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 allocating funding to support an increase in the rate of statutory sick pay.

The Government has previously consulted on Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) reform as part of Health is Everyone’s Business. The Government’s response to the consultation acknowledged that, while the consultation posed several important questions on the future of SSP which require further consideration, the pandemic was not the right time to introduce changes to the sick pay system.