Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what support is available for staff being made redundant by the closure of the Queen Elizabeth's Foundation for Disabled People.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Following notification of staff being at risk of redundancy DWP provides support to both employers and individuals through our dedicated service (the Rapid Redundancy Support).
Local Employer Advisors will make contact the employers/or individuals to offer support as a matter of urgency. Support is tailored and can vary depending on the scale of the redundancy and the level of support required. This can include:
DWP were notified by the Insolvency Service on the 18th of November of impending redundancies at the Queen Elizabeth Foundation for Disabled People. DWP’s National RRS Team held a meeting with the Chief Executive on the 19th of November where RRS support was outlined. RRS factsheets were sent over for cascade to employees impacted and the National RRS team agreed to contact local jobcentres. Queen Elizabeth Foundation requested DWP support at several recruitment events previously organised at sites in Leatherhead and Carshalton.
On the 27th November at the Leatherhead site, the local Employer Adviser and Disability Employer Adviser attended a recruitment event and offered further support for those impacted by the redundancies. The attendance of the Disability Employer Adviser was at the specific request of the Queen Elizabeth Foundation
At the Carshalton site local DWP teams have reached out and have invited all employees to a local recruitment event being held next week.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many telephone operators work on the Universal Credit helpline by the nationality of those operators.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
We do not centrally hold the nationality of Universal Credit call handlers and to provide the information would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lincoln Jopp (Conservative - Spelthorne)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether an armed forces pension is treated as unearned income for the purpose of calculating Universal Credit.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Regular, unearned income payments that are paid to meet living costs cause reductions in the customer’s Universal Credit entitlement pound for pound. This includes occupational pensions such as Armed Forces Pensions.
War Pensions and Armed Forces Compensation Payments are not taken into account in Universal Credit. Guaranteed Income Payments, Service Attributable Pensions and service-attributable, non-taxable Service Invalidity Pensions are also not taken into account.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the number of (a) clothes banks and (b) clothes bank users in each year since 2015.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department does not hold official statistics on the number of registered food banks. Food banks are independent organisations, often run by charities, faith groups, or community organisations, and are not regulated or registered centrally by the Government.
Statistics on food bank use are published annually in the Households below average income statistics report and are only available from 2021/22 onwards. The most recent publication is available here: Households below average income: for financial years ending 1995 to 2024 - GOV.UK
The Government is committed to tackling poverty. We know that good work can significantly reduce the chances of families falling into poverty. Our Get Britain Working White Paper sets out our reforms to the system to enable greater participation, progression and productivity in the labour market.
We are committed to reviewing Universal Credit to make sure it is doing the job we want it to, to make work pay and tackle poverty. We have already introduced the Fair Repayment Rate, reducing the Universal Credit overall deductions cap from 25% to 15% of a customer’s standard allowance, giving 1.2m households an average of £420 per year. In addition, we will increase the Universal Credit Standard Allowance from April 2026, estimated to be worth £725 annually by 2029/30 in cash terms.
To further support struggling families, we provided £742 million to extend the Household Support Fund (HSF) in England until 31 March 2026. Enabling local authorities to continue to provide vulnerable households with immediate crisis support towards the cost of essentials, such as energy, water and food. The Devolved Governments receive consequential funding through the Barnett formula to be spent at their discretion.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the number of (a) food banks and (b) food bank users in each year since 2015.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department does not hold official statistics on the number of registered food banks. Food banks are independent organisations, often run by charities, faith groups, or community organisations, and are not regulated or registered centrally by the Government.
Statistics on food bank use are published annually in the Households below average income statistics report and are only available from 2021/22 onwards. The most recent publication is available here: Households below average income: for financial years ending 1995 to 2024 - GOV.UK
The Government is committed to tackling poverty. We know that good work can significantly reduce the chances of families falling into poverty. Our Get Britain Working White Paper sets out our reforms to the system to enable greater participation, progression and productivity in the labour market.
We are committed to reviewing Universal Credit to make sure it is doing the job we want it to, to make work pay and tackle poverty. We have already introduced the Fair Repayment Rate, reducing the Universal Credit overall deductions cap from 25% to 15% of a customer’s standard allowance, giving 1.2m households an average of £420 per year. In addition, we will increase the Universal Credit Standard Allowance from April 2026, estimated to be worth £725 annually by 2029/30 in cash terms.
To further support struggling families, we provided £742 million to extend the Household Support Fund (HSF) in England until 31 March 2026. Enabling local authorities to continue to provide vulnerable households with immediate crisis support towards the cost of essentials, such as energy, water and food. The Devolved Governments receive consequential funding through the Barnett formula to be spent at their discretion.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what mechanisms are in place to ensure that individuals whose immigration status no longer entitles them to public funds are automatically removed from benefit systems; and how many such removals have taken place in each of the last five years.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Universal Credit systems carry out daily automatic checks against Home Office data to identify any changes in immigration status, and subsequently, DWP caseworkers stop claims where the individual no longer has an immigration status that permits recourse to public funds.
However, the department does not hold data on the number of benefit claims disallowed after a review.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact on employment and job creation in the hospitality sector of extending employer National Insurance contribution relief to (a) employees aged under 25 and (b) individuals returning to work from welfare.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The government is committed to tackling the rise in youth unemployment and inactivity, which has been growing since the last Parliament. That is why we are delivering a Youth Guarantee to ensure that every young person can access the support they need to earn or learn. This includes a new Jobs Guarantee, which will provide a six-month paid work placement for every eligible 18- to 21-year-old who has been on Universal Credit and looking for work for 18 months – helping young people take that crucial first step into sustained employment. Details on the wider Youth Guarantee will be announced shortly.
The government is increasing funding for employment support to more than £3.75 billion per year by 2028-29, helping people to access the skills they need to progress, tackling inactivity and ensuring more people are in better jobs.
There are a wide range of factors to take into consideration when introducing a tax relief. These include how effective the relief would be at achieving the policy intent, how targeted support would be, whether it adds complexity to the tax system, and the cost.
The Government keeps all taxes under review as part of the policy making process. The Chancellor will announce any changes to the tax system at fiscal events in the usual way.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many non-UK nationals are in receipt of (a) Universal Credit, (b) legacy working-age benefits and (c) child-related benefits by nationality.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department publishes Universal Credit (UC) immigration status and nationality statistics as part of the Universal Credit statistics publication. These statistics can be found on https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/universal-credit-statistics-29-april-2013-to-9-october-2025. The number of people on Universal Credit who are non – Common Travel Area nationals, for each month from April 2022 to October 2025, is in Table 1 of the following data tables: Universal Credit immigration status and nationality statistics to October 2025.
The information requested for parts (b) and (c) are not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they have taken since the Impact Assessment on Converting Support for Mortgage Interest from a benefit into a loan, published in June 2017, identified limited data on disabled claimants using the Support for Mortgage Interest loan scheme; and what measures they have taken to address the impact assessment's conclusion that the scheme was likely to have a disproportionate impact on disabled claimants.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) transitioned from a benefit to a loan in April 2018. Support was provided at the same level as before, ensuring the same degree of protection against repossession.
SMI loans are not repayable until the property is sold and then, only to the extent that there is any available equity.
Since SMI converted to a loan, the Department has regularly reviewed the impact of the policy on its recipients, including on people with disabilities. In March 2021, loan ‘porting’ was introduced to allow SMI recipients to transfer their loan to a new property rather than repay. The primary purpose of this change was to enable disabled recipients to move home due to changes in their disability requirements. Further changes were introduced in April 2023 which extended eligibility to in-work Universal Credit recipients and support was provided after three months instead of nine.
Two separate research projects related to SMI have been conducted and published, in March 2022 and May 2025. Both are publicly available, and a copy will be deposited of both publications in the House of Lords library.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he will make an assessment of the potential merits of linking Unique Property Reference Numbers to Universal Credit claims to help tackle fraud.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is considering external data sources, including Unique Property Reference Numbers, that could be used to help address fraud and error that occurs in Universal Credit.