Asked by: Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with amputee charities regarding helping amputees into work.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Good work is good for health, so we want everyone to get work and get on in work, including amputees, whoever they are and wherever they live. Backed by £240 million investment, the Get Britain Working White Paper launched in November 2024 is driving forward approaches to tackling economic inactivity.
Blesma, the veterans’ limbless charity, are members of the Operational Stakeholder Engagement Forum and have been members of a Universal Credit stakeholder forum and the Health Transformation Forum.
Disabled people 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.
Existing measures include support from Work Coaches and Disability Employment Advisers (DEAs) 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. We are also rolling out Connect to Work, our supported employment programme for anyone who is disabled, has a health condition or is experiencing more complex barriers to work.
We set out our plan for the “Pathways to Work Guarantee” in our Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, and are building towards our guaranteed offer of personalised work, health and skills support for disabled people and people with health conditions on out of work benefits. The guarantee is backed by £1 billion a year of new, additional funding by the end of the decade. We anticipate the guarantee, once fully rolled out, will include: a support conversation to identify next steps, one-to-one caseworker support, periodic engagement, and an offer of specialist long-term work health and skills support.
Additionally, we have developed a digital information service for employers, oversees the Disability Confident Scheme, and continues to increase access to Occupational Health.
The 10 Year Health Plan, published in July, builds on existing work to better integrate health with employment support and incentivise greater cross-system collaboration, recognising good work is good for health. The Plan also states the Government’s intention to break down barriers to opportunity by delivering the holistic support that people need to access and thrive in employment by ensuring a better health service for everyone, regardless of condition or service area. It outlines how the neighbourhood health service will join up support from across the work, health and skills systems to help address the multiple complex challenges that often stop people finding and staying in work.
Asked by: Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what support is available to amputees seeking work.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Good work is good for health, so we want everyone to get work and get on in work, including amputees, whoever they are and wherever they live. Backed by £240 million investment, the Get Britain Working White Paper launched in November 2024 is driving forward approaches to tackling economic inactivity.
Blesma, the veterans’ limbless charity, are members of the Operational Stakeholder Engagement Forum and have been members of a Universal Credit stakeholder forum and the Health Transformation Forum.
Disabled people 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.
Existing measures include support from Work Coaches and Disability Employment Advisers (DEAs) 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. We are also rolling out Connect to Work, our supported employment programme for anyone who is disabled, has a health condition or is experiencing more complex barriers to work.
We set out our plan for the “Pathways to Work Guarantee” in our Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, and are building towards our guaranteed offer of personalised work, health and skills support for disabled people and people with health conditions on out of work benefits. The guarantee is backed by £1 billion a year of new, additional funding by the end of the decade. We anticipate the guarantee, once fully rolled out, will include: a support conversation to identify next steps, one-to-one caseworker support, periodic engagement, and an offer of specialist long-term work health and skills support.
Additionally, we have developed a digital information service for employers, oversees the Disability Confident Scheme, and continues to increase access to Occupational Health.
The 10 Year Health Plan, published in July, builds on existing work to better integrate health with employment support and incentivise greater cross-system collaboration, recognising good work is good for health. The Plan also states the Government’s intention to break down barriers to opportunity by delivering the holistic support that people need to access and thrive in employment by ensuring a better health service for everyone, regardless of condition or service area. It outlines how the neighbourhood health service will join up support from across the work, health and skills systems to help address the multiple complex challenges that often stop people finding and staying in work.
Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether Sikhs and Jews are recorded as (a) ethnic or (b) religious groups by the agencies his department is responsible for.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department adheres to the current harmonised definitions for ethnicity and religion, which are owned and managed by the Office for National Statistics.
Asked by: Jas Athwal (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment their Department has made of trends in the level of discrimination faced by (a) Sikhs and (b) Jews as ethnic groups in the provision of their Department's services.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
I refer my Hon. Friend to the answer I gave on 18 July 2025 to PQ UIN 66615.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department plans to develop or adopt a UK list of hazardous medicinal products and to require safety data sheets for finished medicines; and if he will take steps to work with the Health and Safety Executive to make such a list publicly available to NHS employers.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 30 October 2025 to Question UIN 84436.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he plans to implement he recommendations of the Independent Review of Carer’s Allowance Overpayments.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
I refer the hon. Member to my Written Statement of 25 November HCWS1092 and (at Col 22WS) Carer's Allowance Overpayments Review - Hansard - UK Parliament where I outlined the department’s response to Liz Sayce’s Independent Review. The Government has welcomed the report and is accepting or partially accepting 38 out of the 40 recommendations. In some cases, the changes the report is asking for have already been made. Others will take more time to put in place.
Asked by: Maureen Burke (Labour - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his Department's policies of the report by Marie Curie, entitled Dying in Poverty, published in 2025.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government acknowledges the findings of Marie Curie’s Dying in Poverty report (2025), which highlights the financial insecurity experienced by individuals at the end of life.
This Government is committed to providing a financial safety net for those who need it including for those nearing the end of their life. For these claimants, the Government’s priority is to provide financial support quickly and compassionately. The main way this is applied is through the Special Rules for End of Life (SREL) which enable people who are nearing the end of their lives to get faster, easier access to certain welfare benefits without needing to attend a medical assessment or serve waiting periods, and in most cases, receive the highest rate of benefit.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance is provided to Personal Independence Payment assessors on considering the effects of active medical treatment on claimants’ functional ability.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessments focus on the functional impact of a claimant’s health condition, rather than diagnosis or treatment alone. At assessment, Health Professionals (HPs) gather information on any past, current and ongoing medical treatment related to conditions that impact function, including medication, therapy, monitoring, side effects and effectiveness. Where necessary to properly inform their advice, HPs should and routinely do seek additional evidence from treating health professionals or other appropriate sources.
Medical treatment is covered throughout training and guidance, and HPs routinely consider the effects of ongoing medical treatment on functional ability when advising on appropriate descriptors. This includes both positive effects, where treatment enables activities to be completed more reliably, and negative effects, such as side effects or symptom fluctuation. These factors are particularly important when applying the reliability criteria, including whether an activity can be carried out safely, to an acceptable standard, repeatedly, and within a reasonable time. The impact of treatment is also assessed directly within activity 3, which relates to managing therapy or monitoring a health condition.
Where symptoms fluctuate, including because of treatment variability, HPs assess functional impact over a 12-month period to reflect good and bad days and determine how descriptors apply on the majority of days. HPs also consider what medical treatment is being undertaken when advising on a recommended review date, aligning this with the point at which an individual’s functional needs could reasonably be expected to change, for example following recovery or changes to treatment. Claimants are also expected to notify the Department directly of any changes in their condition or circumstances, so that their award can be reviewed where appropriate.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make and assessment of the potential merits of reviewing the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 to ensure that hazardous medicinal products with reprotoxic effects are controlled to the same standard as carcinogens and mutagens.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 30 October 2025 to Question UIN 84440.
Asked by: Jo Platt (Labour (Co-op) - Leigh and Atherton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if his Department will consider recognising Long Covid as an occupational disease.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is advised by the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council (IIAC), an independent scientific body, on the changes to the list of occupational diseases for which Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit can be paid.
IIAC has published Command Papers on COVID-19 and its occupational impacts. The Department is considering the recommendations in these documents which can be accessed here: COVID-19 and Occupational Impacts - GOV.UK and Occupational Impact of COVID-19 in the Transport and Education Sectors - GOV.UK