Asked by: Mel Stride (Conservative - Central Devon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what (a) proportion and (b) amount of Universal Credit expenditure was for adults with non-Common Travel Area immigration status in the latest period for which information is available.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Universal Credit awards are paid to households, which may include both British and foreign nationals who are eligible. Therefore, the information requested is not readily available at the required quality and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Mel Stride (Conservative - Central Devon)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, how his Department's capital budgets (a) were allocated in each financial year since 2023-24 and (b) have been allocated for each of the next five financial years.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Capital budget for the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) for FY2023-24 and 2024-25 are available via the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee - Estimate memoranda - Committees - UK Parliament, published on the UK Parliament website.
Additionally, the Capital budget allocated for DESNZ for the next five financial years is available in the Spending Review 2025 document. Detailed information on the Capital budget commitments across DESNZ programmes is included within these documents.
Asked by: Mel Stride (Conservative - Central Devon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many households were exempted from the benefit cap for the latest period for which data is available, by (a) reason for exemption and (b) amount they would otherwise have had capped.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The requested statistics are not readily held by the Department and to produce them would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Mel Stride (Conservative - Central Devon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average award is for pension credit claimants with a non-CTA immigration status.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The requested statistics are not held by the Department.
Asked by: Mel Stride (Conservative - Central Devon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people were in receipt of Pension Credit for each of the last five financial years, by immigration status.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The requested statistics are not held by the Department.
Asked by: Mel Stride (Conservative - Central Devon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of levels of annually managed expenditure savings due to planned increases in the proportion of face to face (a) PIP and (b) Work Capability Assessments in each of the next five financial years.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The department has not yet made an estimate of the impact on Annually Managed Expenditure of the planned increases in the proportion of face-to-face assessments for PIP and Work Capability Assessments.
Asked by: Mel Stride (Conservative - Central Devon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether it has ever been her Department's policy to treat moving into employment as a change of circumstances which triggers a reassessment for (a) personal independence payment and (b) the work capability assessment; and whether her Department has made an estimate of how many claimants may have been subject to reassessment due to a change in circumstances associated with a change in employment status.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Being in work, of itself, is not a change of circumstances for the purposes of triggering an award review of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) or the Work Capability Assessment determination. We are legislating for this approach and believe it is the right approach to give customers the confidence to try work at any time without fear of reassessment and enable more people to move into work.
Given that employment status is not linked to reassessment, we are not able estimate how many claimants may have been subject to reassessment due to a change in circumstances associated with a change in employment status.
Asked by: Mel Stride (Conservative - Central Devon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of the total caseload for UC LCWRA and ESA Support Group participated in Additional Work Coach Time in the most recent (a) month and (b) financial year for which data is available; and what estimate she has made of what that proportion will be for financial year 2026-27.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Additional Work Coach Support provides disabled people and people with health impairments increased one-to-one personalised support from their work coach to help them move towards, and into, work.
Last month, June 2025, 900 LCWRA claimants voluntarily started AWCT support. Since AWCT started in June 2022, there have been over 14,000 LCWRA starts to the programme. There would be, however, a disproportionate cost to providing the number of starts for the financial year 2024/25. There would be a need to retrieve data for a period when AWCT wasn’t targeted at the LCWRA group, and assessments of the accuracy of this data would need to be made. There would also be a disproportionate cost to providing AWCT data on claimants in the ESA Support Group due to difficulties with data collection for this group.
The latest publicly available data shows the LCWRA caseload was 1.93 million in March 2025 and the ESA Support Group caseload was 1.23 million in November 2024. However, the AWCT starts figure is cumulative since 2022, so it would be misleading to give AWCT starts as a percentage of the total current caseload.
We will be rolling out our new support offer from next April (2026) when our benefit changes start to come in so that everyone affected by the reduction to the UC health element will be offered support, provided by a dedicated Pathways to Work adviser. These 1000 Pathways to Work Advisers will build and expand on existing measures like additional work coach support to provide one-to-one personalised support to more disabled customers and those with health conditions to help them move towards, and into, work. Pathways to Work Advisers will support claimants on Universal Credit (UC) who are awaiting their Work Capability Assessment and those who have been found to have ‘limited capability for work’ or ‘limited capability for work and work-related activity’ who want, or could benefit from, more help to move into work. They can also support Employment Support Allowance (ESA) claimants.
People affected will be able to access a conversation about their needs, goals and aspirations; offered one-to-one follow-on support, and given help to access additional work, health and skills support that can meet their needs. This will include:
Pathways to Work adviser support will be in place across England, Scotland and Wales for all those affected by the changes from April. We will be working with governments in Scotland and Wales to join up support where elements of policy and funding are devolved. We are beginning testing of our new support conversation this year (summer 2025). There will be additional funding of £200 million to support people next year (2026/27), building to £1 billion a year by 2029/30 as reforms fully roll out.
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Asked by: Mel Stride (Conservative - Central Devon)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate she has made of the cost to the public purse of (a) welfare payments and (b) other services paid to people with indefinite leave to remain in each financial year since 2019-20 onwards.
Answered by Darren Jones - Minister for Intergovernmental Relations
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Mel Stride (Conservative - Central Devon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people impacted by the changes to PIP proposed in the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill she estimates will (a) lose eligibility to PIP entirely, (b) be eligible for the UC health element under the current system and (c) be eligible for the UC health element under her Department’s proposals to replace the Work Capability Assessment with the PIP passporting mechanism.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Pathways to Work Green Paper set out the Government’s intention to abolish the Work Capability Assessment (WCA). This reform will move away from categorising individuals into binary groups of ‘can work’ or ‘can’t work’. Instead, eligibility for additional financial support in Universal Credit (UC) due to health conditions will be determined through a single assessment - the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessment - focused on the impact of disability on daily living, rather than on capacity to work.
This change will decouple entitlement to the UC health element from employment status, giving people confidence that taking steps towards or into work will not put their benefit entitlement at risk.
Any changes to PIP eligibility will follow a comprehensive review of the benefit, which I am leading. This review is being co-produced with disabled people, representative organisations, clinicians, experts, MPs, and other stakeholders to ensure a wide range of voices are heard. Its aim is to ensure the PIP assessment is fair, robust, and fit for the future and the review is expected to conclude in autumn 2026.
As the review is ongoing, the Department has not yet developed estimates of how many people will (a) lose eligibility to PIP, (b) be eligible for the UC health element under the current system, or (c) be eligible under the proposed PIP-based system. These figures will be made available in due course, alongside supporting analysis.