Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what capacity his Department has made available for Work Capability Assessments in the next six months; and what the backlog of cases is.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
During the second half of 2024, DWP experienced a much higher level of demand for new Work Capability Assessments (WCA) than envisaged. As a result, 34,000 reassessments built up from individuals reporting a change in their condition before May 2025. We have worked with suppliers to rapidly increase capacity to clear this, including by accelerating the recruitment and training of additional assessors. As of 31 January 2026, 14,000 of these cases remain, and we expect the remainder to be cleared in the coming months.
In the meantime, claimants awaiting a reassessment will continue to receive their current rate. Where a reassessment leads to entitlement to a higher rate of benefit, that rate will be backdated accordingly.
Please note:
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he will assess the potential merits of allowing local authorities to roll over unspent Connect to Work funding into the following year.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Expenditure on Connect to Work is annualised in line with standard practice for managing public funds. To retain funding controls, my Department cannot automatically carry forward underspends into future years. As part of the Connect to Work Delivery Plan approval process, local areas must profile their programme activity for the entire funding period, broken down by financial year and by month within those years. This ensures that funding is aligned with planned delivery and performance milestones. My Department will have regular performance conversations with lead authorities for Connect to Work and will seek to support any area that may not be delivering against their profile and will seek to support any area that may not be delivering against their profile. This will include the opportunity to reprofile in year as part of the annual review process
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the number and proportion of claimants who receive payments (a) monthly, (b) weekly, (c) fortnightly and (d) at any other frequency for each benefit administered by his Department.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is not held centrally and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 7July to Question 63294 on Personal Independence Payment and Universal Credit, whether projections of the number of claims for (a) PIP and (b) health components of Universal Credit are based on an extrapolation of recent trends.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP produces forecasts of benefit payments based on DWP assumptions agreed by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), alongside economic determinants, judgments and assumptions provided by the OBR.
The number of PIP claimants is forecast by considering new claims for the benefit, the rate of successful awards, and the likelihood that claimants leave the benefit, split by age (working age or pension age) and claim type (new claim or reassessment from Disability Living Allowance).
The new claims assumption is informed by recent trends with adjustments made for seasonality and changes in external drivers such as trends in numbers of people with health conditions, the cost of living, and responses to public awareness. Similarly, award rates and exit rates are also based on recent trends.
The Universal Credit caseload forecast combines evidence from the recent past with assumptions and OBR judgements on future trends. The driving factors within the UC Health forecast include observed benefit onflows and changes in circumstances that affect UC eligibility for benefits units, covering not only health but also family make-up, housing status, and earnings, derived from DWP admin data. The key assumptions affecting the UC Health Forecast include the plan to move all legacy claimants to UC by the end of March 2026 and an OBR judgement that onflows will fall from their recent high as real household disposable incomes recover, as described in the November 2023 EFO (see 4.57 CP 944 – Office for Budget Responsibility – Economic and fiscal outlook – November 2023). The drivers and assumptions of the UC Health forecasts were discussed in the OBR’s Welfare Trends Report of October 2024. Additionally, the UC forecast reflects further OBR forecasts and judgements on economic and demographic change (see answer to PQ 63294).
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 7 July 2025 to Question 63294 on Personal Independence Payment and Universal Credit, what (a) driving factors and (b) assumptions she uses to model projections for the number of claims for (i) PIP and (ii) health components of Universal Credit.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP produces forecasts of benefit payments based on DWP assumptions agreed by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), alongside economic determinants, judgments and assumptions provided by the OBR.
The number of PIP claimants is forecast by considering new claims for the benefit, the rate of successful awards, and the likelihood that claimants leave the benefit, split by age (working age or pension age) and claim type (new claim or reassessment from Disability Living Allowance).
The new claims assumption is informed by recent trends with adjustments made for seasonality and changes in external drivers such as trends in numbers of people with health conditions, the cost of living, and responses to public awareness. Similarly, award rates and exit rates are also based on recent trends.
The Universal Credit caseload forecast combines evidence from the recent past with assumptions and OBR judgements on future trends. The driving factors within the UC Health forecast include observed benefit onflows and changes in circumstances that affect UC eligibility for benefits units, covering not only health but also family make-up, housing status, and earnings, derived from DWP admin data. The key assumptions affecting the UC Health Forecast include the plan to move all legacy claimants to UC by the end of March 2026 and an OBR judgement that onflows will fall from their recent high as real household disposable incomes recover, as described in the November 2023 EFO (see 4.57 CP 944 – Office for Budget Responsibility – Economic and fiscal outlook – November 2023). The drivers and assumptions of the UC Health forecasts were discussed in the OBR’s Welfare Trends Report of October 2024. Additionally, the UC forecast reflects further OBR forecasts and judgements on economic and demographic change (see answer to PQ 63294).
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what data her Department provides to HM Treasury for the purposes of forecasting future numbers of claims for (a) PIP and (b) the (i) Limited Capability for Work Element and (ii) Limited Capability for Work and Work-Related Activity Element of Universal Credit; and whether her Department is responsible for any of the assumptions underpinning those forecasts.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Forecast number of claims for PIP and health components of Universal Credit are produced by the Department as part of overall expenditure forecasts provided to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) at each fiscal event. DWP provides forecasts of benefit payments based on DWP assumptions agreed by OBR, alongside economic determinants, judgments and assumptions provided by the OBR. These forecasts are shared with HM Treasury in parallel with the Office for Budget Responsibility.
Full details of the relationship between DWP, OBR and HMT can be found within the Memorandum of understanding between the Office for Budget Responsibility, HM Treasury, the Department for Work & Pensions, and HM Revenue & Customs.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether costs for (a) before-school breakfast and (b) after-school clubs and programmes for children of (I) primary (II) secondary school age are eligible for reimbursement through universal credit as childcare costs for working parents.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Universal Credit childcare support is paid to eligible Universal Credit customers in work for childcare for children up to the age of 16 and can be considered for the costs of wraparound childcare, including breakfast and afterschool clubs. Childcare providers must be registered with OFSTED or their equivalent in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales or childminders registered with a child-minding agency that is registered.
Providers of wraparound childcare provided within school settings do not need to be registered but must be providing their childcare services under the authorisation and direction of the governing body of a school registered with OFSTED or their equivalent in the devolved nations.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
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 principal reasons for which the average age of labour market exit has changed in the period since (a) 2019 and (b) the earliest year for which data is readily available.
Answered by Baroness Prentis of Banbury
The average age of exit from the labour market was published within the ‘Economic labour market status of individuals aged 50 and over, trends over time’ Official Statistics, published on 8th September 2022, with latest data relating to 2022.
The changes in the average age of exit between 2019 and 2021 – which saw the average age of exit fall from 65.3 years to 65.1 years for men and from 64.3 years to 64.0 years for women, reflect challenges in the labour market amongst older workers during the pandemic period, which saw the employment rate falling for the 50–64 year-olds age group and the inactivity rate increasing.
Between 2021 and 2022, the average age of exit has increased for both men (from 65.1 years to 65.4 years) and women (from 64.0 years to 64.3 years).
There has been a steady upward trend in the average age of exit, over the past 20 years (from 63.2 years in 1999 to 65.3 years in 2019 for men, and from 60.8 years in 1999 to 64.3 years in 2019 for women). This trend reflected increasing employment rates for both men and women over this period and, during which time, the State Pension age increased.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
What steps she is taking to ensure that universal credit claimants benefit financially from moving into work.
Answered by Will Quince
The Government has made significant investment to improve work incentives including: the reduction in the Universal Credit taper rate from 65% to 63% in 2017, and an extra £1.7 billion a year put into work allowances for working parents and disabled claimants to increase them by £1,000 a year from April 2019. This is providing a boost to the incomes of the lowest paid and result in 2.4 million families keeping an extra £630 per year of what they earn.