found: Before this, Victoria was the Minister of State at DWP (Minister for Work and Welfare) and DEFRA (Minister

Found: benefit, the local authority administers housing benefit payments on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: housing benefit, the local authority administers housing benefit payments on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: Timms MP, Minister for Social Security & Disability, and Minister of State for the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: Timms M P , Minister for Social Security & Disability, and Minister of State for the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: care plans, access to work grants, voluntary sector 42 grants and funding from the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: Social Security Scotland and Secretary of State (DWP) information sharing agreements: FOI release

Found: Social Security Scotland and Secretary of State (DWP) information sharing agreements: FOI release

Found: This survey is managed by the Department for Work and Pensions, who also published a report, available

Found: Starting in May 2024, the Department for Work and Pensions are rolled out an increase in the administrative

Found: perception of statutory agencies such as His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), Department for Work and Pensions

Found: If you have received (or claimed but not received) any benefit from the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: Prior to the introduction of Universal Credit, the DWP provided a breakdown of the total proportion

Found: Any analysis provided by the UK Department for Work and Pensions to the Welsh Government on the impact