Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answers of 23 February 2022 to Question 125365 and 8 March 2022 to Question 134067 on Maternity Allowance, and with reference to the data on Statutory Maternity Pay starts provided by HM Revenue & Customs in Freedom of Information Act responses dated 5 June 2019 (FOI2019/01113) and 24 September 2021 (FOI2021/20932), what assessment she has made of the reasons for the absence of any decline in the number of Statutory Maternity Pay starts over the period in which the number of grants of Maternity Allowance to employed women has fallen by 45 per cent.

Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) is delivered through HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), rather than the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). DWP does not hold the raw data on Statutory Maternity Payment starts.

The estimated number of women on the caseload for SMP and Maternity Allowance (MA) is published on www.gov.uk - Benefit expenditure and caseload tables 2021.

The caseload has decreased for both MA and SMP in the period from 2016/17 to 2020/21. The reason for the larger decrease in MA than SMP, has not been fully assessed.

We continue to monitor changes to the number of MA claims, and changes to SMP figures, and are actively looking into them.