Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of how many people have been absent from work because of long term sickness due to respiratory illness over the last 12 months.

The estimated number of people aged 16 to 64 in the UK who had a long-term (4 weeks or more) sickness absence from work due to respiratory illness, e.g. asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease [COPD], bronchitis or pneumonia, between January and December 2024 (the latest data available) was 60,000. This represents around 4% of people who had a long-term sickness absence.

Source: Annual Population Survey (APS) - unpublished