Asked by: Victoria Collins (Liberal Democrat - Harpenden and Berkhamsted)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of providing financial incentives to employers to support the employment of people with severe mental illnesses.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
There is a strong evidence base showing that work is generally good for physical and mental health and well-being. The right type of joined-up work and health support can prevent people falling out of work and support people to return, ensuring they gain the physical and mental benefits of employment. Therefore, we actively engage in collaborative action with a range of stakeholders, including employers, welfare systems and health services, to open opportunities for individuals to engage in good work, fostering a healthier, more inclusive nation.
We announced our Get Britain Working White Paper in November. Alongside funding for trailblazers and NHS ‘Health and Growth Accelerator’ in local areas to bring together and streamline work, health, and skills support for disabled people and people with long term 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.
The Department has also developed a digital information service for employers which provides tailored guidance to businesses to support employees to remain in work. This includes guidance on health disclosures and having conversations about health, and continues to oversee the Disability Confident Scheme which provides practical support to encourage employers to recruit, retain and develop disabled people and people with health conditions. This fosters inclusive workplaces, benefitting people’s health and wealth, as well as the UK economy through increased productivity and reduced economic inactivity.
Asked by: Victoria Collins (Liberal Democrat - Harpenden and Berkhamsted)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the forthcoming Child Poverty Strategy will include (a) objectives and (b) targets beyond the initial 10-year framework to ensure sustained progress in reducing child poverty in (i) Harpenden and Berkhamsted constituency, (ii) Hertfordshire and (iii) England.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Tackling child poverty is at the heart of this Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity. The Child Poverty Taskforce is progressing work to publish its strategy as soon as possible and we are exploring all available levers to drive forward short and long-term actions across government to reduce child poverty.
Our focus is on bringing about an enduring reduction in child poverty in this parliament, thereby reversing the trend that is seeing forecasts of child poverty continuing to increase. More details, including on the time horizon, will be set out in the strategy publication.
Asked by: Victoria Collins (Liberal Democrat - Harpenden and Berkhamsted)
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 increase the uptake of means-tested benefits among households with children in poverty in (a) Harpenden and Berkhamsted constituency, (b) Hertfordshire and (c) England.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department provides extensive information on Universal Credit including on GOV.UK that supports customers to identify what support may be available. Additionally, we signpost potential customers to external benefit calculators where they can identify what they are likely to be eligible for. We also work closely with Citizens Advice who provide Help to Claim support by phone and on-line for customers to apply for Universal Credit.
Tackling child poverty is an urgent priority for this government, and the Ministerial Taskforce is working to publish a Child Poverty Strategy as soon as possible.
Asked by: Victoria Collins (Liberal Democrat - Harpenden and Berkhamsted)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department takes to ensure that reviews of Personal Independent Payment claims for people with complex and chronic health conditions consider the (a) overlap between multiple health issues and (b) the potential impact this overlap has on people's (i) mental health and (ii) ability to work.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessment, at both new claim and award review, considers the impact of an individual’s health condition(s) or disability on their daily living and mobility rather than being based on the health condition itself. Individuals can be affected in different ways by the same condition, and be dealing with multiple health issues, so the outcome of a PIP claim depends very much on individual circumstances.
Health conditions may be physical, sensory, mental, intellectual or cognitive, or any combination of these, and the assessment has been designed to take a comprehensive approach to disability, reflecting the needs arising from the full range of conditions.
The assessment criteria are focused on an individual’s ability to carry out a series of key everyday activities which are fundamental to living an independent life. PIP is available whether an individual is in or out of work, education or training.
In the Green Paper Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working published on 18 March I outlined plans to launch a review of the PIP assessment. Through the review, I want to make sure the PIP assessment is fair and fit for the future. This includes considering the PIP assessment criteria – including descriptors – and how the PIP assessment can play a role in unlocking wider support to enable better health, good work, higher living standards and greater independence. Additionally, the Government is legislating to encourage those on health benefits to try work by legislating to guarantee that work in and of itself will never lead to a reassessment.
Asked by: Victoria Collins (Liberal Democrat - Harpenden and Berkhamsted)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure that people claiming Personal Independence Payments with chronic health conditions are not subject to reviews unless there is evidence of significant change in their circumstances.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Reviews are an important feature of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) ensuring the
support continues to meet the individual’s needs, as circumstances can change over time, and to make sure the correct level of support is being provided.
People who receive the highest level of PIP and whose needs will not improve receive an ongoing PIP award with a light touch review at the 10-year point. The light touch review is
intended to maintain a minimal level of contact with claimants to ensure nothing has changed and that we hold up to date information such as contact details.
In the Pathways to Work Green Paper published on 18 March, we announced that we are considering ways to improve communication with people receiving these ongoing awards in PIP to ensure they provide the right reassurance for people whose conditions are unlikely to change and who are likely to remain on disability benefits for life that they will not be required to undergo regular award reviews.
We have also launched a review of the PIP assessment, which I am leading. During this first phase of the review, I am speaking to stakeholders to gather views on how best to approach the review. We will then publish the Terms of Reference in due course.
Asked by: Victoria Collins (Liberal Democrat - Harpenden and Berkhamsted)
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 support vulnerable people into work in Harpenden and Berkhamsted constituency.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Get Britain Working White Paper set out the biggest reforms to employment support for a generation to support our ambition to achieve an 80% employment rate.
The Department for Work and Pensions will shift from being a department for employment support and welfare to being a department for work. This means a new, locally led system of work and health support being available for those who are unemployed, bringing together existing locally delivered employment support as a single coherent offer that is part of areas’ local growth plans.
Our Jobcentre teams work closely with the Local Authority as well as employers, local colleges and providers in Harpenden and Berkhamsted to promote employment opportunities for our customers, including those who are vulnerable. Jobcentres also have a range of specialist roles to work with vulnerable customers. These roles include Disability Employment Advisers, Prison Work Coaches, Supporting Families Employment Advisers, Visiting Officers and more.
There is a range of employability support options such as face to face or group sessions, job fairs and career events to help engage with vulnerable customers in a setting to suit their needs. There is also Sector Based Work Academy Programmes (SWAP) and Mentoring Circles where our Jobcentre teams work closely with employers and providers to give customers the skills they need to enter employment. An example is that we are currently running a Care Sector SWAP for full and part time roles which can be completed at home to support lone parents and those with health conditions to participate.
The Jobcentre teams also have a range of contracted support which is available to our vulnerable customers to help them move closer and in to work. This includes Restart, Work and Health Programme, CV help from NCS, Disability Forums and Jobclubs.
Asked by: Victoria Collins (Liberal Democrat - Harpenden and Berkhamsted)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of changes to the Winter Fuel Payment on living standards for pensioners in Harpenden and Berkhamsted.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government is, protecting pensioners on the lowest incomes. Winter Fuel Payments will continue to be paid to pensioner households with someone receiving Pension Credit or other qualifying means-tested benefits or tax credits. They will continue to be worth £200 for eligible households, or £300 for eligible households with someone aged 80 or over.
The last Labour Government lifted over one million pensioners out of poverty, and this Government – despite having to make the tough decisions to deal with our dire inheritance - remains absolutely committed to supporting pensioners and giving them the dignity and security they deserve in retirement. Our commitment to the Triple Lock means that spending on State Pensions is forecast to rise by around £31 billion over this Parliament.
While the State Pension is the foundation of state support for older people, other help is also available for low-income pensioners. This includes Cold Weather Payments in England & Wales and help with energy bills via the Warm Home Discount scheme, as well as the Household Support Fund in England, which we extended for a further year with funding of £742 million, with corresponding funding for the Devolved Governments through the Barnett formula.
Asked by: Victoria Collins (Liberal Democrat - Harpenden and Berkhamsted)
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 help increase the level of uptake of Pension Credit in (a) Harpenden and Berkhamsted constituency and (b) the rest of England.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government wants all pensioners to get the support to which they are rightly entitled. That is why we ran the biggest ever Pension Credit take-up campaign across the whole of Great Britian. This included adverts on television; radio; social media; on YouTube; on advertising screens in Pharmacies, Post Offices and leisure centres (including in Harpenden and Berkhamsted). The campaign also featured on train advertising panels (including on Chiltern, Greater Anglia, and Thameslink services) as well as in the press.
As part of the campaign, the Department engaged with all councils in Great Britain, including Hertfordshire council, through the regular Local Authority Welfare Direct bulletins. We also directly targeted 120,000 pensioners in receipt of Housing Benefit inviting them to claim Pension Credit. More recently, around 11 million pensioners will have received a leaflet promoting Pension Credit along with their State Pension uprating letter.
Building on the success of our campaign, we are now writing to all pensioners who make a new claim for Housing Benefit, and who appear to be entitled to Pension Credit, encouraging them to make a claim.
The latest Pension Credit applications and awards statistics were published on 27 February and are available at: Pension Credit applications and awards: February 2025 - GOV.UK. The statistics show that the Department made almost 50,000 extra awards on the comparable period in 2023/24. The next set of statistics will be published on 29 May.
Asked by: Victoria Collins (Liberal Democrat - Harpenden and Berkhamsted)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 7 April 2025 to Question 42060 on Pathways to Work: Impact Assessments, whether her Department’s further programme of analysis will include a disaggregation of data by category of (a) disability and (b) health condition.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
A breakdown of the impact of the reforms on disability overall has been published as part of an Equality Analysis of the Spring Statement package of measures (https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/pathways-to-work-reforming-benefits-and-support-to-get-britain-working-green-paper/spring-statement-2025-health-and-disability-benefit-reforms-equality-analysis).
Data on the health conditions of UC claimants being placed in the LCWRA has been published (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/universal-credit-work-capability-assessment-statistics) and will continue to be taken into account in the future programme of analysis.
Analysis of those who do not score 4 points in at least one daily living activity for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) has now been undertaken and is provided in the table below. This shows the volume of claimants with the 18 most common disabling conditions in receipt of the PIP daily living component in January 2025, as well as the volume and proportion of these claimants who were awarded less than 4 points in all ten daily living activities.
Health condition category | Volume of PIP Claimants in receipt of Daily Living component | Claimants awarded less than 4 points in all daily living activities | |
Volume in each condition group | Proportion in each condition group | ||
Cancer | 70,000 | 23,000 | 33% |
Anxiety and Depression | 587,000 | 282,000 | 48% |
Autistic Spectrum Disorders | 206,000 | 13,000 | 6% |
Learning Disabilities | 188,000 | 7,000 | 3% |
ADHD / ADD | 75,000 | 14,000 | 19% |
Psychotic Disorders | 112,000 | 26,000 | 23% |
Other Psychiatric Disorders | 90,000 | 25,000 | 28% |
Arthritis | 279,000 | 214,000 | 77% |
Chronic Pain Syndromes | 173,000 | 118,000 | 68% |
Back Pain | 194,000 | 154,000 | 79% |
Other Regional Musculoskeletal Diseases | 136,000 | 97,000 | 71% |
Cerebrovascular Diseases | 56,000 | 19,000 | 34% |
Epilepsy | 36,000 | 11,000 | 30% |
Multiple Sclerosis and Neuropathic Diseases | 80,000 | 38,000 | 48% |
Cerebral Palsy and Neurological Muscular Diseases | 47,000 | 11,000 | 24% |
Other Neurological Diseases | 97,000 | 35,000 | 36% |
Respiratory Diseases | 83,000 | 45,000 | 55% |
Cardiovascular Diseases | 61,000 | 38,000 | 62% |
All Other Conditions | 272,000 | 126,000 | 46% |
Source: PIP Administrative Data
Notes:
- Visual Diseases
- Other General Musculoskeletal Diseases
- Endocrine Diseases
- Hearing Disorders
- Gastrointestinal Diseases
- Genitourinary Diseases
- Skin Diseases
- Autoimmune Diseases (Connective Tissue Disorders)
- Infectious Diseases
- Diseases of the Liver, Gallbladder or Biliary Tract
- Haematological Diseases
- Metabolic Diseases
- Multisystem and Extremes of Age
- Diseases of the Immune System
- Anxiety disorders - Other / type not known
- Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Stress reaction disorders - Other / type not known
- Generalised anxiety disorder
- Phobia - Specific
- Phobia - Social
- Agoraphobia
- Panic disorder
- Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
- Anxiety and depressive disorders - mixed
- Conversion disorder (hysteria)
- Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD)
- Dissociative disorders - Other / type not known
- Somatoform disorders - Other / type not known
- Depressive disorder
- Bipolar affective disorder (Hypomania / Mania)
- Mood disorders - Other / type not known
Asked by: Victoria Collins (Liberal Democrat - Harpenden and Berkhamsted)
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 that claimants of (a) Personal Independence Payment and (b) Universal Credit with sight loss conditions that have no prospect of improvement will be exempt from reassessment under proposed changes to the benefits system.
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 need for some people with very severe health conditions and disabilities to undergo a full PIP functional assessment.