Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will provide hon. Members with a direct telephone contact number for benefit centres in their and neighbouring constituencies.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) uses a virtual telephone network which will route the call to the most appropriate agent available with required skills to support the caller. As a result we are not able to issue direct contact numbers for benefit centres.

DWP telephone numbers are signposted to customers for the services that they wish to access and this signposting will be refreshed as the recently announced move to Freephone numbers progresses.