Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to increase (a) skills and (b) employment support for people in South Holland and the Deepings constituency in receipt of sickness benefits.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Get Britain Working White Paper, published in autumn 2024, and Pathways to Work Green Paper, published in spring 2025, set out the Government’s plan on skills and employment support, including for those in receipt of sickness benefits.
Our Pathways to Work guaranteed offer of personalised employment, health and skills support for all disabled people and those with health conditions on out of work benefits is backed by £1 billion a year of new funding by the end of the decade. Once fully rolled out, we anticipate this will include a support conversation to identify next steps, one-to-one caseworker support, periodic engagement and an offer of specialist long-term work health and skills support.
In addition, Connect to Work is being made available across all of England and Wales. This is a voluntary, locally commissioned, Supported Employment programme for individuals that are disabled, have a health condition or experiencing non-health related barriers to work to find and sustain employment. There is no benefit-related requirement for this programme. Lincolnshire County Council is the Lead Authority for the Lincolnshire Delivery Area and we expect them to open their service in spring 2026.
WorkWell is a health and employment support service providing integrated holistic early help for health-related barriers to work. WorkWell is delivered in partnership with health systems and has so far supported approximately 25,000 disabled people and people with health conditions to stay in and re-enter work. Following the success of the pilot, it will continue to be delivered in existing sites and expand across all of England including the Lincolnshire ICB. The expansion is backed by up to £259 million investment over three years.
Through the Adult Skills Fund in the 2025/26 academic year, we are spending £1.4 billion for eligible adults aged 19 and above from pre-entry to level 3, to support adults to gain the skills they need for work, an apprenticeship or further learning. In South Holland and the Deepings, the Adult Skills Fund fully funds learners who are unemployed or earn less than £25,750 (annual gross salary).
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of introducing legally-binding targets for reducing child poverty.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Monitoring and Evaluation framework published alongside the Strategy set out that a baseline report will be published in Summer 2026 with annual reporting on progress thereafter and Government already has a statutory duty to publish poverty statistics annually. We have put these clear reporting arrangements in place so that the progress we make is transparent for all.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what performance metrics his Department will use to evaluate the employment outcomes of participants in construction training initiatives.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Sector-based Work Academy Programme (SWAP) is a Department for Work and Pensions initiative designed to help unemployed people move into work. It offers sector-specific training, work experience and a guaranteed job interview, supporting claimants to develop the skills and behaviours that employers are looking for in key industries such as construction.
A SWAP is demand-led and generally run in sectors with high volumes of vacancies; this includes the construction sector. From April 2021 to December 2025, there have been 65,930 starts on construction SWAPs. This represents 15% of all SWAP starts in that timeframe. We publish management information on SWAPs quarterly (Sector-based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs) Management Information - GOV.UK). This includes SWAP starts by sector, and the proportion of SWAP starts with earnings at 6 and 9 months following a SWAP start.
DWP also collect and publish information about Skills Bootcamps starts, completions and employment outcomes. Further information about the methodology can be found on the relevant Explore Education Statistics page: Skills bootcamps starts, completions and outcomes, Financial year 2023-24 - Explore education statistics - GOV.UK
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 his Department incentivises private contractors to increase face-to-face assessments.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Functional Assessment Service (FAS) contracts set clear targets that incentivise delivery of all assessments. Contracts also include a requirement for the delivery of face to face assessments.
Asked by: Sam Rushworth (Labour - Bishop Auckland)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of payments were made through the Child Maintenance Service collect and pay system in each of the last three years.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department regularly publishes Child Maintenance Service official statistics, with the latest statistics available to September 2025, and detailed quarterly statistics on the number of CMS Arrangements available on Stat-Xplore.
The table CMS Arrangement 1: Service Type and Paying Status by Quarter shows the number of CMS arrangements by service type for each quarter from March 2016 to September 2025. The table provides figures for the number of Collect & Pay arrangements for which the Paying Parent paid some child maintenance during the quarter, and those where no payment was made.
Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access guidance on how to extract the information required.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many directors with responsibility for human resources are employed across their department and its executive agencies; and how many of those directors hold professional HR qualifications from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development or equivalent professional bodies.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Number of Directors with responsibility for HR across DWP and its Executive Agencies | Number of these who have a CIPD qualification or equivalent |
5 | 5 |
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 prevent economic abuse of women occurring through child maintenance; what safeguards the Child Maintenance Service has in place to identify and respond to such cases; whether he plans to introduce further measures; and what the timetable is for implementing measures to strengthen protections for affected women and children.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The CMS has access to resources which help caseworkers provide signposting to supporting organisations that support victims and survivors of domestic abuse. All CMS caseworkers receive extensive training and follow a well-managed process and domestic abuse plan which includes steps to support and recognise domestic abuse, including economic abuse and coercive and controlling behaviour.
The Government’s focus is to deliver a policy that meaningfully protects parents who are victims of domestic abuse. We believe the best way to achieve that is through the removal of the Direct Pay service. Under the reformed service, all cases will be managed in a single service where the CMS monitors and transfers all payments. Reforms to the CMS will provide a safer service for victims and survivors by preventing unwanted contact with the other parent and removing opportunities for abuse that currently exist in Direct Pay, including the need for receiving parents to report non-compliance.
Our intention remains to remove Direct Pay, and we will do so as soon as parliamentary time allows. In the meantime, we are strengthening our support for victims/survivors, for example by making it easier for parents to switch to the Collect and Pay service and being clearer in our communication about what support is available for victims and survivors of domestic abuse and how to access it.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will hold discussions with the Northern Ireland Executive on how people using the Youth Guarantee Trailblazers scheme in England can find employment in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Skills and employment support policies are fully transferred to the Northern Ireland Executive, and the nature and scope of support for young people is a matter for the Northern Ireland Executive to determine. Senior officials from the DWP and Northern Ireland Executive are already working together to share learning and best practices whilst ensuring effective integration of reserved and devolved provision.
In England, the eight Youth Guarantee Trailblazers are testing approaches to identify and deliver localised support to young people who are or at risk of not being in employment, education or training. This includes strengthening local coordination through local leadership and outreach with partners including third sector organisations, employers and colleges to better connect young people with education, employment and training opportunities.
To evaluate the effectiveness of the Youth Guarantee Trailblazers, the Department for Work and Pensions has commissioned an evaluation, which is expected to build evidence on the effectiveness of the initiative. This will focus on improving employment outcomes, reducing economic inactivity, enhancing health and well-being, increasing participation in education and training, and strengthening systems integration. We expect to publish interim findings during the next two years and will develop the value for money assessment once longer term impacts have developed.
We will continue to work with the Northern Ireland Executive on the important issue of youth unemployment across the UK.
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, when are the private contracts for PIP assessments reviewed; and what ongoing scrutiny does his Department carry out on these contractors.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Functional Assessment Service (FAS) contracts (which include the PIP assessment service) are reviewed on an ongoing basis as part of comprehensive contract and performance management undertaken by the Department, ensuring contractors are held to account in fulfilling their contractual obligations.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of reviewing the enforcement processes of the Child Maintenance Service.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service has a range of strong enforcement powers that are designed to get money flowing quickly, prevent the build-up of arrears and ensure children get the financial support they deserve. These powers include the ability to deduct directly from the paying parent’s earnings or bank accounts and disqualifications from holding or obtaining driving licenses and passports.
The Government has announced our intention to reform the Child Maintenance when parliamentary time allows system. We will remove Direct Pay and move to a single, strengthened Collect and Pay system which will allow the CMS to monitor all payments, identify missed or partial payments immediately, and take faster enforcement action. Ahead of this change, the CMS is already moving non-compliant parents more quickly from Direct Pay to Collect and Pay.
In March 2025, CMS established a process to manage high- and medium-risk cases using predictive analytics, resulting in earlier identification of at-risk cases and enabling caseworker intervention at the earliest opportunity where indicators of non-compliance are identified.
To further improve arrears collection, the CMS will introduce administrative liability orders to replace the current court-based process. This will streamline enforcement, reduce delays, and help the CMS act more quickly against parents who avoid their responsibilities. Work with HM Courts and Tribunals Service and the Scottish Government is underway, and regulations will be brought to Parliament as soon as possible.