Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
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 disability employment gap in Lincolnshire.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The disability employment gap is monitored and published in the official statistics release The employment of disabled people 2024 - GOV.UK in data tables LMS008, LMS009 and LMS010. This includes statistics on the local authority areas Lincolnshire.
The disability employment gap for 2023/24 was 24.7 percentage points in Lincolnshire. This compares to the UK wide disability employment gap of 27.2 percentage points for 2023/24. This is the latest period for which reliable data is available.
Estimates below national level are based on smaller sample sizes and should therefore be used with caution.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much the Pension Protection Fund has spent on equipment to enable staff to work from home in each of the last three years.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Over the period from 22/23 to 24/25, PPF spend on equipment to enable staff to work from home has been minimal (less than £1.5k over the period).
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much the Pensions Ombudsman has spent on equipment to enable staff to work from home in each of the last three years.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Pensions Ombudsman operates a hybrid working model. Therefore, the provision of equipment for staff to use when working at home is made in line with Health and Safety legislation and workplace adjustment requirements.
Over the last three years, the following has been contributed to support staff on the days they are not working in the office: £6,868 in in 2022/23, £6,289 in 2023/24 and £2,243 in 2024/25.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what machine learning models her Department has used to help tackle fraud in the last three years.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP uses Machine Learning as an analytical tool in the prevention and detection of fraud and error. There is currently one fraud and error machine learning model in full deployment and others at various stages of development, testing and implementation, focused on the highest areas of loss.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much the Health and Safety Executive has spent on equipment to enable staff to work from home in each of the last three years.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
HSE spend on equipment to enable staff to work from home in each of the last three years is shown in the table below.
| 2022/23 | 2023/24 | 2024/25 |
HSE Equipment Spend (inclusive of VAT) | £329,011 | £308,537 | £317,551 |
Note – the cost mainly relates to provision of equipment for new starters and HSE has increased its staff numbers in this period mainly due to becoming the Building Safety Regulator.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average time is to process a Personal Independence Payment appeal in South Holland and the Deepings constituency.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The average time to process a Personal Independence Payment (PIP) appeal for all PIP appeals in the South Holland and The Deepings constituency, since PIP was introduced, can be found in table 1 below.
Table 1: The mean and median time to process an appeal from time of registration to the time of appeal clearance in weeks
Mean appeal processing time (weeks) | Median appeal processing time (weeks) |
23 | 19 |
Source: PIP Administrative data
Notes:
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent steps she has taken to promote timebanking in job centres.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Our Get Britain Working plan aims to reduce economic inactivity levels and take the first steps to delivering our long-term ambition to achieve an 80% employment rate. We want to ensure that everyone has the opportunities they need to achieve and thrive, to succeed and flourish. Support includes identifying skills gaps and referral to skills training, careers advice, job search support, and volunteering opportunities. Work Coaches will work with customer to identify transferable skills relevant to the opportunities available. Our Employer and Partnership Teams work with employers and partners to bring vacancies and provisions closer to our customers.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much her Department has spent on equipment for civil servants to work from home in each of the last three years.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are unable to provide this information without incurring disproportionate costs.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that employers provide the support disabled people need to stay in work in (a) Lincolnshire and (b) other rural areas.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
We are delivering the biggest investment in employment support for disabled people and people with health conditions in at least a generation. We announced in the recent Pathways to Work Green Paper that we would establish a new guarantee of support for all disabled people and people with health conditions claiming out of work benefits who want help to get into or return to work. As announced in the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions’ statement on Welfare Reform, on 30 June, we are investing an additional £300m over the next 3 years. This means, our ‘Pathways to Work Guarantee’ is now backed by an investment of £2.2 billion by 2030. This brings our total investment in employment support for disabled people and those with health conditions to £3.8 billion over this Parliament.
Backed by £240m investment, the Get Britain Working White Paper launched in November 2024, will drive forward approaches to tackling economic inactivity and work toward the long-term ambition of an 80% employment rate. In recognition of the key role employers play a key role in increasing employment opportunities and supporting disabled people and people with health conditions, the Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions and Business and Trade asked Sir Charlie Mayfield to lead an independent review, considering how best to support and enable employers to recruit and retain more people with health conditions and disabilities, promote healthy workplaces, and support more people to stay in or return to work from periods of sickness absence. Sir Charlie will deliver his final report in the autumn. Employers are crucial in enhancing employment opportunities and supporting disabled people and those with health conditions to thrive in the workforce. Our support to employers includes increasing access to Occupational Health, a digital information service for employers and the Disability Confident scheme.
In Lincolnshire, our Jobcentre Employer and Partnership Teams work with a range of employers and partners to enhance the skills and employment support available locally. An example of this includes working closely with South and East Lincolnshire Council on the commissioning of skills and employment support programmes using Shared Prosperity Funding.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
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 qualifying for (a) blue badges, (b) housing benefit and (c) Carer's Allowance in Lincolnshire impacted by her Department's proposed changes to the eligibility for PIP.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Changes to the daily living component of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) will not have an impact on Blue Badge holders as no changes are being made to the mobility component of PIP.
The assessment by the Office for Budget Responsibility of the impact of the proposed changes on carers was only made for England and Wales as a whole. The impacts can be found in table A4 here: Spring Statement 2025 health and disability benefit reforms – Impacts.
There will be no immediate changes to PIP eligibility. Our intention is that changes will start to come into effect from November 2026, subject to parliamentary approval. After that date, no one will lose PIP without first being reassessed by a trained assessor or healthcare professional, who assesses individual needs and circumstance. Reassessments happen on average every 3 years.
The number of people currently on PIP who did not score 4 points in one category in their last assessment should not be equated with the number who are likely to lose PIP in future. It’s important to make a clear distinction between the two, not least because we don’t want constituents to be unnecessarily fearful about their situation, when we understand many are already anxious. Someone who did not score 4 points in an activity in a previous assessment may well score 4 points in a future assessment as conditions change over time.
After taking account of behavioural changes, the OBR predicts that 9 in 10 of those on PIP daily living at the point any changes come in will still be receiving PIP by the end of the decade.
We are consulting on how best to support those who are affected by the new eligibility changes, including ensuring health and care needs are met.
We have also announced a wider review of the PIP assessment to make it fair and fit for purpose, which I will lead. We are bringing together a range of experts, stakeholders and people with lived experience to consider how best to do this. We will provide further details as plans progress.
Even with these reforms, the overall number of people on PIP and DLA is expected to rise by 750,000 by the end of this parliament and spending will rise from £23bn in 24/25 to £31bn in 29/30.
A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.