Asked by: Steve Witherden (Labour - Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman report on changes to women's State Pension age, published on 21 March 2024, if he will make an assessment of the potential (a) economic; and (b) social impact on 1950s-born women in Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government carefully considered the findings of the Ombudsman’s report on the communication of changes to women’s State Pension age, and a detailed response including an Equality Analysis has been deposited in the House library.
Asked by: Peter Bedford (Conservative - Mid Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what key performance indicators are used to monitor private contractors providing PIP assessments.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) hold Personal Independence Payment assessment suppliers to a robust set of contractual performance measures to ensure that assessments are delivered to a high standard.
Under the Functional Assessment Services (FAS) contract, suppliers are required to meet or exceed a series of Target Performance Levels (TPLs), which collectively determine overall contractual performance. In addition to TPLs, suppliers are also expected to meet a number of contractual obligations.
The TPLs and obligations that all assessment suppliers must adhere to can be found in part 1 of the FAS Contract available on contract finder.GOV.UK.
Asked by: Cat Eccles (Labour - Stourbridge)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what is the average processing time for Employment Support Allowance and Personal Independence Payments.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Information on average processing time for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) can be found on Stat-Xplore (https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/).
The requested data can be found in the ‘Clearance Times for Initial Claims’ dataset. Stat-Xplore will automatically select the latest completed assessment date. However, you can use the ‘Completed Assessment Date’ filter to produce completed assessment for a time period of your choice. You can expand ‘Measures’ and then ‘Clearance Time Breakdowns for Initial Claims’ to produce a breakdown of different types of clearance times. For average processing time covering claim registration date to DWP decision date, we suggest choosing the ‘Median of End-to-end Process (weekdays)’ measure. You can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest user.
Personal Independence Payment (PIP) clearance times are available as part of the PIP Official Statistics quarterly release. The latest release, with data available to October 2025, is available here (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-independence-payment-statistics-april-2013-to-october-2025). Table 1A in the underlying Excel tables of this release shows median average clearance times for normal rules new claims.
Asked by: Seamus Logan (Scottish National Party - Aberdeenshire North and Moray East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Access to Work reconsideration requests submitted by (a) blind and (b) partially sighted customers have resulted in the original decision being overturned in each of the last three years.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We do not hold this data in a way that can be extracted.
Determining this information would require a manual review of all individual reconsideration cases, which would incur a disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Jenny Riddell-Carpenter (Labour - Suffolk Coastal)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when Section 25 of the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 will commence; whether the commencement of Section 25 will coincide with the coming into force of the relevant provisions of the Child Support (Enforcement) Act 2023 enabling the Child Maintenance Service to create Administrative Liability Orders; and what steps he is taking to ensure the timely implementation of these enforcement powers.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Work is ongoing to implement Administrative Liability Orders.
Section 25 of the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 will be commenced as part of the wider package of measures required to implement ALOs. We intend for its commencement to align with the relevant provisions of the Child Support (Enforcement) Act 2023, which will enable the Child Maintenance Service to create Administrative Liability Orders.
While Child Maintenance is reserved, enforcement of CM arrears in Scotland requires using the Scottish judicial system, which is devolved.
We are working closely with HMCTS and the Scottish Government to ensure enforcement action resulting from ALOs operates effectively across the UK, and plan to introduce regulations to parliament to implement the measures across England, Scotland and Wales, as soon as possible.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to support older people in rural areas.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government is committed to supporting pensioners and ensuring they have financial security and dignity in retirement. The State Pension remains the foundation of our support for pensioners. In April this year, both the basic and new State Pensions will increase by 4.8%, benefitting over 12 million pensioners by up to £575. Our commitment to maintain the Triple Lock throughout this Parliament – helping to raise the value of the State Pension over time – will see pensioners’ yearly incomes rising by up to £2,100.
Pension Credit continues to provide vital financial support for pensioners who, for whatever reason, find themselves on a low income. It does this by guaranteeing a minimum level of income – called the Standard Minimum Guarantee – which will also increase in April by 4.8%, protecting the most vulnerable pensioners.
Crucially, receipt of Pension Credit opens the door to additional support, including Housing Benefit, Council Tax support, help with NHS costs, help with fuel bills, and a free TV licence for those aged over 75. Maximising Pension Credit take-up remains a key departmental priority, which is why we have run the biggest campaign to date across Great Britain encouraging pensioners and their families to check their eligibility and to apply.
Around nine million pensioners in England and Wales with an income of £35,000 or less also receive additional support through the Winter Fuel Payment. Housing Benefit continues to support pensioners who rent, and pensioner homeowners on income-related benefits, including Pension Credit, may receive Support for Mortgage Interest to help with interest on eligible secured loans.
The Household Support Fund remains available for those facing financial hardship, with funding running until March 2026. From April 2026, the new Crisis and Resilience Fund will provide a long-term mechanism for local authorities to support vulnerable households with essential costs such as food and energy.
Asked by: Peter Bedford (Conservative - Mid Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many unannounced visits his Department conducted to PIP face-to-face assessment centres in (a) 2024 and (b) 2025.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The department undertakes visits to Personal Independence Payment assessment centres for a range of reasons, including performance and operational oversight, contractual assurance activity, and estates‑related checks.
The department does not centrally record whether such visits are announced or unannounced. Therefore, the information requested on the number of unannounced visits undertaken in 2024 or 2025 is not available.
Asked by: Helen Whately (Conservative - Faversham and Mid Kent)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what information his Department holds on the number of people that claim Carer's Allowance and do not live with the person they are caring for.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Published information on the number of people in receipt of Carer’s Allowance using DWP administrative data, and information on benefit receipt on a household and benefit unit basis is available through the Family Resources Survey (FRS), on Stat-Xplore, with various geographical breakdowns provided.
You can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest user and, if needed, you can access
guidance on how to extract the information required. There is also Family Resources Survey data on Stat-Xplore: user guide available.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to support tailored, small-cohort employability programmes for care-experienced young people that include one-to-one career coaching, work experience opportunities and in-work mentoring.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is committed to improving employment outcomes for care‑experienced young people and ensuring they can access the personalised support they need to move into and stay in work. Our new programme, Connect to Work is a £1 billion voluntary, locally commissioned, Supported Employment programme for anyone who is disabled, has a health condition or is experiencing complex non-health related barriers to work which includes care experienced young people. The programme will support around 300,000 people across England and Wales by the end of the decade.
Robust international evidence shows that Supported Employment, which provides a holistic approach to supporting individuals with more complex barriers to employment, can be effective in helping these people into sustained employment.
Participants are given a dedicated, specialist employment support adviser who works alongside them to understand their career goals and help them to address any specific barriers to employment. The adviser seeks good labour market matches for the participant. Participants are supported to have conversations with prospective employers, removing the need to go through complex application processes. The employment adviser works with both the employer and the participant to ensure that the transition into work is smooth and that the workplace is inclusive.
Out of Work participants receive one-to-one support from Connect to Work for up to 12 months to help identify and fulfil employment goals that are suitable for their circumstances. In work participants who are at risk of falling out of employment or self-employment due to their disability or complex barriers can receive up to 4 months support.
Asked by: Roz Savage (Liberal Democrat - South Cotswolds)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what cross-departmental work is being undertaken to help ensure disabled people are not disadvantaged where one Government department requires telephone contact as the primary or sole method of progressing a case.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
It is the responsibility of each government department to ensure that their communications meet the needs of the general population as appropriate.
The Public Sector Equality Duty is a general duty at Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010. It requires public authorities, and private and voluntary organisations carrying out public functions, to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations between different people. This applies to their day-to-day work, including in delivering services.
In order to meet the Duty, Government departments routinely carry out equality assessments of policy and operational changes. These help policy makers to fully consider how decisions may affect different groups in different ways, and design their policies accordingly.