Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department will wait for the outcome of its independent investigation of youth inactivity before deciding whether to proceed with proposals to prevent under-22s from accessing the health element of Universal Credit, in the context of the Pathways to Work Green Paper.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Nearly one million young people - approximately one in eight 16 to 24-year-olds - are currently not in education, employment, or training (NEET). Further to this, the number of young people claiming Universal Credit (UC) Health Element and Employment and Support Allowance has increased by more than 50% in the last five years, with 80% of young people on the UC Health element currently citing mental health reasons or a neurodevelopmental condition among declared health conditions.
We need to look at this problem holistically, which is why we have launched an independent report to investigate the persistently high numbers of young people out of work, education and training led by former Health Secretary Alan Milburn. The report will examine why increasing numbers of young people are falling out of work or education before their careers have begun - with a particular focus on the impact of mental health conditions and disability.
We consulted on raising the age someone can access the UC Health Element to 22 in the Green Paper ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working. We are considering responses and will provide an update in due course.
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he will make it his policy to (a) carry out ongoing evaluation of the co-production process and (b) ensure that a final evaluation (i) includes anonymous feedback from participants and (ii) is published alongside the final report of Timms Review of Personal Independence Payment.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This is the first time that the Government has undertaken co-production on this scale, and we are ready to listen, learn and refine our approach to support this work to succeed.
We are in the process of procuring co-production expertise to facilitate the work of the steering group. We will draw upon this expertise to support the DWP to evaluate the success of the co-production process.
The Review will be co-produced with disabled people, the organisations that represent them, clinicians, experts, MPs and other stakeholders. It will therefore be for the Review’s steering group to provide direction on the form the evaluation should take, and on content of the Review’s recommendations.
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the implications for his Department's policies of Turn2us's report entitled From stigma to support, published in October 2025; and what steps he is taking to increase the number of work coaches.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The findings from the Turn2us report, entitled ‘From Stigma to Support’, demonstrate the importance of tackling stigma in the benefits system and the need for reform to build a more supportive and tailored service.
As set out in the Get Britain Working White Paper, we are reforming Jobcentre Plus and creating a new service across Great Britain. Our new service will remove the stigma of going to a Jobcentre and move away from the ‘one size fits all’ approach that Jobcentre Plus has today. We will shift the focus of the customer-work coach relationship away from compliance and box-ticking to make room for more constructive, personalised, and career-focused discussions.
In the Pathways to Work Green Paper, we set out our Pathways to Work Guarantee. This will be backed by £1 billion a year of new, additional funding by the end of the decade. This will help us build towards a guaranteed offer of personalised work, health and skills support for all disabled people and those with health conditions on out of work benefits.
There are now over 1000 Pathways to Work Advisors in Jobcentres across England, Scotland and Wales who are helping disabled people and people with health conditions towards and into work. This increased deployment will help ensure that everyone impacted by the benefit change in April 2026 is offered support.
People affected by the changes 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.
We have also launched the Timms Review with the aim of ensuring we have a system that supports disabled people to achieve better health, higher living standards and greater independence, including through employment. To ensure lived experience is at the heart of its work, we are co-producing the Review with disabled people, the organisations that represent them, and other experts. Once in place, the Review’s steering group will agree the approach to considering evidence and gathering input.
The Department continually impacts and assesses the service being offered to customers. Staff numbers, including the number of Work Coaches, and demand for Jobcentre services are reviewed on an ongoing basis, in line with the latest economic and benefit forecasts.
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to raise awareness and warn pensioners about scam messages on winter fuel payment eligibility.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is taking a number of steps to protect our vulnerable customers from online benefit scams. This includes raising public awareness of benefit scam messages on the Gov.uk website. Our most recent Press Release relating to Winter Fuel Payment warned our customers to be alert to text message scams in advance of next month’s payments and urging them to forward any suspicious texts to 7726. This is free of charge and helps phone providers block the numbers involved. Customers are also encouraged to forward suspicious emails to report@phishing.gov.uk.
We are also working together with Action Fraud raising awareness on social media. This is alongside DWP’s continued work with trusted partners and charities such as Independent Age to ensure accurate and timely information is available. DWP has also developed a recorded message for our telephone lines to raise awareness of Winter Fuel Payment scams.
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has held discussions with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on the potential impact of the continuation of the two-child benefit cap on the (a) physical and (b) mental health of children in families affected by the cap.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This Government is determined to bring down child poverty and the Child Poverty Taskforce will publish a Child Poverty Strategy in the autumn that will deliver measures to tackle the structural and root causes of child poverty.
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is a member of the Taskforce, which is co-chaired by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. To date, Taskforce Ministers and their delegates have met nine times to discuss the critical issues that drive child poverty.
The Child Poverty Taskforce is hearing directly from families and children across the UK as part of its work to develop a Child Poverty Strategy, as well as front-line staff and leading campaigners, charities and organisations. The Taskforce is also working closely with local and devolved governments to hear how child poverty affects communities and what can be done to combat it.
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make it his policy to give the same protections to people awaiting migration from the Disability Living Allowance to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) provided to existing PIP claimants during his review of the PIP system.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Timms Review will be co-produced with disabled people, the organisations that represent them, carers, clinicians, experts, parliamentarians and other stakeholders to ensure a wide range of views and voices are heard.
Given that the review will be co-produced it will be for the chairs and the steering group to set out its recommendations to Government. The Government will consider these recommendations, including any relating to the protections set out in the question once the review has completed.
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Access to Work applications are outstanding; and what steps he is taking to reduce the backlog of applications.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
There are currently 62,000 applications outstanding. We recognise the importance of reducing waiting times, which is why we have increased the number of staff working in this area by 27% in the last financial year.
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 6 January 2025 to Question 21111 on Local Housing Allowance, what the overall increase in rental prices was in the period under consideration.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The rental data referenced in the previous question was a combination of the ONS Price Index of Private Rents, which was an increase of 8.4% as of September 2024, as well as rental data supplied by the Valuation Office Agency, Rent Officers Scotland, and Rent Officers Wales, which showed that the 30th percentile had on average increased by 8.6%, (comparing rental data 12 months to September 2023 with 12 months to September 2024).
Latest ONS Price Index of Private Rents official statistic: Private rent and house prices, UK - Office for National Statistics
Valuation Office Agency list of rents publication, which contains all rental market data collected for LHA in England: Local Housing Allowance List of Rents - GOV.UK
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 6 January 2025 to Question 21111 on Local Housing Allowance, if she will publish the analysis of the range of factors considered in the decision not to increase local housing allowance rates.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The impacts referenced in the previous answer were determined using a wide variety of metrics, data and analysis. These included:
At Autumn Budget the Government prioritised a downpayment on poverty, by introducing a Fair Payment Rate for Universal Credit (UC) customers with deductions to retain more of their benefit award. We also invested £1bn in extending the Household Support Fund and maintaining Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) at current levels (including Barnett impacts) for 2025/26. Additionally, from 1 April 2026, we are introducing a new Crisis and Resilience Fund, incorporating Discretionary Housing Payments and funding to ensure the poorest children do not go hungry outside of term time. This will provide £842 million per year (£1 billion including Barnett consequential) to reform how crisis support is delivered locally.
This support can be paid to those entitled to Housing Benefit or Universal Credit who face a shortfall in meeting their housing costs.
DWP forecast data is regularly published and can be found in our benefit expenditure tables: Benefit expenditure and caseload tables - GOV.UK
The Rent Officers Order 2025 Explanatory Memorandum includes considerations for reviewing LHA rates for 2025/26:
The Rent Officers (Housing Benefit and Universal Credit Functions) (Modification) Order 2025
In addition, the department regularly publishes Universal Credit and Housing Benefit data via Official Statistics. The data can be obtained via Stat-Xplore:
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of successful claims under the non-consensual conception exception to the two-child limit for (a) Universal Credit, (b) working-age Housing Benefit and (c) Child Benefit were supported by evidence by (a) a criminal conviction, (b) a Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme award and (c) third-party professional support; and if she will provide a breakdown of that data by the jurisdictions of (a) England and Wales, (b) Scotland and (c) Northern Ireland.
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.