Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
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 proposed changes to disability benefits set out in the (a) Green Paper entitled Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working, published on 18 March 2025 and (b) report entitled Spring Statement 2025 health and disability benefit reforms - Impacts, published on 26 March 2025 on demand for (i) NHS and (ii) adult social-care services.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No assessment has been made.
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’(opens in a new tab).
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: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Green Paper entitled Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025, if she will take steps to prevent people with (a) lifelong and severely disabling illnesses and (b) Myalgic Encephalomyelitis from having to undergo repeated reassessments.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Our wide-ranging package of reforms to health and disability benefits, set out in the Pathways to Work Green Paper, will improve experiences of the system for those who need it. The functional impact and severity of a condition can significantly vary across individuals, so we are not planning to exempt specific conditions, but we are planning to reduce reassessments for those with the most severe conditions.
We aim to guarantee that for both new and existing Universal Credit claims, those with the most severe, life-long health conditions, who will never be able to work, will not need to be reassessed in the future. Our plans to improve experiences of Personal Independence Payment also include reducing assessments for this group. We are exploring ways we could use evidence from eligibility for other services to reduce the need for some people with very severe health conditions and disabilities to undergo a full PIP functional assessment.
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Green Paper entitled Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working, published on 18 March 2025, what criteria she plans to use to identify claimants with serious and lifelong health conditions to ensure they will never face reassessment.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The assessment process is an important part of claiming PIP and WCA to ensure that people receive the right level of support.
However, for some people with very severe health conditions and disabilities, by the time they come to make a claim, they have already undergone intensive assessments and provided detailed evidence about their condition to receive support from other services. That is why in PIP, we are also exploring ways in which we could use evidence from eligibility for other services to reduce the need for some people with very severe health conditions to undergo a full PIP functional assessment. For example, for young people with very severe long-term conditions who have already been assessed for and awarded support from Disability Living Allowance for children before claiming PIP for the first time.
For those on UC with the most severe, life-long, conditions who we know will never be able to work, we will aim to exempt them from ever needing to be reassessed.
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to reduce the time taken to reach decisions on Attendance Allowance applications.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Attendance Allowance is currently undergoing a significant modernisation through the piloting of an online digital claim process. We are using customer feedback to design a transformed application that is shorter and easier, which focuses on collecting only the information we need to make a decision. This pilot will also support decision makers to handle claims more quickly with a significant reduction in requests for further information from customers.
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 9 August 2024 to Question HL407 on Rodenticides: Safety, to which species the Government Oversight Group is considering extending the monitoring of Second-Generation Anticoagulant Rodenticide residues.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
A final decision on which additional species to include in the residues monitoring programme has not yet been taken. However, the species under consideration include red kite, buzzard, sparrowhawk, peregrine falcon, red fox, otter and hedgehog.
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of proposed changes to (a) the level of and (b) eligibility criteria for (i) disability and (ii) incapacity benefit payments on child poverty.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Delivering our manifesto commitment to tackle child poverty is an urgent priority for this Government, and the Ministerial Taskforce is working to publish a Child Poverty Strategy which will deliver lasting change.
The Strategy will look at all available levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, including considering social security reforms, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience; and better local support especially in the early years. This will build on the reform plans underway across Government and work underway in Devolved Governments.
We will publish a poverty impact assessment once the OBR has assessed GP measures on the day of the Spring Statement.
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make it her policy to automatically publish her Department's (a) internal process review statistics on an annual basis and (b) all internal process reviews.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
For the last two operational years the department has reported on the Internal Process Reviews it undertakes in its Annual Report and Accounts. This is alongside reporting on the wider activities of its Advanced Customer Support Teams (available here: DWP annual report and accounts 2022 to 2023 - GOV.UK and here: DWP annual report and accounts 2023 to 2024 - GOV.UK). The department continues to consider what further information can be published in future Accounts.
The department also already has plans to publish further, separate information on its Internal Process Review in a way that shows what the Department has learned from these cases and the improvements that have been made, but which importantly does not disclose the sensitive, personal and confidential information that can surround these cases. Publication is planned to start by 31 March 2025.
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 3 December 2024 on Question 16304, how many pensioner households who are in receipt of Housing Benefit and who have been identified as being potentially entitled to, but not claiming, Pension Credit her Department has targeted in North Herefordshire constituency; and how many of (a) those pensioner households and (b) the 120,000 pensioner households directly targeted by her Department overall have since claimed Pension Credit.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
151 pensioner households were targeted in the North Herefordshire constituency as part of the Invitation to Claim initiative. The letters sent to these households encourage them to claim Pension Credit by 21 December which is the latest date for making a successful backdated claim and still receive a Winter Fuel payment.
Data on the number of claims received from the households targeted as part of the initiative, and the number of awards made will be established once the Department has completed processing all those applications and the necessary analysis is completed.
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the report by R.E. Green, M.A. Taggart and D.J. Pain et al. entitled Outcomes from monitoring the fourth year of a five-year voluntary transition from hunting with lead to non-lead shotgun ammunition in Britain, Conservation Evidence Journal (2024) 21, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of the findings in that report on the proportion of game birds that were shot with lead in 2023; and whether she plans to take steps to ban the use of lead shot in hunting.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The use of lead shot in England and Wales is already prohibited in specific circumstances by existing legislation – including on all foreshores, and in or over specified sites of special scientific interest, predominantly wetlands.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is currently finalising its UK REACH opinion on further action to restrict the use of lead in ammunition. This work has included looking at information submitted to them with regard to possible options to control the use of lead ammunition. The previous study from the paper cited (also known as the SHOT-SWITCH study) has been considered and is referenced in the background document of evidence and opinion with respect to what can be inferred on a voluntary transition from lead shot to alternatives.
HSE expects to issue its final restriction opinions in autumn 2024. The decision to apply any UK REACH restrictions as a further regulatory measure, or not to do so, will subsequently be made by the DEFRA Secretary of State, with the consent of the Scottish and Welsh Ministers.
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 25 July 2024 to Question 971 on Household Support Fund, what criteria she is using for her review of that Fund; and when she plans to (a) complete that review and (b) announce whether that Fund will continue beyond 30 September 2024.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
DWP is conducting an evaluation of the fourth iteration of the Household Support Fund. This includes research with a selection of representative Local Authority case study areas, consisting of interviews with Local Authority officials and their delivery partners, and surveys and interviews with recipients of the HSF. This evaluation will provide key evidence on how Local Authorities are delivering the scheme, and their experiences of doing so, as well as the effectiveness of the funding for recipients.
The Government has announced funding to extend the Household Support Fund (HSF) for a further 6 months, from 1 October 2024 until 31 March 2025.
An additional £500 million will be provided to enable the extension of the HSF, including funding for the Devolved Governments through the Barnett formula to be spent at their discretion, as usual.
As with previous HSF schemes, the Fund will be made available to County Councils and Unitary Authorities in England to provide discretionary support to those most in need.
The HSF scheme guidance and individual Local Authority funding allocations for the forthcoming extension will be announced as soon as possible ahead of the scheme beginning on 1 October 2024.