Asked by: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many pensioners in Washington and Gateshead South constituency are covered by the pension triple lock.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Caseload statistics for State Pensions are available via Stat-Xplore - Log in. The latest published data currently relate to the quarter ending May 2025.
The State Pensions Triple Lock applies to recipients of the core element of State Pension. Based on latest data, the number of pensioners resident in the Washington and Gateshead South constituency who are in receipt of the State Pension, and therefore covered by the Triple Lock, is 20,085.
This total has been adjusted to exclude a very small number of individuals, who receive only Graduated Retirement Benefit, a category of the Pre-2016 State Pension system, as such payments are uprated using CPI.
The constituency referenced above encompasses Gateshead South as well as the entire Washington area, including Washington Central, Washington South, Washington North, Washington East and Washington West.
Asked by: Sarah Coombes (Labour - West Bromwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if his Department will take steps to reinstate the pensions of Yemeni steelworkers who worked in Britain.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Pension payments to Yemen are being disrupted due to banking and currency issues, war, international sanctions and some issues over verification of identity. We are looking at ways to ensure payments are completed.
Our dedicated Yemen telephone number can be found on GOV.UK ( International Pension Centre - GOV.UK) and includes a Yemen-Arabic language translation as part of the opening message and we provide callback and translation services. We urge anyone who is having issues with their State Pension to contact us via this dedicated helpline.
Additionally, the Department is working with the Yemeni banks to enable payments in different currencies in order to get payments to the intended recipients.
Asked by: Sarah Coombes (Labour - West Bromwich)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people she estimates have been impacted by the cessation of pension payments to Yemeni steelworkers who worked in Britani.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
We are unable to identify which State Pension claimants are ex-steelworkers and therefore unable to provide any estimate of the number of people whose payment has stopped.
As of May 2025, there are 832 State Pension recipients in the Yemen.
Asked by: Luke Murphy (Labour - Basingstoke)
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 adequacy of the Child Maintenance Service formula in cases where the paying parent is the sole earner in a household supporting children with registered (a) disabilities and (b) additional needs; and whether he plans to review the formula to reflect financial pressures faced by families caring for disabled children, including higher daily living costs and the need for specialised equipment.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) formula is calculated on the paying parent’s gross income, the number of qualifying children, overnight care arrangements, and any additional children in their care – known as ‘relevant other children’. The formula does not automatically account for the higher costs associated with caring for children with disabilities or additional needs.
However, we recognise the additional financial pressures faced by families caring for disabled children. Therefore, the CMS provides a special expenses variation which allows paying parents to request an adjustment where they incur significant costs related to the illness or disability of ‘relevant other children’. The permitted expenses cover a wide range of costs, including personal care, heating and specialised equipment.
In addition, the Government is reviewing the CMS calculation to ensure the formula remains fit for purpose and reflects current societal and financial realities. Any proposed changes will be subject to public consultation and would require primary legislation and Parliamentary approval.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of food poverty over the last 12 months.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are committed to tackling poverty and ending mass dependence on emergency food parcels.
We published the Good Food Cycle in July which identified ten priority outcomes needed to build a thriving food sector while tackling a range of food related challenges. Improving food price affordability and access, in particular targeting costs that lead to food price inflation and supporting those who most need access to healthy affordable nutrition, is a key priority.
From 1 April 2026, we are introducing a new Crisis and Resilience Fund in England. This fund aims to enable local authorities to provide preventative support to communities as well as assisting people when faced with a financial crisis, to support our ambition to end mass dependence on emergency food parcels. The Crisis and Resilience Fund Guidance for local authorities was published on 13 January 2026, enabling local authorities to prepare for delivery in line with the new fund.
The removal of the two child limit will lift 450,000 children out of poverty across the United Kingdom, rising to around 550,000 alongside other measures set out in our Strategy, such as the expansion of free school meals. These interventions will lead to the largest expected reduction in child poverty over a Parliament since comparable records began.
The most recent official statistics show for the United Kingdom, in 2023/24, 7.5m individuals lived in food insecure households. The rate is unchanged on 2022/23 but the total number of individuals living in food insecure households has increased by 300,000.
The most recent official statistics show for the United Kingdom, in 2023/24, 2.8m people, were living in households where a food bank has been used in the 12 months prior to the interview, up by 500,000 since 2022/23.
Asked by: Tristan Osborne (Labour - Chatham and Aylesford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the Department is aware of (a) any loss and (b) compromise of personal data held by the Pension Protection Fund affecting pension scheme members; and whether communications requesting updates to beneficiary information are part of routine administration rather than a response to any such incident.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Pension Protection Fund’s recent communications to members about nominating beneficiaries relates to the introduction of its new online beneficiary nomination service, which allows members to nominate or update their beneficiary details directly via the member website. It is a service that’s designed to make the bereavement process faster and more efficient and is not in response to any loss or compromise of members’ personal data.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the expected launch date of the Money and Pensions Service pensions dashboard; and what impediments still exist for the launch of the Money and Pensions Service pensions dashboard and private sector pensions dashboards.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The MoneyHelper Pensions Dashboard will be launched when we have assurances that the service is secure and thoroughly user tested. As confirmed last year, Government will give 6 months’ notice before the launch of the MoneyHelper Pensions Dashboard. Pension providers and schemes in scope are required to connect to the pensions dashboards ecosystem by 31 October 2026 and connection remains on course against this timeline.
The Government remains committed to the launch of private sector pensions dashboards. Insights gained from the launch and operation of the MoneyHelper Pensions Dashboard will help inform the launch of private sector pensions dashboards.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of data is already onboarded for the pensions dashboard being created by the Money and Pensions Service.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Three quarters of pensions records in scope of the Pensions Dashboards Regulations 2022 are now integrated into pensions dashboards. Over 700 of the largest pension providers and schemes are now connected with over 60 million records integrated into dashboards. State Pension data is also accessible, representing tens of millions of additional pensions records.
Asked by: Adrian Ramsay (Green Party - Waveney Valley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment has he made of the potential impact of arthritis and other musculoskeletal conditions on (a) access to employment, (b) levels of economic inactivity and (c) levels of workplace absence.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP publishes annual official statistics to monitor employment outcomes for disabled people including those with ‘Musculoskeletal conditions’. These statistics show that working age (16 to 64) disabled people with ‘Musculoskeletal conditions’ are less likely to be in employment compared to the working age population as a whole. The employment rate for working age disabled people with a ‘Musculoskeletal condition’ was 52.3% in 2024/25 compared to 75.4% for all people aged 16 to 64.
Source: The employment of disabled people 2025 (Table LMS004) - GOV.UK and Nomis - Query Tool - annual population survey
In 2024/25 2.0 million people aged 16 to 64 who reported a ‘Musculoskeletal condition’ were economically inactive. This represents 39.9% of all people with a ‘Musculoskeletal condition’ compared to 19.1% of people without a ‘Musculoskeletal condition’ who were economically inactive.
Source: The employment of disabled people 2025 (Table EIA009) - GOV.UK
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) also publishes statistics on Sickness absence in the UK labour market from the same source – the Labour Force Survey. The latest statistics show that in 2024 26.5 million working days were lost in the UK due to a ‘Musculoskeletal condition' which equates to 17.8% of all working days lost.
The Labour Force Survey (LFS) is the main source of data for people with ‘Musculoskeletal conditions’ in the UK labour market. This includes people with arthritis, back pain, neck and upper limb problems. However, it is not possible to specifically identify those with arthritis from the LFS therefore this data is not readily available from published sources.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what criteria his Department is using to assess the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman's compensation recommendations for women born in the 1950s affected by State Pension age changes; and whether he will publish the full methodology and evidence considered before announcing his final decision.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Secretary of State announced in his oral statement of 11 November 2025 that we will retake the decision made in December 2024 as it relates to the communications on State Pension age. Retaking the decision should not be taken as an indication that Government will necessarily decide that it should award financial redress.
The process to retake the decision is underway and it is important that we give this full and proper consideration. We will update Parliament on the decision as soon as a conclusion is reached and on 2 December 2025 we committed to re-take the decision within three months.