Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many applications (a) by adults and (b) on behalf of children for Disability Living Allowance benefits are outstanding; and what is the average waiting time for these applications to be resolved.

New claims for Disability Living Allowance (DLA) are only open to children under the age of 16. As of August 2025, there are 39,150 new claims for child DLA that are outstanding, with an average actual outstanding time of 33 days.

Points to note:

- Figures above capture the number of outstanding claims that have been registered onto our systems. We do not have figures on the number of outstanding claims that are waiting to be registered.

- Figure related to average actual outstanding time are median averages.

- Figures are for new child DLA claims under normal rules only.