Department for Work and Pensions

There are two contributory State Pension systems currently operating which depend on when the individual reaches their State Pension age. The pre-April 2016 system comprised: a basic State Pension and an additional earnings-related State Pension. The new State Pension was introduced in April 2016. The amount people receive under both systems will depend on their National Insurance record.

(a) At the quarter ending August 2024 in Great Britain, 34% of State Pension recipients received the new State Pension and 66% received the pre-2016 system.

(b) At the quarter ending August 2024 in Bromsgrove constituency, 32% of State Pension recipients received the new State Pension and 68% received the pre-2016 system.

Source: DWP Stat-Xplore.

The latest statistics on food bank usage including data at a national and regional level can be found in the household food security tables located here: Family Resources Survey: financial year 2022 to 2023 - GOV.UK

The latest statistics on food bank usage including data at a national and regional level can be found in the household food security tables located here: Family Resources Survey: financial year 2022 to 2023 - GOV.UK

Delivering our manifesto commitment to tackle child poverty is an urgent priority for this Government, and the Ministerial Taskforce is working to publish a Child Poverty Strategy which will deliver lasting change.

The Strategy will look at levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience; and better local support especially in the early years. This will build on the reform plans underway across government and work underway in Devolved Governments.

As part of the Strategy's development, the Taskforce is considering the potential impact of policies across government, including the potential impacts of the planned reforms to the Work Capability Assessment.

As announced in the Get Britain Working White Paper, Trailblazers to test more localised delivery of the Youth Guarantee and support for people who are economically inactive are due to launch starting from April 2025. We are working closely with the Trailblazer delivery areas to develop their plans, which includes evaluation and performance information ahead of rollout.

As part of our plan to Get Britain Working, we will launch a new Youth Guarantee for all young people aged 18-21 in England to ensure that they can access quality training opportunities, an apprenticeship or help to find work. The Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education are working closely with the eight Mayoral Strategic Authorities in England set to receive grant funding to deliver the Youth Guarantee Trailblazers from Spring 2025. We will use the learning from these Trailblazers to inform the future design and development of the Youth Guarantee as it rolls-out across the rest of England.

This is alongside a new national jobs and careers service to help get more people into work, work health and skills plans for the economically inactive, and the launch of Skills England to open new opportunities for young people. We will work in partnership with organisations and businesses at the national and local level to offer exciting and engaging opportunities to young people. This could include work experience, training courses or employability programmes.

The Government is also reforming the apprenticeships offer into a more flexible growth and skills offer, aligned to the industrial strategy. The Department for Education is working to introduce new foundation apprenticeships for young people, as well as shorter duration apprenticeships, in targeted sectors. These will help more people learn new high-quality skills at work, fuel innovation in businesses across the country, and provide high-quality entry pathways for young people.

DWP currently provides young people aged 16-24 with labour market support through an extensive range of interventions at a national and local level. This includes flexible provision driven by local need, nationwide employment programmes and support delivered by work coaches based in our Jobcentres and in local communities working alongside partners.

Delivering our manifesto commitment to tackle child poverty is an urgent priority for this Government, and the Ministerial Taskforce is working to publish a Child Poverty Strategy which will deliver lasting change.

The Strategy will look at levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience; and better local support especially in the early years. This will build on the reform plans underway across government and work underway in Devolved Governments.

The Taskforce is listening to experts and campaigners and engaging with families, charities, campaigners and leading organisations across the UK to shape and inform the Strategy.

The vital work of the Taskforce comes alongside our commitments to triple investment in breakfast clubs to over £30 million, introduce a Fair Repayment Rate for deductions from Universal Credit, and increase the National Living Wage to £12.21 an hour from April to boost the pay of three million workers.

Tackling child poverty is at the heart of this Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity, and the Ministerial Child Poverty Taskforce is working to publish a Child Poverty Strategy to deliver lasting change.

The Strategy will look at levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience; and better local support especially in the early years. This will build on the reform plans underway across government and work underway in Devolved Governments. As part of the Strategy's development, the Taskforce is considering the potential impact of policies across government.

We are committed to reforming the system of health and disability benefits so that it promotes and enables employment among as many people as possible. The system must also work to support disabled people to live independently and be financially sustainable in the long term. We will set out our proposals for reform in a Green Paper ahead of the Spring Statement later this year.

Trustees will continue to be at the heart of decision making. Working with employers, they will consider how best to use DB scheme surplus to benefit members and employers. More flexibility can fuel growth, provide benefits for the economy and ensure members remain protected. The Government will set out further details in its response to the Options for Defined Benefit schemes consultation this Spring.

The findings from the Autonomy Institute's report, entitled ‘Transforming Employment and Support Infrastructure’, demonstrates the importance of reforming Jobcentres and the difference this can make to citizens.

Through the Get Britain Working White Paper published in November 2024, the government set out our vision to reform Jobcentre Plus and create a new service across Great Britain that will enable everyone to access employment support, aligned more effectively with skills and careers. We recognise that people are individuals with different support needs, and we want everyone who wants it to be able to access tailored support, not just those on benefits.

We are taking a test and learn approach to developing the new service and are committed to working with users of the new service, and organisations representing their needs, throughout the design process to ensure the new service is inclusive, accessible, and works for everyone.

We want to shift the focus of the customer-work coach relationship away from compliance and box-ticking around these requirements to make room for more constructive, personalised, career-focused conversations. As we set out in the White Paper, we have committed to develop the work coach profession and the careers adviser profession in England. Further building our work coaches’ capabilities is essential to delivering our ambition for the new service. We will launch a coaching academy that will upskill our teams and ensure they can deliver the high-quality, personalised, action-oriented coaching conversations.

Whilst the impact of changes to the Skilled Worker Salary threshold, introduced in April 2024, are affecting a very small proportion of staff within the Department, visa expiry and potential options for obtaining a future work visa are specific to individuals’ circumstances and the Home Office legislation which applies at the time that their current visa expires.

As current employees’ Visa expiry dates span several years and not all will be impacted by the changes to the skilled worker salary thresholds, the department does not expect changes to the Skilled Worker salary threshold to negatively impact on service levels.

There are currently no plans to commission an independent investigation into the mortality rates of paying parents using the Child Maintenance Service.

The Child Maintenance Service is committed to delivering a safe service that is sensitive to the needs of all parents who use it. We recognise that some parents may face difficult circumstances, particularly during separation.

The Child Maintenance Service is well-prepared to respond quickly and effectively if it becomes aware that any customer's safety is at risk. All caseworkers receive extensive training and follow a well-managed process with clear steps to support vulnerable clients, including those at risk of suicide, self-harm, or domestic abuse. Our priority is to handle these cases sensitively and ensure vulnerable customers get the help and support they need to use the service safely. This may include signposting to support organizations or reporting to the police if necessary.

Government keeps the rates of benefits, state pension and statutory pay under review.

Parental pay is reviewed annually at the discretion of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. From April 2025, subject to parliamentary approval, the rate will increase by September 2024's CPI figure of 1.7%, from £184.03 to £187.18 per week

Parental pay is only one element of the support available for parents. Depending on individual circumstances, additional financial support, for example, Universal Credit, Child Benefit and the Sure Start Maternity Grant (a lump sum payment of £500) may also be available.

The Government has committed to conduct a review of the whole parental leave system. This review will focus on ensuring that parental leave offers the best possible support to working families. Work is already underway on planning for its delivery.

We have heard from pension schemes and industry representatives about the impacts arising from this judgment for pension schemes, their members, and sponsoring employers. Potential impacts are likely to be different for individual schemes.

Where schemes do not have a way to demonstrate that historic benefit changes met the reference scheme test, we recognise that this could lead to uncertainty and additional costs.

No final decisions have been made but we are actively considering our next steps and will provide an update in due course.

We have heard from pension schemes and industry representatives about the impacts arising from this judgment for pension schemes, their members, and sponsoring employers. Potential impacts are likely to be different for individual schemes.

Where schemes do not have a way to demonstrate that historic benefit changes met the reference scheme test, we recognise that this could lead to uncertainty and additional costs.

No final decisions have been made but we are actively considering our next steps and will provide an update in due course.

I refer the honourable member to the answer given on 18 November 2024 to question UIN 14156.

The first £10 of any War Pension payment or Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) award made due to injury or disablement is disregarded in Pension Credit. Income is calculated on a weekly basis, so the disregard is £10 per week.

Four additions to the War Disablement Pension are completely disregarded: Constant Attendance Allowance; Mobility Supplement; Severe Disablement Occupational Allowance; and dependency increases for anyone other than the applicant or her / his partner.

War Pensions and AFCS awards are a qualifying income for the Savings Credit element of Pension Credit, which is available to those who reached State Pension age before April 2016.

Armed Forces Independence Payments are fully disregarded in Pension Credit and can also allow the recipient to qualify for an additional disability amount.

As of the 2021 census, there were approximately 33,700 women who were born in 1950 or later, in the Waveney Valley constituency. Of these, approximately 6,900 were born in the 1950s.

It is not possible to accurately calculate the exact number of women born after April 6, 1950.

Most working-age customers residing in supported housing now receive Universal Credit for their daily living costs and Housing Benefit for their rent support. Customers in receipt of Universal Credit are not eligible for extended rent support as Universal Credit is both an in-work and out-of-work benefit.

Like Universal Credit, Housing Benefit has an income taper. As Housing Benefit may be claimed by those both in work and out of work, there are no rules around the number of hours that someone may work; instead, there are income tapers which apply.

The income taper in Housing Benefit ensures people in work are better off than someone wholly reliant on benefits. In addition to any financial advantage, there are important non-financial benefits of working. These benefits include learning new skills, improved confidence and independence as well as a positive effect on an individual's mental and physical health. However, Housing Benefit treatment of earnings is less generous than that of Universal Credit. Therefore, although customers living in Supported Housing are better off working than doing no work at all, they can be financially better off limiting the hours they work to ensure they retain a small amount of Universal Credit entitlement.

Notwithstanding these positive outcomes from work, the Department acknowledges there is a challenge presented by the interaction between Universal Credit and Housing Benefit for those residing in Supported Housing and Temporary Accommodation and receiving their housing support through Housing Benefit. The department will consider the issue carefully in partnership with stakeholders.

As part of our nationwide Pension Credit campaign, the Department has engaged with all councils in Great Britain, including Wokingham Borough Council, via the regular Local Authority Welfare Direct bulletins. In response to our call to action, 200 councils across Great Britain have supported our Pension Credit campaign either on social media, or by distributing the promotional material we have provided.

Wokingham Borough Council requested printed materials to share locally and has shared our messages through their social media channels, successfully signposting local people to Pension Credit information and resources. DWP has developed an ongoing relationship with their Communications Team and engaged with them recently, including in January as part of the Energy Savers Week Pension Credit campaign.

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) aim to complete each Mandatory Reconsideration within 28 days (20 working days).

The average clearance time for a Mandatory Reconsiderations is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

Table 9: Mandatory Reconsiderations, Great Britain, April 2015 to September 2024 is available in the latest CMS published statistics, and it shows that between July and September 2024, 79% of CMS Mandatory Reconsiderations were cleared within 28 days of receipt.

HMRC and DWP already have well established data-sharing processes and procedures, which are governed by the rules on how data can be accessed, shared and used whilst safeguarding individuals’ data and privacy. DWP officials are currently considering options of using government data, including HMRC data, more effectively to help identify households eligible for Pension Credit. However, a person’s eligibility for Pension Credit and the amount they may get depends on their particular financial and personal circumstances and not all of these can be accurately determined from Government data alone.

This government is determined to reduce fraud and error in the social security system. To tackle benefit overpayments, we agreed £8.6bn of savings at the Autumn Budget 2024 – the biggest fraud and error package on record, which led the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to forecast that we will reduce fraud and error to pre-pandemic levels.

On January 22^nd 2025, we introduced the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill which will help the government better identify, prevent and deter public sector fraud and error and enable the better recovery of debt owed to the taxpayer.

As part of the £8.6bn savings, this Bill is estimated to deliver benefits of £1.5bn over the next five years, as scored by the OBR. This is made up of £940 million in savings related to fraud and error overpayments, and £565 million in additional debt recoveries.

As part of the Get Britain Working White Paper the government announced that we will launch a new Youth Guarantee for all young people aged 18-21 in England to ensure that they have access to further learning, help to get a job or an apprenticeship.

The Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education are working closely with the eight Mayoral Strategic Authorities in England who will begin delivering the Youth Guarantee Trailblazers announced in the Get Britain Working white paper from Spring 2025. The Youth Guarantee Trailblazers will test how new local leadership, accountability structures and existing provision can be integrated into a cohesive education, training and employment support offer to tackle the rising number of young people who are not participating in education, employment or training.

We will use the learning from these Trailblazers to inform the future design and development of the Youth Guarantee as it rolls-out across the rest of England, which will include Forest of Dean constituency.

DWP currently provides young people aged 16-24 on Universal Credit with labour market support through an extensive range of interventions at a national and local level. This includes flexible provision driven by local need, nationwide employment programmes and other appropriate support, including Sector-based Work Academy Programmes, work experience and apprenticeships.

The Government is also reforming the apprenticeships offer into a more flexible growth and skills offer, aligned to the industrial strategy. The Department for Education is working to introduce new foundation apprenticeships for young people, as well as shorter duration apprenticeships, in targeted sectors. These will help more people learn new high-quality skills at work, fuel innovation in businesses across the country, and provide high-quality entry pathways for young people.

ONS data on 18-24 year-olds claiming unemployment-related benefits is available at: CLA02: Claimant Count by age group - Office for National Statistics

Policy on engaging with the Muslim Council of Britain was not discussed prior to attending this event.

This engagement will not be recorded as a ministerial meeting. As the value of hospitality did not surpass the de minimis level, this event will not be recorded in hospitality returns.

Policy on engaging with the Muslim Council of Britain was not discussed prior to attending this event.

This engagement will not be recorded as a ministerial meeting. As the value of hospitality did not surpass the de minimis level, this event will not be recorded in hospitality returns.

Personal Independence Payment, the main disability benefit, is based on an assessment of the customer’s needs and not whether they have a particular condition or not. Award reviews are a key feature of these benefits to ensure that the level of benefit matches the customer’s current needs.

The Health Transformation Programme is modernising health and disability benefit services to improve efficiency and customer experience. By improving how we gather evidence and by enabling the re-use of information, the new service will provide DWP agents and Healthcare Professionals with easier access to relevant information. This will reduce the burden on customers to provide complex information and reduce the need for them to provide it more than once. As part of this, we are exploring the potential for data sharing between the Department for Health and Social Care and DWP.

A criminal investigation into social security fraud may be pursued in any case where there is a credible allegation and where there are sufficient facts, information, or intelligence, that indicate fraudulent activity may be occurring.

The individual circumstances of the claim will only be considered where they are relevant to a fraud allegation.

Whilst the impact of changes to the Skilled Worker Salary threshold introduced in April 2024 are affecting a very small proportion of staff within the Department, visa expiry and potential options for obtaining a future work visa are specific to individuals’ circumstances and the Home Office legislation which applies at the time that their current visa expires.

As current employee’s Visa expiry dates span several years and not all will be impacted by the changes to the skilled worker salary thresholds, the DWP Visa Sponsorship Team meet with Trade Unions weekly to ensure impacted members are supported.

DWP is a demand led organisation which determines the level of staffing resource required to deliver our services. Workforce Plans, which include recruitment, set out detailed plans to deliver the required level of resource.

Workforce Plans are regularly reviewed to meet latest demand and new policy requirements, and the Department prioritises resource across operational areas.

Where DWP identifies suspected fraud that leads to a criminal investigation, the Department is obliged to pursue all reasonable lines of enquiry, whether these point towards or away from a suspect. This is done in accordance with the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 and Code of Practice.

What amounts to a reasonable line of enquiry will always involve considering the facts of, and the issues in, the case. An enquiry must be proportionate, reasonable, and necessary. The decision must be based on an objective belief grounded in facts, information, or intelligence and cannot be based on any personal factors about an individual suspect.

I refer the honourable member to the answer I gave on 6 February 2025 to question UIN 28443.

There are currently no plans to publish all recorded responses to the forthcoming Green Paper consultation on health and disability benefits.

After the consultation period, we will review and analyse consultation responses and we will set out our response in a White Paper later this year.

The Department will be considering the issue of rent charging years with 53 Mondays as part of its wider Universal Credit Review.

The Department is committed to reviewing Universal Credit to make sure it is doing the job we want it to and meeting our objectives of making work pay and tackling poverty. We have already begun this work with the introduction of the new fair repayment rate announced in the Budget. We will continue to work closely with stakeholders as the review progresses to seek views on proposed areas of focus and untapped opportunities in UC. Parliament will be updated on progress and future changes accordingly.

The role of a Mandatory Reconsideration (MR) decision maker is to make a robust decision, supported by the law and available evidence.

In law there is no time limit within which a MR decision must be made. This reflects the overarching policy that the focus should be on making the right decision and not the speed of clearance. Decisions will be made without delay, but if the decision maker considers that more time is needed to gather or consider evidence, then they will give themselves that time to ensure they are confident that the decision made is correct.

There are no plans to review PIP MR timelines to align with the eight week period before a Motability vehicle must be returned. However, we are recruiting more MR decision makers and making overtime available to increase productivity and, in doing so, we expect to reduce wait times.

No such assessment is planned.

Taking over of a person’s home for use by criminals, also known as ‘cuckooing’, is an appalling practice which can drive violence, exploitation and anti-social behaviour in our communities. The Government’s Safer Streets Mission aims to tackle this issue.

The Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy (RSRS) policy, sometimes known as the bedroom tax, was introduced in 2013 for working age Housing Benefit or Universal Credit claimants where the claimant is living in the social rented sector in a property that is considered to have more bedrooms than their bedroom entitlement.

Those unable to meet a rental shortfall arising from this policy, can seek a Discretionary Housing Payment (DHP) from their local authority. DHPs can be paid to those in receipt of qualifying housing support who face a shortfall in meeting their rental housing costs.

As referenced in previous responses HL4289 and Question 5385, DWP works to a planned timescale of 50 working days to clear Pension Credit claims.

The funding was the first stage followed by securing staffing resource, training those people and enabling learning consolidation to process Pension Credit claims. As a result the Department has deployed over 500 additional people to ensure it has the capacity to assess all claims in reasonable timescales.

Since this action, the latest Average Actual Clearance Time is now down to 56 working days in week commencing 3 February 2025 after a peak of 87 working days week commencing 9 December 2024. However, Pension Credit is a complex benefit, and some claims require additional investigation or information from the customer, which can result in longer processing times.

Statistics on Pension Credit application volumes were published on 28 November 2024. This includes numbers of applications that were received, awarded and not awarded, up to 17 November 2024.Pension Credit applications and awards: November 2024 - GOV.UK The latest publication is due on 27th February 2025 and will cover data up to week commencing 17^th February 2025.

Please note, the Average Actual Clearance Time figures shown is unpublished management information, collected and intended for internal departmental use and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. It is rounded to the nearest working day and based on the week the claim was cleared, rather than the week the claim was made.

As referenced in previous responses HL4289 and Question 5385, DWP works to a planned timescale of 50 working days to clear Pension Credit claims.

The funding was the first stage followed by securing staffing resource, training those people and enabling learning consolidation to process Pension Credit claims. As a result the Department has deployed over 500 additional people to ensure it has the capacity to assess all claims in reasonable timescales.

Since this action, the latest Average Actual Clearance Time is now down to 56 working days in week commencing 3 February 2025 after a peak of 87 working days week commencing 9 December 2024. However, Pension Credit is a complex benefit, and some claims require additional investigation or information from the customer, which can result in longer processing times.

Statistics on Pension Credit application volumes were published on 28 November 2024. This includes numbers of applications that were received, awarded and not awarded, up to 17 November 2024.Pension Credit applications and awards: November 2024 - GOV.UK The latest publication is due on 27th February 2025 and will cover data up to week commencing 17^th February 2025.

Please note, the Average Actual Clearance Time figures shown is unpublished management information, collected and intended for internal departmental use and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. It is rounded to the nearest working day and based on the week the claim was cleared, rather than the week the claim was made.

The specific information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

To ensure that our consultation is accessible, we intend to produce a range of accessible formats of the Green Paper. Additionally, throughout the consultation period, we will continue to listen to and work with disabled people and their representatives through a number of accessible public and virtual events where individuals will be encouraged to give their views on the consultation in person or virtually. Full details on how to sign up and attend these events will be shared in due course, and we will work with partners to publicise them.

DWP continues to work closely with MHCLG as part of the Inter Ministerial Group on Homelessness and Rough Sleeping, supporting the development of a strategy to get back on track to ending homelessness. I represent the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to ensure accountability for our part in the strategy.

DWP provides over £30bn of housing support each year, as well as £100m of Discretionary Housing Payments for those entitled to housing support who may face a shortfall in meeting their rental costs. In addition, work coaches provide personalised employment support for those with additional vulnerabilities such as homelessness.

The group of Universal Credit and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) customers affected by the most severe health conditions or disabilities are considered to have limited capability for work-related activity (LCWRA). The Work Capability Assessment (WCA) criteria for assessing whether someone has LCWRA is not determined by a point score. To be found to have LCWRA, someone must be assessed as meeting one or more of the LCWRA criteria, which are set out in legislation.

Scoring 15 points against the WCA Limited Capability for Work (LCW) criteria, be that any single WCA activity or in total across the activities, would result in somebody being found to have LCW/being placed in the ESA Work-Related Activity Group.

The group of Universal Credit and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) customers affected by the most severe health conditions or disabilities are considered to have limited capability for work-related activity (LCWRA). The Work Capability Assessment (WCA) criteria for assessing whether someone has LCWRA is not determined by a point score. To be found to have LCWRA, someone must be assessed as meeting one or more of the LCWRA criteria, which are set out in legislation.

Scoring 15 points against the WCA Limited Capability for Work (LCW) criteria, be that any single WCA activity or in total across the activities, would result in somebody being found to have LCW/being placed in the ESA Work-Related Activity Group.

I refer the honourable member to the answer I gave on 14 October 2024 to question UIN 6904.