Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of reinstating the employment and support allowance and universal credit work-related activity component.

No such assessment of merits has been made. There are no plans to reinstate the change to the Employment and Support Allowance work-related activity component and the Universal Credit limited capability for work element.

As part of the Personal Support Package which was announced in the ‘Improving Lives’ Green Paper in October 2016, we committed to a £330m package of support over 4 years for claimants affected by the removal of the Work Related Activity component.

The Department believes that this change will provide the right incentives and support to help new claimants with limited capability for work.

In 2019/20 we are spending £55 billion on benefits to support disabled people and people with health conditions. Furthermore, real terms disability benefits spending will be higher every year to 2023 than in 2010.