Asked by: Ian Byrne (Labour - Liverpool West Derby)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to his Department's publication entitled Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published in March 2025, whether people with a terminal illness who do not have a claim under the Special Rules for Terminal Illness will be eligible for the additional premium in Universal Credit.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department supports people nearing the end of life through the Special Rules for End of Life (SREL). These rules 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 or serve waiting periods, and in most cases, to receive the highest rate of benefit.
The SREL have been extended to apply to people who have 12 months or less to live, rather than 6 months or less to live, so that people receive vital support through the Special Rules six months earlier, increasing the number of people able to access benefits through the Special Rules.
The Pathways to Work Green paper announced that the Government is considering the appropriate rules for those in specific circumstances, such as being at end of life. It also announced that, after April 2026, the Government plans to protect the incomes of those with the most severe, life-long health conditions, who have no prospect of improvement and will never be able to work.
Asked by: Danny Kruger (Conservative - East Wiltshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average number of people assigned to each work coach is.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In March 2025 there were 1,662,380 Universal Credit (UC) customers in the Searching for Work conditionality regime, and at the end of March 25 the number of full time equivalent (FTE) Work Coaches was 17,160.
Not all UC claimants have a Work Coach. We have provided the number of customers in the Searching for Work conditionality regime as most of this group do.
The average number of people assigned to each Work Coach is not a metric used by the Department and the Department has complex models to estimate the resource required in Jobcentres at a national level. These models cover activities across all DWP customer groups and job roles.
The Department continually impacts and assesses the service being offered to customers. Staff numbers, including the number of Work Coaches, and demand for Jobcentre services are reviewed on an ongoing basis, in line with the latest economic and benefit forecasts.
Notes on the figures:
Work coach FTE figures are management information, collected and intended for internal departmental use and are not quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. They are not routinely published, but as the Department holds the information, we have released it in this PQ to answer the question asked.
Work Coach figures include both Universal Credit Work Coaches and Existing Benefit Work Coaches. They do not include Work Coach Team Leaders and Disability Employment Advisers.
The number of Universal Credit claimants includes those who have started Universal Credit (completed the Universal Credit claim process and accepted their Claimant Commitment) and have not had a closure of their claim recorded for this spell, up to the 'count date', and is correct as of the second Thursday in March 2025. This figure is provisional and may be subject to revision in future releases of the data.
Inclusion in a specific Labour market regime is based on an individual's circumstances on the count date.
FTE data is correct as at the end of March 25. These figures were derived from the Department’s Activity Based Model (ABM), which provides Full Time Equivalent (FTE) figures based on point in time estimate by Line Managers. They cover only FTE of staff with paid employment.
All figures have been rounded to the nearest 10 and cover Great Britain.
Asked by: Sarah Gibson (Liberal Democrat - Chippenham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of Carer’s Allowance overpayment cases identified by her Department in each of the last six years were subject to investigation prior to the commencement of debt recovery procedures.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department looks into every case where an overpayment is calculated before the overpayment is finalised and debt recovery commences.
Where overpayments do occur, the Department has a duty to the taxpayer to protect public funds and to ask for money to be paid back. We remain committed to working with anyone who is struggling with their repayment terms and will always look to negotiate sustainable and affordable repayment plans
Asked by: Helen Whately (Conservative - Faversham and Mid Kent)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department is taking steps to monitor the responsiveness of the Health and Safety Executive to inquiries from hon. Members.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department attaches great importance to the effective and timely handling of correspondence and keeps this under constant review.
The Cabinet Office publishes statistics on Departmental performance which can be found on the gov.uk website and can be viewed here.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether benefit fraud statistics are disaggregated by (a) nationality and (b) immigration status.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Monetary Value of Fraud and Error Statistics are not disaggregated by nationality and immigration status.
Asked by: Victoria Collins (Liberal Democrat - Harpenden and Berkhamsted)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make it her policy that claimants of (a) Personal Independence Payment and (b) Universal Credit with sight loss conditions that have no prospect of improvement will be exempt from reassessment under proposed changes to the benefits system.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Our wide-ranging package of reforms to health and disability benefits, set out in the Pathways to Work Green Paper, will improve experiences of the system for those who need it. The functional impact and severity of a condition can significantly vary across individuals, so we are not planning to exempt specific conditions, but we are planning to reduce reassessments for those with the most severe conditions.
We aim to guarantee that for both new and existing Universal Credit claims, those with the most severe, life-long health conditions, who will never be able to work, will not need to be reassessed in the future. Our plans to improve experiences of Personal Independence Payment also include reducing assessments for this group. We are exploring ways we could use evidence from eligibility for other services to reduce need for some people with very severe health conditions and disabilities to undergo a full PIP functional assessment.
Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
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 disabled people in receipt of a means-tested benefit but not in receipt of Personal Independence Payment in (a) Staffordshire and (b) England.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
There are an estimated 1.7 million disabled people of working age who are in receipt of a means-tested benefit but not in receipt of Personal Independence Payment or an equivalent disability benefit in England, and an estimated 0.6 million of pension age.
With respect to (a) Staffordshire, no estimate can be made due to methodological constraints.
Source: These figures are modelled estimates from DWP’s Policy Simulation Model (PSM), and therefore should not be treated as official statistics.
The PSM is a tax/benefit static microsimulation model used widely throughout DWP and across Government to assess the impact of welfare policy. The PSM is based on a three-year pooled sample of the Family Resources Survey (FRS 19-20, 21-22 and 22-23). It is therefore subject to potential sampling error and respondent error. This is projected forwards to 2025/26 based on multiple assumptions about incomes for all households. The PSM corrects benefit under-reporting in the FRS by aligning the sample weights to benefit forecasts. The PSM is also calibrated to population data from the ONS and incorporates the OBRs economic forecast. The model does not yet take account of Spring Statement 2025 policy measures.
Notes:
1. Disability is defined as the Equality Act 2010 core definition, self-reported by survey respondents who report that they have a long-term physical or mental health condition, lasting or expected to last at least 12 months, that limits their daily activities either ‘a little’ or ‘a lot’.
2. Means-tested benefits includes any of the following: Universal Credit (UC), Income Support (IS), Employment Support Allowance (ESA), Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA), Working Tax Credit (WTC), Child Tax Credit (CTC), Housing Benefit (HB, or Northern Ireland equivalent), Council Tax Rebate (CTR, or Northern Ireland equivalent), or Pension Credit (PC).
3. Receipt of Personal Independence Payment includes other equivalent disability benefits: Disability Living allowance (DLA) and Attendance Allowance (AA). Eligibility for these benefits is based on different criteria to the legal definition of disability (see Note 1).
4. Estimates for England relate to 2025/26 and are rounded to the nearest 0.1 million people.
5. The working age and pension age estimates for England are based on 2,557 and 1,421 individuals respectively, from a total national sample size of 78,192.
Asked by: Danny Kruger (Conservative - East Wiltshire)
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 Personal Independence Payment on social care costs for local authorities.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Pathways to Work Green Paper announced our plans to bring forward reforms to the Personal Independent Payment (PIP) eligibility criteria. We are consulting on how best to support those who are affected by the eligibility changes and we will work closely with DHSC and others to consider how people’s health and eligible care needs could be met outside the benefits system. As we develop our detailed proposals for change, we will work with local partners to consider their important role and how the reforms could affect them.
We also intend to launch a wider review of the PIP assessment which I will lead. 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. We will provide further details as plans progress.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many foreign nationals who currently live outside of the UK are paid the state pension.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Department does not hold data on the number of foreign nationals residing outside of the UK and in receipt of the UK State Pension. However, the Department does hold data on the number of individuals in receipt of the UK State Pension residing outside of the UK. As of August 2024, this was 1.1 million.
Source: DWP Stat-Xplore.
Asked by: Mary Glindon (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent estimate she has made of the proportion of Employment and Support Allowance claimants who have not moved to Universal Credit after the deadline day set out in their migration notice in (a) Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend, (b) the North East and (c) England.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Monthly statistics for the number of People and Households sent a Migration Notice for Move to Universal Credit in Great Britain by geography including by Westminster Parliamentary Constituency and by legacy benefit type are published quarterly on Stat-Xplore - Log in
People invited to Move to Universal Credit statistics are currently available from July 2022 to December 2024 in the People invited to Move to Universal Credit dataset. Households invited to Move to Universal Credit statistics are also available in the Households invited to Move to Universal Credit dataset.
In addition there are a number of ready-made tables by various breakdowns available in the Move to Universal Credit tables.
Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access Introduction to the Stat-Xplore User Guide on how to extract the information required. There is also a Universal Credit Official Statistics: Stat-Xplore user guide - GOV.UK