Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if his Department will set out what criteria is used to determine whether provisions relating to the frozen overseas state pensions policy are laid under the Negative rather than Affirmative procedure.

The provisions in the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Regulations 2026 cannot be included in the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2026 because the powers on which the Up-rating Order relies are insufficiently wide to include these provisions.

The Regulations are subject to the negative procedure, and this is a convention that has been in place for a number of years.