Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government when they intend to publish abortion statistics in England and Wales for 2024.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The publication date of the abortion statistics for England and Wales for the calendar year 2024 has not yet been announced. We will announce the date of the 2024 data publication in due course.

The statistics have been delayed due to several operational issues. These include issues associated with moving to a new data processing system and an increase in the number of paper abortion notification forms to process.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many recipients of personal independence payment made their first claim over the age of 60 in (1) 2020, (2) 2021, (3) 2022, (4) 2023, (5) 2024.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The volume of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) recipients in each specified year who made their first successful claim over the age of 60 is shown in the table below.

Table 1: Volume of claimants aged over 60 who made a successful PIP claim for the very first time by year

Notes:

- Values have been rounded to the nearest 10.

- Values are for claimants under DWP Policy Ownership only (England, Wales or Abroad).

- Data is provided in calendar years, starting on 1st January and ending on 31st December.

- Data only includes claimants aged 61 and above.

- Claimants included in the table are those receiving PIP for the very first time. Claimants who have received PIP in the past and have rejoined after turning 61 have not been included.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of personal independence payment recipients are working more than 16 hours per week.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Information about hours worked by Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claimants is not collected and held centrally by the Department.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many medical school places are allocated to each medical school in (1) 2025, (2) 2026, (3) 2027, (4) 2028, and (5) 2029.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

In England, the Office for Students (OfS) sets the maximum fundable limit for medical school places on an annual basis.

For the 2025/26 academic year, OfS has published its intake target at 8,126 for medical school places. The attached spreadsheet details how this figure is broken down across medical schools.

OfS will publish its intake target for the 2026/27 academic year in due course.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is the cap for international fee-paying students for medical schools (1) in total, and (2) for each medical school, in (a) 2026, and (b) 2027.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

In England, the Office for Students (OfS) sets the maximum fundable limit for medical school places on an annual basis.

For the 2025/26 academic year, OfS has published its limit at 8,126 for medical school places. This includes provision for a maximum of 456 overseas students.

The attached spreadsheet details how the total maximum fundable limit is split between anticipated home and overseas students for each medical schools.

OfS will publish its intake targets for the 2026/27 academic year in due course.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of personal independence payment recipients do not receive other welfare benefits, excluding pensions.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

At the end of August 2025 (latest available data) the percentage of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) recipients who do not receive any other welfare benefits aside from State Pension is 28%.

Notes:

- The percentage provided is calculated using the information of claimants under DWP Policy Ownership only. This includes claimants living in England and Wales, those who live abroad, and those with an unknown location, and excludes those living in Scotland and Northern Ireland where PIP has been devolved.

- The welfare benefits taken into account in this analysis are:

o Bereavement Benefit

o Bereavement Support Payment

o Widow’s Benefit

o Carer’s Allowance

o Employment and Support Allowance

o Incapacity Benefit

o Income Support

o Housing Benefit

o Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB)

o Job Seeker’s Allowance

o Pension Credit

o Severe Disablement Allowance

o Universal Credit

- HMRC administered Child Benefit is not taken into account, so some claimants receiving Child Benefit will be included in the stated figure.

- The source IIDB data used for Benefit Combination statistics shows IIDB claimants at a point five months before the last day of the most recent month. To adjust for this lag, data from the Customer Information System has been used to remove cases for individuals known to have died between the IIDB time point and the last day of August 2025, giving an estimate of the IIDB caseload at that time point.

Found: Letter dated 26/02/2026 from Baroness Merron to Baroness Coffey regarding questions raised during the