Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions her Department has had with disabled people’s organisations in Wales on the proposed reforms to disability benefits.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As part of our commitment to hear from members of the public directly, including disabled people and their representatives, we have now held a number of virtual and in person public consultation events, as per the advertised schedule on GOV.UK.
Unfortunately, the Cardiff in person event was postponed from 3 June to 23 June, due to the venue cancelling last minute. We have worked with the Welsh Government to rearrange this event and have reached out to all registered participants directly, including registered members of the public and registered representatives from Welsh charities and other organisations, to rebook their place on a re-scheduled Cardiff event, also offering a priority space on other virtual events. A Wales-only virtual consultation event has now also been arranged and scheduled for 26 June.
Throughout the consultation we are committed to putting the views and voices of disabled people and people with health conditions at the heart of everything we do. We encourage members of the public, including disabled people’s organisations in Wales, to continue to respond to the consultation online, in writing and via email until the deadline on 30 June.
In the meantime, DWP Ministers continue to engage with individuals and groups in Wales. On 22 April, the Minister for Employment visited Denbighshire in North Wales to announce the launch of the Inactivity Trailblazer, as part of wider efforts to tackle inactivity - with funding from the £125m (in for 2025/26) announced in the Get Britain Working White Paper being designated to this area. The Minister for Employment also visited Mold Jobcentre during this visit to Wales.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department plans to carry out an impact assessment on the consequences of proposals detailed in the Health and Disability Green Paper that have not been included within the formal consultation process.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, and some information was published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.
A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of (a) Paying Parents and (b) Receiving Parents using the Child Maintenance Service disclosed domestic abuse in 2023-24.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Child Maintenance Service (CMS) did not capture the data requested on proportion of (a) Paying Parents and (b) Receiving Parents using the Child Maintenance Service who disclosed domestic abuse in 2023-24. Therefore, this information is not readily available to provide. To extract this data would involve the manual review of all CMS cases, at a significant cost to the department and taxpayer.
The Department is assessing how it can provide statistics on domestic abuse now the application fee exemption statistics are no longer published. The Department's Chief Statistician will oversee the development of these statistics to make sure they meet the Code of Practice for Statistics.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of child maintenance service cases are being dealt with by the specialist domestic abuse caseworker team.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service takes the issue of domestic abuse extremely seriously and is committed to ensuring victims of abuse get the help and support they need to access and use the service safely and securely.
CMS caseworkers are provided with domestic abuse training to ensure they understand, recognise and respond safely and appropriately to customers who are experiencing domestic abuse, or are survivors of domestic abuse. In July 2024, the training was updated with input from external stakeholders, and covers different types of abuse, including economic, post-separation, coercive and controlling behaviour.
Specialist Case Team is one of the measures CMS have introduced to manage cases with the most challenging or complex domestic abuse concerns. This has minimised the need for parents to recount their history of domestic abuse and caseworkers to deliver support to some of the most vulnerable customers.
As of February 2025, the volume of cases in the Specialist Case Team was 301, this equates to 0.04% of CMS total customer caseload.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of the number of people living in Wales that have received overpayments of the Carers Allowance.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
We don’t measure or report Fraud and Error statistics at a regional level. Our benefit review sample sizes are not large enough to support this level of detail measure or report Fraud and Error statistics at a regional level.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to enable unearned (a) income and (b) assets be considered in initial Child Maintenance Service calculations.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department has been conducting a review of the child maintenance calculation to make sure it is fit for purpose and reflects today’s social trends. The review will also consider the treatment of unearned income and assets within the automatic calculation.
Unearned income and assets can still be captured through the current variation process up until changes are introduced.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to ensure that the use of AI in benefit fraud investigations does not discriminate against vulnerable people.
Answered by Paul Maynard
The Department does not use AI in its benefit fraud investigations.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 30 November 2023 to Question 3556 on Chemicals: Regulation, for what reason no new additions to the UK’s Substance of Very High Concern waitlist are expected before 2025.
Answered by Paul Maynard
The Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) work under the agreed 2023-24 UK REACH Work Programme has not identified any substances that are suitable candidates for authorisation under UK REACH, which would need to be included in the Candidate List as Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC).
HSE’s work includes both technical assessments of substances candidate-listed in the EU and regulatory management options analyses (RMOAs), which are reviewed in the context of the interim principles for the inclusion of SVHCs on the candidate list (Approach to including substances of very high concern on the UK REACH candidate list – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). If suitable substances are identified to go onto the Candidate List from this work, they will be taken forward. RMOAs may, however, also identify that other regulatory approaches are more appropriate than REACH authorisation.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment has he made of the adequacy of the UK’s chemical safety regulations.
Answered by Paul Maynard
The UK’s chemical regulations play an important role in protecting human safety and health as well as the environment and wildlife. The Government ensured that an operable regime for chemicals was put in place at the time the UK left the EU.
Following EU exit, the government continues to assess how best to provide ongoing protection in an effective, proportionate and targeted way, taking into account the full range of regulatory options. Several government departments have responsibilities within the UK chemicals regulatory framework.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is considering opportunities for legislative reform within their areas of legislative remit.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 19 January 2024 to Question 9914 on Universal Credit: Farmers, whether he has made an assessment of the potential financial impact of moving from Working Tax Credits to Universal Credit on recipient farmers in the last five years; and if he will undertake an assessment in the next three months.
Answered by Jo Churchill
No assessment has been made and there are no plans to make an assessment.