Asked by: Lisa Smart (Liberal Democrat - Hazel Grove)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the accessibility of the Disability Living Allowance claim form; and whether he plans to take steps to improve it.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
An accessible online version of a DLA1 (new claim form) is available to download from gov.uk.
All other DLA Child forms and letters are available as a reasonable adjustment for customers who require alternative methods to interact with the department. These include, but are not limited to, email accessible version, braille, large print, audio.
All forms and letters are regularly reviewed to ensure they provide the customer with the information required and support a smooth customer interaction.
Asked by: Cat Eccles (Labour - Stourbridge)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many young people aged 16-24 are claiming the Universal Credit health element while in full-time non-advanced education under Universal Credit rules.
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.
Asked by: Ian Roome (Liberal Democrat - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of reductions in Access to Work awards following a change of circumstances on the risk of disabled people falling out of employment; and whether his Department monitors employment outcomes in such cases.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The support that a customer will receive from Access to Work is dependent upon their needs and circumstances at the time they make an application or award renewal. Case managers will use the current guidance to ensure Access to Work principles are considered when making a decision on support.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Universal Credit households in the most recent quarter for which data is available are undergoing a third party deduction for the purpose of paying a court fine.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Around 250,000 Universal Credit households had at least one third party deduction for court fines in the quarter ending in November 2025.
Notes:
1. Figures have been calculated by identifying Universal Credit households with at least one thirdparty deduction for court fines during any month within the quarter. Households with a court fines deduction in more than one month of the quarter have been counted once only, to reflect the number of unique households affected during the period.
2. Data up to November 2025 has been provided in line with the latest available Universal Credit Deductions Statistics.
3. Figures have been provided for Universal Credit households in Great Britain.
4. Figures are provisional and are subject to retrospective change as later data becomes available.
5. Numbers are rounded to the nearest 10,000.
Asked by: Lisa Smart (Liberal Democrat - Hazel Grove)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the current average time taken is to pay Access to Work suppliers for services delivered; and what steps his Department is taking to reduce delays in paying suppliers.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Access to Work payment processing is currently at 10 working days for generic payments and 15 days for special aids and equipment. We are upskilling additional staff to deliver payments and reduce processing times.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps the Government are taking to help increase employment opportunities for people with autism.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government is committed to supporting all neurodivergent people, including autistic people, into and at work. This is part of our wider commitment to drive healthy and inclusive workplaces for all.
Our employment support for neurodivergent people is led by DWP’s £1 billion, voluntary, locally-led Supported Employment programme, Connect to Work. It covers all of England and Wales, with the exception of Greater Manchester which is using their Connect to Work funding to pilot their Prevention Demonstrator, through their Integrated Settlement.
Connect to Work will support around 300,000 disabled people, people with health conditions and individuals with complex barriers to employment by the end of the decade. It offers intensive, personalised employment support to help people move into and stay in paid employment, and is built around two internationally recognised evidence-based Supported Employment frameworks: Individual Placement and Support, and the Supported Employment Quality Framework. The latter has been specifically designed to support neurodivergent people and those with learning disabilities into sustainable jobs. Crucially, Connect to Work supports both participants and employers, helping to ensure that individuals are given the best chance to succeed once in work.
We recognise that supporting employers to understand the needs of neurodivergent employees is also key to our efforts. This year we funded free-of-charge neurodiversity masterclasses, delivered by ACAS, to help small and medium sized businesses build their understanding of neurodivergence and improve workplace support. Over 1800 representatives of small and medium sized businesses attended these masterclasses.
As announced early this year, we are reforming our Disability Confident scheme by strengthening its criteria and expectations to drive meaningful change across its approximately 19,000 employer members and the estimated 11.5 million employees working in their organisations. The reforms will provide clearer, more robust guidance on inclusive recruitment and retention, including for autistic people; and these reforms are being closely aligned with the work of the Keep Britain Working Review.
As part of the vanguard phase of the Keep Britain Working Review, we are working directly with employers to identify what “good” looks like in inclusive workplace practice, including for neurodivergent employees. This vanguard phase includes over 150 volunteer employers and 10 regions and will, over the next three years, work with government to test employer-led approaches to support individuals to stay in and return to work.
Finally, last year, DWP launched an independent panel of academics with expertise and lived experiences of neurodiversity to advise us on boosting neurodiversity awareness and inclusion at work. The panel considered the reasons why neurodivergent people have poor experiences in the workplace, and a low overall employment rate. DWP has now received a final version of the Panel’s report and is considering its findings.
Asked by: Lorraine Beavers (Labour - Blackpool North and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people with (a) multiple sclerosis and (b) other progressive neurological conditions received Access to Work support in 2024-25 by provision type.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Although the Department collects information on the medical condition(s) of Access to Work customers, readily available primary medical condition categories do not allow for the disaggregation of people with multiple sclerosis or other progressive neurological conditions. Where this information is recorded it may be stored as descriptive free-text and extracting it would require manual review of individual records therefore incurring a disproportionate cost. Statistics on the number of people in receipt of payment for Access to Work by readily available primary medical condition categories are published annually in Table PAY03a-d of the Access to Work official statistics: Access to Work statistics - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
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 Universal Credit Statistics updated on 17 March 2026 showing people with indefinite leave to remain were 2.7% of Universal Credit claims, whether his Department holds other information of migrants claiming benefits.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The latest statistics showing the percentage of people on Universal Credit in Great Britain by immigration status were published on 17 February 2026, and reported that in January 2026 the percentage of people on Universal Credit in Great Britain with the immigration status of indefinite leave to remain was 2.6%.
Information relating to other benefits is not held on digital systems, in a way that allows it to be extracted for the publication as official statistics.
Asked by: Adam Dance (Liberal Democrat - Yeovil)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to reduce rates of child poverty in working families in (a) Yeovil constituency, (b) Somerset and (c) England.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The latest statistics for 2024/25 show that over seven in ten children in poverty are in working families. ‘Our Children, Our Future: Tackling Child Poverty’, published in December 2025, sets out Government’s commitment to tackling child poverty, including in working households.
Measures include the removal of the two child limit in Universal Credit, which will lift 450,000 children out of poverty. Alongside other measures set out in the Strategy, including extending Free School Meals to all children in households in receipt of Universal Credit, will reduce child poverty by 550,000 in the final year of this Parliament, the largest reduction over a Parliament since comparable records began.
This comes alongside raising the National Living Wage to £12.71 an hour to boost the pay of 2.4 million workers, tripling our investment in breakfast clubs to over £30 million and investing £39 billion in social and affordable housing.
Providing the right employment support can help parents progress in work. That is why the UK Government is driving forward labour market interventions that will deliver a step-change in support and help parents to enter and progress in work.
Since September 2025, eligible working parents of children from 9 months old living in England have been able to access 30 hours of Government-funded childcare. Working parents on Universal Credit can receive 85% of childcare costs and 100% of any upfront costs and, we announced that childcare support through Universal Credit would be extended to help with the childcare costs for all children, rather than being capped at two.
Asked by: Josh Dean (Labour - Hertford and Stortford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to support individuals over 50 back into employment.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I provided on 17 March 2026 to question: UIN 119633.