Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what information his Department holds on the number of reported incidents of winter fuel payment-related scams in each of the past five years.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Department does not hold a formal record of the number of reported winter fuel payment-related scams over the past five years.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to his letter to the joint chief executives of Skills England entitled Skills England priorities for 2025 to 2026, dated 27 October 2025, what estimate he has made of the number of learners who will enter (a) level 4 and (b) level 5 education or training by age 25 in Buckingham and Bletchley constituency in the next three years.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
On 20 October, we published the Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper, which outlines our reforms to develop a world-class skills system that supports young people into education and training, meets learner and employer needs, and drives innovation and economic growth. This includes our bold new target of two-thirds of young people participating in higher-level learning - whether academic, technical or an apprenticeship - by age 25. This includes a sub-target of 10% of young people participating in higher technical education or training - at levels 4 or 5 - by age 25, by 2040.
We do not hold forecasts of the numbers of learners who will enter level 4 or level 5 study by age 25. The number of entrants that entered level 4 and level 5 study in previous academic years, broken down by local authority level, can be found in the Higher Level Learners publication here: Higher Level Learners.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to (a) monitor and (b) evaluate how the target of 80 percent employment will be supported via the co-ordination of (i) employment support and (ii) skills services.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Our Get Britain Working strategy set out plans to increase participation and progression in the workforce by transforming Jobcentre Plus into the Jobs & Careers Service, introducing a new Youth Guarantee, and increasing activity to tackle health and disability related inactivity, including through the new Pathways to Work guarantee set out in the March Green Paper.
Coordination of employment support and skills services is key to delivering these plans and meeting the Government’s long-term ambition of an 80% employment rate. The Get Britain Working White Paper set the blueprint for joined up work, health and skills services to tackle inactivity at a local level and built on national models such as the Sector Based Work Academy Programmes, which help employers with their workforce needs by upskilling benefit claimants to fill local job vacancies, and Skills Bootcamps for sector-specific training.
We have published our Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper which includes plans to address priority skills gaps and reduce the number of young people not in education, employment or training through joined up employment and skills support. We have also brought adult skills into the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to maximise the opportunities of aligning employment and skills support, with the Minister for Skills retaining oversight of skills across DWP and DfE.
We will report on our progress towards reaching our 80% employment rate ambition through a range of metrics annually. Our first report was released in April 2025 with the first update planned for next year. We will measure our success through the following metrics:
DWP published its Evidence and Evaluation Strategy in July 2025 Evidence and Evaluation Strategy 2025 - GOV.UK', with Goal 1 covering how DWP will evaluate its labour market agenda. The strategy details both current and planned research and evaluation activities.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
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 public information campaigns on levels of benefit-related fraud.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP will be launching a new campaign at the end of January 2026. This campaign will focus on the three greatest key loss areas for the Department – living together, self-employed, and capital & savings. It will run across a range of channels, including on demand video, out-of-home, digital display, paid search and paid social.
The campaign’s communications objectives are to increase awareness of the consequences of not reporting changes of circumstances to DWP and to increase understanding of the types of changes of circumstances that need to be reported amongst Universal Credit customers.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what data her Department plans to collect to assess the effectiveness of its targeted support to help SMEs offer apprenticeships.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are important to the economy and to apprenticeships. They provide valuable opportunities for younger apprentices and apprentices from disadvantaged areas.
The department collects and publishes data on apprenticeship starts in SMEs. Around 40% of apprenticeship starts are in SMEs and they account for more than 100,000 apprenticeship starts each year.
The government pays full training costs for young apprentices aged 16-21, and for apprentices aged 22-24 who have an education, health and care (EHC) plan or have been, or are, in local authority care, when they undertake apprenticeships with non-levy paying employers.
For all other apprentices, employers that don’t pay the levy are required to co-invest 5% towards apprentice training costs.
The government also pays £1,000 to both employers and providers for apprentices aged 16-18, and for apprentices aged 19-24 who have an EHC plan or have been, or are, in local authority care.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the document entitled Backing your business, published on 31 July 2025, what steps her Department plans to take to tackle sector-specific labour shortages identified by industry groups through its policies on future-proofing skills, outlined in Chapter 5 of that document.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Skills England aims to understand the nation’s future skills needs and drive growth by mobilising employers and partners to co-create solutions that address national and regional skills priorities. Skills England’s second report, ‘Skills for Growth and Opportunity’, outlines key sector-specific skills needs.
The department is aligning our skills system with priority sectors to tackle labour shortages. This includes funding uplifts for priority 16-19 courses, establishing new Technical Excellence Colleges and introducing short courses funded through the Growth and Skills Levy.
Recognising that not all parts of the skills system work as well for smaller businesses, we have introduced flexible apprenticeship models including flexi-job apprenticeship agencies to support small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in sectors with short-term, project-based work, such as construction.
Within the construction package announced this year, the Construction Industry Training Board is doubling its new entrant support team programme to help SMEs overcome administrative barriers and better recruit, engage and retain apprentices.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what criteria her Department plans to use to identify young people at risk of falling out of (a) education, (b) employment and (c) training for enrolment in the Youth Guarantee scheme.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
As part of our plan to Get Britain Working, we will launch a new Youth Guarantee for all young people aged 18-21 in England to ensure that they can access quality training opportunities, an apprenticeship or help to find work.
To identify young people at risk of falling out of education, employment or training the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education are working closely with the eight Mayoral Strategic Authorities in England, delivering the Youth Guarantee Trailblazers. These authorities began mobilising the Youth Guarantee Trailblazers in April 2025 and are now testing a range of approaches to reach and support those at risk of becoming NEET. These include using available local data to identify disengaged or at risk young people, working with partner organisations already supporting vulnerable groups and drawing on the Department for Education’s non-statutory guidance on the ‘Risk of NEET indicators’ guidance available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/identifying-and-supporting-young-people-at-risk-of-neet
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
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 her Department's proposed changes to the Universal Credit deductions priority order on the (a) volume and (b) timeliness of child maintenance payments.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Fair Repayment Rate (FRR) was implemented as a permanent change on the 30 April 2025. This measure reduces the overall deductions cap from 25% to 15% of a customer's Universal Credit (UC) standard allowance. This will enable approximately 1.2 million UC households retain more of their award, on average £420 a year or £35 per month. The FRR will impact UC assessment periods that start on 30 April 25 or after.
The FRR measure as an isolated change, would have reduced the current number of child maintenance deductions taken from a UC award, resulting in a negative impact on child poverty. Therefore, in addition to the FRR, the child maintenance deduction was moved higher up the regulated deductions priority order on the 30 April, and for a temporary period of one year.
The reason for implementing the child maintenance deduction measure on a temporary basis is to enable the Department to gather further evidence on the impact the changes will have on UC households with a child maintenance deduction. This evidence will determine the future child maintenance deduction policy.
Outturn data on the full impact of the change to the positioning of Child Maintenance is not yet available. However, modelling of the change by the Department estimates that it will increase the number of monthly Child Maintenance deductions collected from approximately 50,000 to approximately 60,000. This estimate was derived using UC household deductions data from May 2024, the latest available when the modelling was done. Actual figures may differ as a result of changes to the composition and characteristics of the UC caseload in the intervening time.
Timeliness of payments are in line with existing processes: the Universal Credit (UC) deduction is transferred to Child Maintenance Service (CMS) CMS on the Saturday following the UC award payment date and immediately paid out the receiving parent. The payment is subject to usual bank processing and is received in the parent’s bank account in 3-5 working days.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
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 number of current Direct Pay cases in (a) Milton Keynes and (b) Buckinghamshire that will transition to the Collect and Pay service following the implementation of child maintenance reforms.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Estimates of reform impacts are not available for local areas.
Recent numbers of paying parents and arrangements in the Direct Pay service at regional level are available on Stat Xplore [Stat-Xplore - Table View].
There will be two clear options for parents following the planned reforms. One is to make a family-based arrangement, and the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) will provide parents with enhanced support to make and maintain these. Parents with a stable and compliant direct pay arrangement may well find this option meets their needs.
Where a family-based arrangement is not appropriate, or for those who prefer to be part of the statutory system, the CMS will operate a single service based on the current Collect and Pay model where it manages all payments, with an improved ability to identify and act on non-compliance.
As part of these reforms, we will halve the fees for those using the CMS, while maintaining a 20% fee for non-resident parents who refuse to pay up on time and in full. Parents currently in the Direct Pay system will have the choice of keeping their CMS case which will be moved to the new, improved service, giving them the peace of mind that payment will be monitored and any problems followed up, in return for a small fee – or have improved support to make and maintain a family-based arrangement.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
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 removing the Direct Pay option on levels of compliance with child maintenance payments among non-resident parents.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Reforms will introduce a single service where all payments will be monitored enabling the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) to identify missed, late, or partial payments in real time. This will enable swift enforcement action to restore compliance and increase the amount of money reaching children.
We expect the reforms will make hidden non-compliance within Direct Pay visible, enabling the CMS to intervene earlier to ensure children receive the financial support they are entitled to.
There is no evidence to suggest that cases currently working well under Direct Pay will cease to function. These families can move to a family-based arrangement or opt into Collect and Pay if they require the added security of enforcement.
Where compliance cannot be achieved, the CMS has a range of strong enforcement powers that are designed to get money flowing quickly, prevent the build-up of arrears and ensure children get the financial support they deserve.