Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people received Winter Fuel Payment in winter (a) 2023-24 and (b) 2024-25 in (i) Middlesbrough and Thornaby East constituency, (ii) Middlesbrough local authority area, (iii) Tees Valley combined authority area and (iv) the North East.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
For winter 2023 to 2024:
- 15,487 pensioners received the Winter Fuel Payment in Middlesbrough and Thornby East Constituency;
- 22,849 received it in Middlesbrough local authority area;
- 127,568 received it in the Tees Valley combined authority area (21,251 in Darlington, 17,484 in Hartlepool, 22,849 in Middlesbrough, 30,049 in Redcar and Cleveland, and 35,935 in Stockton-on-Tees);
- and 517,592 received it in the North East.
This is based on Winter Fuel Payment statistics for winter 2023 to 2024 - GOV.UK.
Data covering winter 2024 to 2025 is not yet available. The next release of Winter Fuel Payment statistics will cover this period and will be published on 16 September 2025.
The Government wants to ensure a wider range of pensioners in England and Wales receive Winter Fuel Payment in future, while recognising public finance constraints and the fact that making payments to the highest income pensioners is hard to justify.
From winter 2025-26, the vast majority of pensioners in England and Wales – over three quarters, or around 9 million individuals - will benefit from Winter Fuel Payments. They will be paid automatically to anyone who has not opted out. Individuals with a taxable income above £35,000 a year will have any WFP recouped via HMRC.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people will receive Winter Fuel Payment in winter 2025-26 in (a) Middlesbrough and Thornaby East constituency, (b) Middlesbrough local authority area, (c) Tees Valley combined authority area and (d) the North East.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
For winter 2023 to 2024:
- 15,487 pensioners received the Winter Fuel Payment in Middlesbrough and Thornby East Constituency;
- 22,849 received it in Middlesbrough local authority area;
- 127,568 received it in the Tees Valley combined authority area (21,251 in Darlington, 17,484 in Hartlepool, 22,849 in Middlesbrough, 30,049 in Redcar and Cleveland, and 35,935 in Stockton-on-Tees);
- and 517,592 received it in the North East.
This is based on Winter Fuel Payment statistics for winter 2023 to 2024 - GOV.UK.
Data covering winter 2024 to 2025 is not yet available. The next release of Winter Fuel Payment statistics will cover this period and will be published on 16 September 2025.
The Government wants to ensure a wider range of pensioners in England and Wales receive Winter Fuel Payment in future, while recognising public finance constraints and the fact that making payments to the highest income pensioners is hard to justify.
From winter 2025-26, the vast majority of pensioners in England and Wales – over three quarters, or around 9 million individuals - will benefit from Winter Fuel Payments. They will be paid automatically to anyone who has not opted out. Individuals with a taxable income above £35,000 a year will have any WFP recouped via HMRC.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
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 the employment support package set out in the Pathways to Work Green Paper on employment outcomes of (a) disabled people and (b) people with health conditions.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The government has announced an additional £1.9 billion in funding for employment-related support between 2026/27 and 2029/30, for disabled people and those with health conditions. This will ensure that support is available from next year as benefit changes come in, and can be offered to anyone affected by those changes.
This support will be based on existing evidence of what works and comes on top of redeploying one thousand wok coaches helping sixty five thousand find jobs, Connect to Work helping one hundred thousand, and Work Well helping fifty six thousand.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she plans to establish a target for increased employment outcomes from the employment support package set out in the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The government has set a long-term ambition to achieve an 80% employment rate, which would be the equivalent of over two million more people in work. In April 2025 we also published new Get Britain Working outcome metrics, including intermediate objectives to reduce health-related economic inactivity and to reduce the disability employment rate gap.
The investment and reforms proposed in the Pathways to Work Green Paper, alongside our investment in Connect to Work and in new local trailblazers announced before the Green Paper, will make a significant difference to employment opportunities for disabled people and those with health conditions, and to making progress against these measures.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the employment support package in the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025, will create improved employment outcomes in line with her Department's Additional Work Coach Support Impact Evaluation.
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 work, health and skills support for all disabled people and people with health conditions claiming out of work benefits backed up by new money every year, building to £1 billion per year by 2030.
The Department has extensive evidence on what works and this will inform the design of our new Pathways to Work support guarantee. This includes evidence from our Additional Work Coach Support offer. When we offered Additional Work Coach Support to people in the limited capability for work and work related activity group (LCWRA) in UC, those who took part were a third more likely to be in work 12 months later. They were also twice as likely to take up more intensive externally delivered support.
We are considering evidence from a wide range of other initiatives, for example Work Choice, a specialist employment programme for disabled people and those with health conditions, that showed people receiving tailored support were 40% more likely to be in work eight years later.
We will be developing more detailed assessments of the potential impacts of the employment measures proposed in the Green Paper as these are developed in detail. The Office for Budget Responsibility has also stated that it intends to assess the labour supply impacts of the Green Paper measures in their Autumn forecast.
As the Green Paper notes, we are also 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 a wide range of stakeholders including devolved governments, local health systems, local government and Mayoral Strategic Authorities, private and voluntary sector providers, employers and potential users. We will confirm further details in due course after we have completed our consultation process.
This is on top of existing programmes already supporting disabled people and people with health conditions into work.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
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 employment support funding required to secure employment income increases for people losing welfare payments as set out in the Pathways to Work Green Paper.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The government has announced an additional £1.9 billion in funding for employment-related support between 2026/27 and 2029/30, for disabled people and those with health conditions. This will ensure that support is available from next year as benefit changes come in, and can be offered to anyone affected by those changes.
This support will be based on existing evidence of what works and comes on top of redeploying one thousand work coaches helping sixty-five thousand find jobs, Connect to Work helping one hundred thousand, and Work Well helping fifty-six thousand.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department holds data on the work destinations of (a) existing and (b) past Universal Credit claimants by (i) industry and (ii) sector.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The requested information is not held systematically in administrative data.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the employment support package in the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025, takes into account her Department's Additional Work Coach Support Impact Evaluation.
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 work, health and skills support for all disabled people and people with health conditions claiming out of work benefits backed up by £1 billion of new funding per year by the end of the decade.
The Department has extensive evidence on what works and this will inform the design of our new Pathways to Work support guarantee. This includes evidence from our Additional Work Coach Support offer. When we offered Additional Work Coach Support to people in the limited capability for work and work related activity group (LCWRA) in UC, those who took part were a third more likely to be in work 12 months later. They were also twice as likely to take up more intensive externally delivered support.
We will also consider evidence from a wide range of other initiatives, for example Work Choice, a specialist employment programme for disabled people and those with health conditions, that showed people receiving tailored support were 40% more likely to be in work eight years later.
We will be developing more detailed assessments of the potential impacts of the employment measures proposed in the Green Paper as these are developed in detail. The Office for Budget Responsibility has also stated that it intends to assess the labour supply impacts of the Green Paper measures in their Autumn forecast.
As the Green Paper notes, we are also 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 a wide range of stakeholders including devolved governments, local health systems, local government and Mayoral Strategic Authorities, private and voluntary sector providers, employers and potential users. We will confirm further details in due course after we have completed our consultation process.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
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 funding required for employment support to increase employment income in line with changes to welfare payments set out in the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The government has announced an additional £1.9 billion in funding for employment-related support between 2026/27 and 2029/30, for disabled people and those with health conditions. This will ensure that support is available from next year as benefit changes come in, and can be offered to anyone affected by those changes.
The Office for Budget Responsibility has stated that it intends to assess the labour supply impacts of the Green Paper measures in its Autumn forecasts, and we will develop more detailed analysis in due course to inform those estimates.
Asked by: Andy McDonald (Labour - Middlesbrough and Thornaby East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department's publication entitled 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 current recipients of Universal Credit health element affected by changes in Universal Credit health rates in (a) Middlesbrough & Thornaby East parliamentary constituency, (b) Middlesbrough local authority, (c) Tees Valley Combined Authority area and (d) the North East; and if she will make an estimate of future recipients of Universal Credit health element affected by changes in Universal Credit health rates in those areas.
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.
However, the OBR does not publish impacts of policies at a more localised level.
A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.