Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department's Green Paper entitled Pathways to Work, published on 18 May 2025, what estimate she has made of the number of claimants currently in receipt of contributory Employment and Support Allowance who would transfer to the proposed unemployment insurance.

The Department is currently consulting on a proposed Unemployment Insurance. The consultation closes on 30 June 2025. No decisions have yet been made about transitioning existing claimants of NS ESA and NS JSA to the proposed Unemployment Insurance and therefore an estimate cannot be provided at this stage. However, a further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper has been published here ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’(opens in a new tab). Latest data as of November 2025 shows that there are 750,000 claimants for contributory ESA.