Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what was the median state pension for (1) men, and (2) women, (a) before 2016, and (b) since 2016.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Information on amounts of State Pension by gender are available at DWP Stat-Xplore. The table below provides information on the Median State Pension amount for (i) people who reached State Pension age before 6^th April 2016 and will get the basic State Pension and may get earnings-related additional State Pension, and (ii) those who reached State Pension age on or after 6th April 2016, who get the new State Pension. The information in the table below is based on the latest available quarter ending May 2024.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to reduce pensioner poverty in Bromsgrove.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The last Labour Government lifted over one million pensioners out of poverty, and this Government – despite having to make the tough decisions to deal with our fiscal inheritance – remains committed to giving pensioners the security they deserve in retirement.

We are honouring our commitment to the Triple Lock throughout this parliament, with a 4.1% increase to the basic State Pension and the new State Pension this April. We are also increasing the standard minimum guarantee in Pension Credit by 4.1%. The full yearly rate of the new State Pension is forecast to increase by around £1,900 over the course of this parliament whilst the full yearly amount of the basic State Pension is forecast to increase by around £1,500.

The Government also offers direct financial help to low-income pensioners through Pension Credit, the Warm Home Discount and (in England & Wales) Cold Weather Payments and Winter Fuel Payments.

We know there are low-income pensioners who aren’t claiming Pension Credit. We want to ensure as many people as possible have access to this support and urge pensioners to check their eligibility. Pension Credit will passport them to receive Winter Fuel Payments in future, alongside other benefits – including help with rent, council tax, fuel bills and a free TV licence for those over 75. That’s why Government is taking significant steps to raise awareness and maximise take-up.

Low-income pensioners and others struggling with the cost of living should contact their local council to see what further support may be available to them. They may be able to receive support from energy support programs or through the Household Support Fund, a scheme providing discretionary support to those most in need towards the cost of essentials, such as food, energy and water.

The Government has extended the Household Support Fund in England by a further year, (until 31 March 2026) – with funding of £742 million provided to enable this extension in England, plus additional funding for the devolved Governments to be spent at their discretion, as usual.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to help reduce the number of deaths associated with asbestos-related diseases.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is tackling Great Britain’s asbestos legacy using a variety of regulatory interventions, including licencing of removal contractors and inspection of the management of asbestos in situ, stakeholder engagement and research activities. Collectively, this supports duty holders and other stakeholders to manage asbestos safely to avoid further exposure to risk and work towards an asbestos-free built environment, in compliance with the stringent controls on working with asbestos introduced several decades ago.

The government recognises the devastating impact on those who have asbestos related disease and their families. We know that we need to do more. As part of this, HSE inspectors consider management of asbestos at every inspection of premises where asbestos may be present, they are holding an Asbestos Research Summit in March 2025 which will bring together technical experts and stakeholders to look at our strategic research priorities for asbestos and they are developing proposals to strengthen the existing legislative framework and intend to consult on this within the next financial year. We are also actively considering recommendations made by the Work and Pensions Select Committee to bring about a long term solution to Great Britain’s asbestos legacy.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much (a) her Department and (b) each of its Arm’s Length Bodies has spent on external public relations since 5 July 2024; and which firms that funding went to.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Public relations activity is a subset of communication spend. As such, this data is not held. The Government Communication Service encourages the prioritisation of low and no cost public relations activities wherever possible.

It is recommended that all external communications support should be procured through approved government frameworks, with strict controls in place to ensure cost-effectiveness.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much was spent on (a) translation and (b) interpretation for people contacting her Department in 2024.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

A) The spend on translation for people contacting the Department in 2024 was £882,118.

B) The spend on interpretation for people contacting the department in 2024 was £6,345,275. This includes access costs such as BSL etc.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure that the Child Maintenance Service takes action against people who are in arrears.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) will do everything within its powers to make sure parents comply and has made significant improvements to the process to speed up action when payments first break down and to target enforcement action more effectively.

Where parents fail to take responsibility for paying for their children, the CMS will not hesitate to use the full range of strong enforcement powers available. These include, using Enforcement Agents (previously known as bailiffs) to take control of goods, forcing the sale of property, removal of driving license or UK passport, deductions directly from earnings and bank accounts or even commitment to prison.

8% (£682.1 million) of the total maintenance due to be paid since the CMS began, remains to be collected through Collect & Pay but this is falling.

In the past year to September 2024, the CMS collected £16.8 million from paying parents with civil enforcement actions in process and an additional £5.4 million from paying parents with our most serious enforcement action in process.

In the twelve months to September 2024, there were 2,857 applications to the courts in England, Wales and Scotland for our most serious enforcement powers. Of these the courts issued two immediate prison sentences and 316 suspended prison sentences.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of holding a public consultation before implementing the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

DWP continues to seek feedback on the Bill through regular engagement with key stakeholders, including at official and ministerial level. This will ensure the measures are designed to be effective and take into consideration wider feedback from the financial sector, welfare organisations, business representative organisations and others.

There will be Codes of Practice for the Eligibility Verification Measure, Information Gathering and Debt Recovery powers, which DWP will publicly consult on before publication.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make it her policy to automatically publish her Department's (a) internal process review statistics on an annual basis and (b) all internal process reviews.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

For the last two operational years the department has reported on the Internal Process Reviews it undertakes in its Annual Report and Accounts. This is alongside reporting on the wider activities of its Advanced Customer Support Teams (available here: DWP annual report and accounts 2022 to 2023 - GOV.UK and here: DWP annual report and accounts 2023 to 2024 - GOV.UK). The department continues to consider what further information can be published in future Accounts.

The department also already has plans to publish further, separate information on its Internal Process Review in a way that shows what the Department has learned from these cases and the improvements that have been made, but which importantly does not disclose the sensitive, personal and confidential information that can surround these cases. Publication is planned to start by 31 March 2025.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of (a) Paying Parents and (b) Receiving Parents using the Child Maintenance Service disclosed domestic abuse in 2023-24.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Child Maintenance Service (CMS) did not capture the data requested on proportion of (a) Paying Parents and (b) Receiving Parents using the Child Maintenance Service who disclosed domestic abuse in 2023-24. Therefore, this information is not readily available to provide. To extract this data would involve the manual review of all CMS cases, at a significant cost to the department and taxpayer.

The Department is assessing how it can provide statistics on domestic abuse now the application fee exemption statistics are no longer published. The Department's Chief Statistician will oversee the development of these statistics to make sure they meet the Code of Practice for Statistics.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure that the Child Maintenance Service takes action against people committing fraud by hiding assets in order to avoid paying child maintenance.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Most parents pay some or all their maintenance liability without issue however, the Child Maintenance Service is aware of a small number of parents whose maintenance liability is inconsistent with their financial resources, usually because they can choose to support themselves via a complex arrangement of assets instead of, or in addition to, taking a salary.

Cases involving complex income or suspected fraudulent behaviour can be looked into by the FIU. This is a specialist team which can request information from financial institutions to check the accuracy of information the CMS is given.

In the quarter ending September 2024, 300 financial investigation cases were referred to the Financial Investigations Unit (FIU) in addition to 875 ongoing cases from previous quarters. In the same quarter, 340 financial investigations were completed of which 210 resulted in a maintenance assessment change.

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 excluding military compensation from income calculation when determining eligibility for (a) Universal Credit and (b) sickness benefits.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and 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. New Style Employment Support Allowance (ESA) disregards any guaranteed income scheme payable under the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme.

In the legacy income-related benefits, e.g. income-related ESA, there is a statutory £10 weekly disregard. However, Local Authorities have discretionary powers fully to disregard ‘war pension’ income in the assessment of Housing Benefit.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with the Welsh Government on the potential merits of devolving powers related to the administration of the social security system to Wales.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Secretary of State has not had any discussions with the Welsh Government about the devolution of the administration of the social security system to Wales.

The Government’s commitments on further devolution were outlined in our manifesto. We have no plans to devolve the administration of social security to Wales.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of items of correspondence from Parliamentarians received by (a) her Department, (b) herself and (c) her ministerial team have not received a substantive response in each month since August 2024.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Department does not keep this information centrally and therefore it is not readily available. Providing the information that the Department does hold would incur disproportionate costs.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government for how many universal credit claimants the calculation of earnings includes a work allowance, broken down by (1) gender of claimant, (2) whether it is a single or joint claim, and (3) whether the claimant has children or not.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The table below provides the number of Universal Credit claimants in October 2024 where the calculation of earnings includes a work allowance, broken down by gender of claimant, whether it is a single or joint claim, and whether the claimant has children or not.

Note: the data in the table above is from Universal Credit administrative data from October 2024 and subject to retrospective changes. The volumes are of people who were in payment of UC in October 2024 and those with positive earnings recorded in their award calculation. The figures have been rounded to 2 significant figures. Those with missing values have been excluded from the figures above. We have defined single status and couple status according to their standard allowance amount.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many Universal Credit claimants receive the lower rate of the standard allowance due to being below the age of 25, broken down by (1) gender of claimant, (2) whether it is a single or joint claim, and (3) whether the claimant has children or not.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The table below provides the number of Universal Credit claimants who receive the lower rate of standard allowance due to being below the age of 25. The data is for October 2024 and broken down by gender of claimant, whether it is a single or joint claim, and whether the claimant has children or not

Note: the data in the table above is from Universal Credit administrative data from October 2024 and subject to retrospective changes. The volumes are of people who were in payment of UC in October 2024. The figures have been rounded to 2 significant figures. Those with missing values have been excluded from the figure above. We have defined single status and couple status according to their standard allowance amount.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has made an assessment of the adequacy of the financial compensation available to those that have been exposed to asbestos in the workplace.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) provides specific support for people with asbestos-related conditions via a range of schemes.

Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB) provides non-contributory, “no-fault” benefit for disablement because of an accident at work, or because of one of over 70 prescribed diseases known to be a risk from certain jobs. IIDB is a weekly award that can be worth up to £11,500* per year and has been consistently uprated in line with inflation.

The department also provides one-off lump-sum compensation payments under the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979 (the ‘1979 Act scheme’) to individuals who suffer from one of the dust-related diseases covered by the scheme, subject to the wider eligibility criteria being satisfied. This scheme is designed to cover people who are unable to claim damages from any relevant employers because they have gone out of business.

Asbestos-related diseases covered by IIDB and the 1979 Act scheme include pneumoconiosis (including asbestosis), diffuse mesothelioma, unilateral or bilateral diffuse pleural thickening and asbestos-related primary carcinoma of the lung. Subject to Parliamentary approval, both IIDB and the 1979 Act scheme are due to be uprated by 1.7 per cent from April this year.

In addition to these schemes someone suffering from long-term disabling affects due to an asbestos-related condition may be eligible for further financial support via Personal Independence Payment, or through Universal Credit and New Style Employment and Support Allowance for those with a health condition that limits their ability to work.

Those who have been exposed to asbestos in the workplace may pursue a civil compensation claim against an employer. Where their employer no longer exists or their employer’s insurer cannot be traced, individuals diagnosed with diffuse mesothelioma may also be eligible for an award under the 2014 Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme if there is evidence that their exposure was due to employer negligence.

*Figure rounded to the nearest hundred.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent progress she has made on reducing the time taken for Access to Work applications to be processed.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We are committed to reducing wait times for Access to Work, and we have deployed additional staff to process claims and streamlined our delivery processes. We prioritise applications from customers starting a job in four weeks, and renewals.

Access to Work continues to be in high demand and we recognise that further work is needed to ensure that it is providing a timely and effective service for customers.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what statistics have been published regarding the gender of the bank account holder for Universal Credit since the 2019 publication Universal Credit Statistical Ad Hoc: Gender of bank account holder on Universal Credit; and what information is available, broken down by gender, of the person nominated as the lead carer in couples with children.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

There have been no further publications since 2019 on the gender of the bank account holder for UC.

A flag was developed to identify lead carers in our administrative data in July 2023, to enable us to monitor the rollout of the 2023 changes to lead carer conditionality. Based on data from October 2024, there were around 825,000 lead carers in receipt of UC with a couple claim: 87% are female, 13% are male. The tables below provide a breakdown of some further characteristics:

Characteristics of lead carers who are part of a couple claim on Universal Credit, October 2024

Note: totals may not sum to 100% due to rounding. These figures are from DWP administrative data.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to increase access to work capability assessments in South West Norfolk.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We have interpreted your question as referring to the accessibility of Work Capability Assessments (used in supporting the department in the determination of the health element of Universal Credit, Employment and Support Allowance and other specialist benefits) within the South-West Norfolk area.

We take our responsibility to ensure all individuals have access to our services, without disadvantage, very seriously. We have a range of provisions in place to ensure assessments are accessible to all individuals, in line with the standards under the Equality Act 2010. DWP meets legal accessibility requirements by ensuring individuals can access our services.

Consideration will be given to individuals who need a specific assessment channel due to their health condition or circumstances. At all stages of the claim, individuals are asked to advise us of any mobility restrictions. If the assessment supplier is made aware of mobility restrictions, they will consider booking a different assessment channel.

As part of the Functional Assessment Services process, the feasibility of a paper-based assessment will always be considered in the first instance. Where a paper-based review is not possible individuals will be invited to an assessment.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of the level of support provided by employers to their employees with ADHD.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Neurodivergent people bring many positive benefits to businesses but face particular barriers to employment, which is reflected in a poor overall employment rate. As a government, we want to support all forms of neurodiversity in the workplace, including ADHD, by encouraging employers to adopt neuro-inclusive working practices so that everyone can thrive at work.

On 29^th January, the Government launched an independent panel of academics with expertise and experiences of neurodiversity to advise us on boosting neurodiversity awareness and inclusion at work.

In keeping with the Government’s pledge to bring disabled voices closer to decision-making, at least half of the panel are neurodiverse themselves.

The panel will consider the reasons why neurodivergent people have poor experiences in the workplace, and a low overall employment rate. They will make recommendations in the Summer which consider likely mechanisms for change.

In parallel, we are working with other areas of government to promote awareness of neurodiversity amongst employers, and we recently announced Keep Britain Working, a major independent review of the employer’s role in reducing health-related inactivity and to promote healthy and inclusive workplaces, led by the former Chair of John Lewis, Sir Charlie Mayfield.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she is taking steps to increase the number of Personal Independence Payments assessments that are conducted face-to-face.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Since July 2024, there has been no change in policy regarding assessing Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claims remotely.

With effect from September 2024 assessment suppliers deliver the ‘Health Assessment Advisory Service’ on behalf of the department through the Functional Assessment Services (FAS) contracts. These contracts bring together all functional health assessment services within a geographic area (Lot). Individuals now have the same supplier for their separate PIP and Work Capability Assessments (WCA).

As part of the FAS process, the feasibility of a paper-based assessment will always be considered in the first instance, for all cases. Where a paper-based review is not possible the claimant will be invited to an assessment.

Before an invitation to an assessment is sent, consideration will be given to claimants who need a specific assessment channel due to their health condition or circumstances. Other claimants who can undertake any assessment type will be allocated to the next available appointment; however, this can be changed if the claimant informs us that a reasonable adjustment is appropriate in their circumstances.

The department audits FAS suppliers to ensure that the correct channel type has been selected for the claimant. This provides assurance that claimants are routed to the most appropriate assessment type. The FAS suppliers are also increasing their capacity to deliver more face-to-face assessments, and the department expects the reported percentage of face-to-face assessments to increase towards Autumn 2025.

We remain committed to enabling a multi-channel assessment approach. Any future decisions will be evidence-based and to ensure this we will draw on existing evidence, as well as continuing to build our understanding via research and analysis.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department’s policy on assessing Personal Independence Payments claims remotely has changed since 7 July 2024.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Since July 2024, there has been no change in policy regarding assessing Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claims remotely.

With effect from September 2024 assessment suppliers deliver the ‘Health Assessment Advisory Service’ on behalf of the department through the Functional Assessment Services (FAS) contracts. These contracts bring together all functional health assessment services within a geographic area (Lot). Individuals now have the same supplier for their separate PIP and Work Capability Assessments (WCA).

As part of the FAS process, the feasibility of a paper-based assessment will always be considered in the first instance, for all cases. Where a paper-based review is not possible the claimant will be invited to an assessment.

Before an invitation to an assessment is sent, consideration will be given to claimants who need a specific assessment channel due to their health condition or circumstances. Other claimants who can undertake any assessment type will be allocated to the next available appointment; however, this can be changed if the claimant informs us that a reasonable adjustment is appropriate in their circumstances.

The department audits FAS suppliers to ensure that the correct channel type has been selected for the claimant. This provides assurance that claimants are routed to the most appropriate assessment type. The FAS suppliers are also increasing their capacity to deliver more face-to-face assessments, and the department expects the reported percentage of face-to-face assessments to increase towards Autumn 2025.

We remain committed to enabling a multi-channel assessment approach. Any future decisions will be evidence-based and to ensure this we will draw on existing evidence, as well as continuing to build our understanding via research and analysis.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when she will provide an update on the (a) strategy and (b) expected publication date of the work of the Ministerial Child Poverty Task Force including on (i) child poverty and (ii) review of the two-child benefit cap.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

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 all available levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, including considering social security reforms, 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.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether there are any requirements to inform low-paid workers that they will pay 25 per cent more for their employer’s pension than they would if their employer auto-enrolled them into a pension fund with relief at source administration; and, if so, whose responsibility it is to inform them.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Employers are responsible for choosing a workplace pension scheme for their qualifying employees under the automatic enrolment framework.

The Pensions Regulator provides guidance for employers about how to comply with their automatic enrolment duties, including the information they must share with eligible employees.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of child maintenance service cases are being dealt with by the specialist domestic abuse caseworker team.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Child Maintenance Service takes the issue of domestic abuse extremely seriously and is committed to ensuring victims of abuse get the help and support they need to access and use the service safely and securely.

CMS caseworkers are provided with domestic abuse training to ensure they understand, recognise and respond safely and appropriately to customers who are experiencing domestic abuse, or are survivors of domestic abuse. In July 2024, the training was updated with input from external stakeholders, and covers different types of abuse, including economic, post-separation, coercive and controlling behaviour.

Specialist Case Team is one of the measures CMS have introduced to manage cases with the most challenging or complex domestic abuse concerns. This has minimised the need for parents to recount their history of domestic abuse and caseworkers to deliver support to some of the most vulnerable customers.

As of February 2025, the volume of cases in the Specialist Case Team was 301, this equates to 0.04% of CMS total customer caseload.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 22 January 2025 to Question 24303 on Pensioners: Winter Fuel Payment, if she will make an estimate of the number of those pensioners who are on the basic state pension.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

At May 2024, there were 3.5m pensioners with a basic State Pension income above £218.15: the Pension Credit Standard Minimum Guarantee (SMG) threshold for single pensioners. (Source: Stat-Xplore)

However, some pensioners with a basic State Pension income below the SMG will also have incomes from other sources, such as a private pension, which takes their total income above this threshold.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many calls to the Disability Service Centre helpline (a) were not answered, (b) involved the caller being on hold for more than 10 minutes and (c) were terminated by the Disability Service Centre following the caller being on hold for more than 10 minutes in each of the last 12 months.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Part (a)

The table below shows the total number of unanswered calls (Calls Abandoned from Agent Queue) for Disability Services, for each of the last 12 calendar months.

Part (b) The department does not hold data that enables us to answer this question.

Part (c) The department does not hold data that enables us to answer this question.

There are many reasons why calls to a service line can attract a high call abandonment rate which can include but is not limited to increased hold times. The abandonment of calls is an area that we are unable to fully analyse as there is no data to tell us exactly why a specific customer terminates a call. We are continuously monitoring the service and reviewing our approach to ensure we are able to deliver for our customers.

DISCLAIMER

Please note this information is derived from the Department’s management information, designed solely for the purpose of helping the Department to manage its business. As such, it has not been subjected to the rigorous quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics. As DWP holds the information internally, we have released it. However, it is possible information held by DWP may change due to operational reasons and we recommend that caution be applied when using it.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help reduce child poverty in Stratford-on-Avon constituency.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

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 vital work of the Taskforce comes alongside our commitments to triple investment in breakfast clubs to over £30 million, roll out free breakfast clubs at all primary schools, create 3,000 additional nurseries, and increase the National Living Wage to £12.21 an hour from April 2025 to boost the pay of 3 million workers.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what artificial intelligence technologies are used by her Department; and for what purpose each technology is used.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

DWP is working with a range of artificial intelligence technologies, such as Large Language Models (LLMs) and generative AI (gen AI) which will help DWP improve its ability to respond to customers’ needs in a more personalised and seamless way. Some of the details of these are already in the public domain as set out in DWP annual report and accounts 2023 to 2024 - GOV.UK.

DWP has already committed to publishing more details about work in this area as part of the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standards (ATRS) requirements from the Government Digital Service. The Personal information charter - Department for Work and Pensions - GOV.UK sets out individuals rights when we process their data.

DWP does not use AI to replace human judgement to determine or deny a payment to a claimant.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of pilot schemes for third party data sharing powers as set out in the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Third Party Data sharing powers were a proposal under the previous government, separate to the measures proposed in this Bill.

The Eligibility Verification Measure (EVM) is significantly different to the previously proposed Third Party Data power. EVM will be limited to information from banks and financial institutions only and will be used only for the purpose of helping to verify eligibility for benefits. The State Pension will be explicitly excluded, and it will be focussed initially on three benefits only: Universal Credit, Pension Credit and Employment and Support Allowance. A statutory Code of Practice will also be introduced and consulted on. There will be independent oversight reporting annually on the effectiveness of the measure and the legislation tightly defines what data can be gathered and for what purpose providing strong safeguards.

To demonstrate the feasibility and potential of using data from banks to help verify eligibility for benefits, DWP has already conducted two Proof of Concepts which consisted of establishing data-sharing collaborations with two high-street banks. These exercises showed promising results, for example in the first exercise around half of the matches generated for DWP to review led to a positive outcome for the department. Further information about these Proof of Concepts can be found in the published impact assessment for the Bill - Impact Assessment

The government is committed to rolling out the measure carefully through a test and learn approach to ensure it is workable and as effective as possible.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of the proportion of claimants who are unfit for work in the Universal Credit (a) limited capability for work and work related activity and (b) (i) income-related and (ii) contributory Employment and Support Allowance group who would not able to move into work if their additional disability component was removed.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

In the interim findings report of our Work Aspirations research, 62% of ESA/UC customers with no work-related activity requirements, and 36% with work-related activity requirements, felt they would never be able to work or work again. 28% of ESA/UC customers with no work-related activity requirements, and 38% with work-related activity requirements, felt they might be able to work in future if their health improved. 3% of ESA/UC customers with no work-related activity requirements, and 8% with work-related activity requirements, felt they could work right away if the right job or support was available.

The Work Capability Assessment is not working and needs to be reformed or replaced alongside a proper plan to help disabled people into work, which will help them, businesses and the economy.

We know that change is desperately needed but equally these sorts of changes shouldn’t be made in haste. So, alongside our Get Britain Working White Paper, we want to engage with disabled people, and others with expertise and experience on these issues, to consider how to address these challenges and build a better system.

We will reconsult on the WCA changes as part of our Green Paper in spring 2025 that will bring forward wider proposals to reform the health and disability benefits system.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Education on financial support available for mature students with caring responsibilities.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Successive Governments have held the principle that the benefit system does not normally support full-time students. Rather, they are supported by the educational maintenance system. Part-time students can receive Carer’s Allowance if they meet the entitlement conditions. Certain students when they have additional daily living costs that are not met by the student finance system may be eligible for Universal Credit (UC) and carer element of UC.

If a student with the consent of the educational establishment ceases the course temporarily to care for someone and they are not eligible for a student grant or loan, they may be eligible for UC for that period.

The Department works very closely with other departments and stakeholders, to help ensure young carers get the help and support they need and deserve. How we can best identify and support young carers to combine study with their caring responsibilities where they can, including taking account of changes in the education system, will form an important strand of our future work.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with financial services sector stakeholders on the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

DWP continues to seek feedback on the bill through regular engagement with key stakeholders, including the financial services sector, at both official and ministerial level.

Where there are particular areas of interest and expertise, detailed working group discussions are being held to ensure the measures are designed to be effective and take into consideration wider feedback from the sector.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many calls to the Pension Service helpline (a) were not answered, (b) involved the caller being on hold for more than 10 minutes and (c) were terminated by the Pension Service following the caller being on hold for more than 10 minutes in each of the last 12 months.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Response:

Part (a)

The table below shows the total number of unanswered calls (Calls Abandoned from Agent Queue) for The Pension Service, for each of the last 12 calendar months.

Part (b) The department does not hold data that enables us to answer this question.

Part (c) The department does not hold data that enables us to answer this question.

There are many reasons why calls to a service line can attract a high call abandonment rate which can include but is not limited to increased hold times. The abandonment of calls is an area that we are unable to fully analyse as there is no data to tell us exactly why a specific customer terminates a call. We are continuously monitoring the service and reviewing our approach to ensure we are able to deliver for our customers.

DISCLAIMER

Please note this information is derived from the Department’s management information, designed solely for the purpose of helping the Department to manage its business. As such, it has not been subjected to the rigorous quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics. As DWP holds the information internally, we have released it. However, it is possible information held by DWP may change due to operational reasons and we recommend that caution be applied when using it.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the value was of Pension Credit overpayments that were written off as resulting from official error in each of the last three years.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

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 effectiveness of the white mail artificial intelligence programme used by her Department.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Whitemail scanning complements existing systems. The AI tool flags correspondence for review by operational agents to determine customer vulnerability and appropriate actions. During solution development, digital teams collaborated closely with operational areas to identify vulnerable customers. This approach ensured that communications received by post were prioritised for those most in need. The solution was rolled out using a test and learn method, incorporating feedback from specialist support teams, and was widely adopted due to its positive impact on customer experience.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of the (a) number of migrants who have arrived in the UK in the last five years in receipt of benefits in Mid Leicestershire constituency and (b) the total value of those benefits in the latest period for which data is available.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost. The Department is exploring the feasibility of developing suitable official statistics related to the immigration status of non-UK / Irish Universal Credit customers.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make it her policy to increase Local Housing Allowance rates in line with inflation.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Local Housing Allowance (LHA) was introduced in 2008 and determines the maximum housing support for tenants in the private rented sector. Claimants in similar circumstances living in the same area are entitled to the same maximum rent allowance regardless of the contractual rent paid. LHA rates do not cover all rents in all areas.

In April 2024, LHA rates were restored at the 30^th percentile of local market rents at a cost of approximately £7bn over 5 years.

In relation to LHA rates remaining at current levels for 2025/26, the Government has had to take difficult decisions at Autumn Budget to address the challenging fiscal context. For LHA a range of factors were considered, including rental data, the impacts of LHA rates, the fact that rates were increased in April, and the wider fiscal context.

Decisions on LHA rates for future years will be taken in the context of the Government’s missions, housing priorities, and the fiscal context.

For those who need further support, Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) are available from local authorities. DHPs can be paid to those entitled to housing support who face a shortfall in meeting their housing costs.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment has been made of the adequacy of the uptake of Universal Credit in under 21s in the last 12 months.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Monthly statistics for the number of Starts to Universal Credit in Great Britain by age, are published quarterly on Stat-Xplore, and are currently available to October 2024, with statistics to January 2025 due to be published on Tuesday 18th February 2025.

Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access guidance on how to extract the information required. There is also a Universal Credit Official Statistics: Stat-Xplore user guide.

The Department’s Youth Offer provides individually tailored Work Coach support to young people aged 16 to 24 who are claiming Universal Credit. This support includes the Youth Employment Programme, Youth Employability Coaches for young people with additional barriers to finding work, and Youth Hubs across Great Britain.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if her Department will take steps to establish a funding scheme to support disabled candidates for elections in England.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

It is the Government’s ambition to see more disabled people in public office. The Government takes positive action to promote disabled people’s participation in public life, including protecting disabled people through the Equality Act 2010. In relation to accessing elected office specifically, political parties have responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010 to make reasonable adjustments to ensure that their disabled members who contest any political position are not disadvantaged and can take part in the same processes and opportunities as non-disabled people.

The Government has been clear that it will champion disabled people's rights, and work closely with them so that disabled people's views and voices are at the heart of all we do. We know that some disabled people still face additional financial barriers when standing for elected office. We are looking at how we might work with political parties and others to help tackle this.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many recipients of social security payments were subject to one or more deduction in each of the past five years; and what the (a) mean and (b) median monthly deduction was by constituency.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Some of the requested information for Universal Credit is published and available here: Universal Credit statistics, 29 April 2013 to 10 October 2024 - GOV.UK. Table 6 in the Universal Credit deductions statistics, supplementary data tables breaks down households with deductions by Advance deductions, Government deductions and Third Party deductions for each parliamentary constituency in August 2024.

The remaining information for Universal Credit is provided in the separate spreadsheet.

Information regarding other social security payments is not readily available, as it requires merging of different data tables from several sources, and to provide it would be at disproportionate cost.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the (a) mean and (b) median value was of deductions to social security payments for people in Middlesbrough and Thornaby East constituency in each of the last five years.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Some of the requested information for Universal Credit is published and available here: Universal Credit statistics, 29 April 2013 to 10 October 2024 - GOV.UK. Table 6 in the Universal Credit deductions statistics, supplementary data tables breaks down households with deductions by Advance deductions, Government deductions and Third Party deductions for each parliamentary constituency in August 2024.

The remaining information for Universal Credit is provided in the separate spreadsheet.

Information regarding other social security payments is not readily available, as it requires merging of different data tables from several sources, and to provide it would be at disproportionate cost.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many recipients of social security payments are subject to deductions in Middlesbrough and Thornaby East constituency; and for what reasons those people are subject to deductions.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Some of the requested information for Universal Credit is published and available here: Universal Credit statistics, 29 April 2013 to 10 October 2024 - GOV.UK. Table 6 in the Universal Credit deductions statistics, supplementary data tables breaks down households with deductions by Advance deductions, Government deductions and Third Party deductions for each parliamentary constituency in August 2024.

The remaining information for Universal Credit is provided in the separate spreadsheet.

Information regarding other social security payments is not readily available, as it requires merging of different data tables from several sources, and to provide it would be at disproportionate cost.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she plans to accelerate the rollout of Universal Credit.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

I refer the Hon Member to the Statement of 12 November (Written statements - Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the disregarded capital limit on pension credit was in each of the last 15 years; and if she will increase the disregarded capital limit in line with inflation since the last increase.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The capital disregard in Pension Credit has been set at £10,000 since 2009 and will remain at that level in 2025/26. Capital over £10,000 reduces weekly entitlement by £1 per £500 of capital. Unlike with working age income related benefits, there is no upper capital limit.

Benefit rules, including capital disregards in income related benefits, are kept under regular review. There are no plans to increase the capital disregard in Pension Credit.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many reports of benefit fraud were made to her Department in 2024; and how many and what proportion of these resulted in benefits being revoked.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The number of benefit fraud public referrals, received by Counter Fraud, Compliance and Debt (CFCD) in the Department, in the calendar year 2024 was 160,079. Data is not held on how many of these resulted in benefit being revoked.

Counter Fraud and Compliance has different approaches to tackling fraud, depending on the nature and severity. The team deploys a diverse range of expertise, technology, and intelligence to protect the integrity of the benefits system, correcting benefit where appropriate and bringing the most serious cases to justice. This approach has seen Counter Fraud and Compliance deliver over £1.2 billion savings for 2023-24.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to paragraph 28 of Schedule 7 of the Pensions Act 2004, if she will make an estimate of the number of pensioners who have accrued pensionable service before 6 April 1997 for which they do not receive annual increases in periodic compensation from the Pension Protection Fund in (a) Boston and Skegness constituency and (b) the UK.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The rules around PPF indexation are generally in line with the legal requirements for defined benefit pension schemes. I recognise this matter has been the subject of much discussion and am aware of the concerns of pensions scheme members affected by this issue. The estimate, as of 31 March 2024, for members of the Pension Protection Fund with accrued pensionable service prior to 6 April 1997, who do not receive annual increases in periodic compensation are:

• Around 650 pensioners in the PPF who live in the Boston and Skegness constituency.
• Around 172,000 pensioners who live in the UK.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average (a) waiting time for people calling and (b) time people spent on hold for her Department was in 2024.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The table below shows the Average Speed of Answer and Total Hold Time, in an hours, minutes and seconds (hh:mm:ss) format, for all people calling DWP during the calendar year, 2024.

DISCLAIMER

Please note this information is derived from the Department’s management information, designed solely for the purpose of helping the Department to manage its business. As such, it has not been subjected to the rigorous quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics. As DWP holds the information internally, we have released it. However, it is possible information held by DWP may change due to operational reasons and we recommend that caution be applied when using it.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the Minister for Social Security and Disability travelled to the Muslim Council of Britain's leadership dinner on 25 January 2025 by Ministerial car; whether the invitation was (a) received and (b) accepted through his Ministerial office; whether he has made a declaration of hospitality; and whether Government business was discussed at the event by the Minister.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

I travelled by public transport to and from the Muslim Council of Britain leadership dinner on the evening of 20 January 2025. My ministerial office was not involved in the invitation arrangements.

I was at the event for approximately an hour, and consumed only a glass of water. No ministerial business was discussed.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 30 January 2025 to Question 26008 on Pension Credit, how many people eligible for Pension Credit were awaiting Winter Fuel Payments as of (a) 30 December 2024 and (b) 31 January 2025.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

Where the customer is eligible for a Winter Fuel Payment, the Department aims to make this payment within 2 weeks of the award of Pension Credit. Customers won't miss out on Winter Fuel Payments even if their qualifying benefit takes longer to process than usual.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much was spent on translation in Jobcentres in 2024.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The total spent on translation in Jobcentres in 2024 was £882,118. This figure includes International Pension Service.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the time taken for Pension Credit applications to be approved and what steps her Department is taking to reduce the time taken for Pension Credit applications to be processed.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

DWP works to a planned timescale of 50 working days to clear Pension Credit claims. The most recent information on processing times for Pension Credit was published in the DWP annual report and accounts 2023 to 2024 - GOV.UK (ARA) on 22nd July 2024. This shows that in 2023/24 DWP cleared 192,000 Pension Credit claims within the planned 50 working day timescale, equating to 77.7%. The next publication of the ARA will include claims processed in the Financial Year 2024 to 2025, which is due for publication in the summer.

As a result of the increase in Pension Credit claims, the Department has deployed over 500 additional people to ensure it has the capacity to assess all claims in reasonable timescales. The latest available information for week commencing 20 January 2025 shows that the Average Actual Clearance Time for Pension Credit is 45 working days. 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.

Please note, the Average Actual Clearance Time figure 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.

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 impact of job centres on economic growth in (a) Newcastle-under-Lyme constituency and (b) Staffordshire.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Jobcentre colleagues understand the labour market needs of their local areas. Across Newcastle-under-Lyme and Staffordshire, our Jobcentre teams engage with employers and providers to host job fairs, Sector-Based Work Academy Programmes, recruitment events and group information sessions to support customers to improve their ability to enter and retain employment. Higher participation in the labour market, and more people in work are key to supporting the Government’s mission to kickstart economic growth.

As announced in the recent Get Britain Working White Paper, we are reforming Jobcentre Plus and creating a new service that will enable everyone to access support to find good, meaningful work, and support to help them progress in work, including through an enhanced focus on skills and careers advice. This new service will transform our ability to support people into work, help those on low pay to increase their earnings, and create a more flexible workforce for a fast changing, higher skilled jobs market. This transformation is expected to contribute to economic growth by addressing local skills gaps and providing tailored support to meet the needs of local labour markets.

Since September 2024 we have delivered 42 Sector Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs) in Staffordshire with the majority of them supporting the Construction, Education & Teaching, Transport and Adult Social Care. Thes SWAPs have supported several employers with their recruitment activity.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure that direct deduction orders do not leave people in relative poverty.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) encourages paying parents to pay their maintenance on time in order to avoid accrual of arrears. Where a paying parent fails to pay on time or in full, the Service is committed to using its wide-ranging enforcement powers proportionately to recover the debt and re-establish compliance to ensure children receive the financial support they need and deserve.

When appropriate, CMS can implement one of two types of deduction order, Regular deduction order (RDO) or Lump sum deduction order (LSDO).

The Department has a range of safeguards in place to prevent deductions from pushing people in to poverty. Decisions about enforcement actions are made on a case-by-case basis, considering the welfare of all parties, potential financial hardship of paying parents, and the most appropriate action to give the greatest chance of securing money for children. RDOs should not exceed 40 per cent of the paying parent's gross weekly income, and LSDOs can only be made if the account has a credit balance above a minimum amount of £110.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of the median income for pensioners in the 2024-25 financial year.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Pensioners’ Incomes statistics contains estimates of the levels, sources and distribution of pensioners’ incomes. This is published by the department annually. The latest data covers financial year ending 2023.

In financial year ending 2023, it is estimated that the median net income for all pensioner units was £424 per week before housing costs, and £387 per week after housing costs. This information is available in Table 2.1 of the Pensioners' Incomes: financial years ending 1995 to 2023 tables, which can be found here: Pensioners' Incomes: financial years ending 1995 to 2023 - GOV.UK

Pensioners’ Incomes data is derived from the Family Resources Survey and covers private households in the United Kingdom. A pensioner unit can be a single pensioner over State Pension age, a pensioner couple where one member is over State Pension age, or a pensioner couple where both members are over State Pension age.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the accessibility of the appeals process for deduction orders.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) takes the accessibility of the appeals process for Regular Deduction Order (RDO) or Lump Sum deduction Order (LSDO) seriously.

Guidance on how to appeal the deduction order is enclosed with the final lump sum deduction order letter when it is sent to the paying parent. The guidance clearly points out the time limits associated with an appeal.

The Family Court rules determine the 21 days afforded to appeal a deduction order is absolute. Neither CMS nor the courts have the power to extend the period to appeal beyond 21 Days.

The Judicial Review Team is aware that the Family Courts in England and Wales are experiencing unprecedented demand for their services and as such there is a delay in responding to customers’ deduction order appeals. To mitigate matters for the customer, measures have been put in place to hold the secured funds with the deposit taker for longer provided the customer can provide evidence the appeal was filed in the court within the 21-day appeal window.

The Judicial Review Team do investigate the lawfulness of the application of the deduction order. If errors are identified, action is taken to remedy those errors. This may involve reducing the amount of the sums frozen or discharging the funds completely. However, if the deduction order is lawful the Judicial Review Team will mount a defence to the appeal instructing a solicitor from the Government Legal Department to assist. Appeals are determined by a District Judge sitting in the Family Court.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people have had their driving license suspended for failure to pay child maintenance in each of the last five years.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

• From January to September 2024, the courts issued 1 immediate and 5 suspended disqualifications for driving.

• From January to December 2023, the courts issued 4 suspended disqualifications for driving.

• From January to December 2022, the courts issued 1 immediate and 8 suspended disqualifications for driving.

• From January to December 2021, the courts issued 1 immediate and 4 suspended disqualifications for driving.

• From January to December 2020, the courts issued 2 suspended disqualifications for driving.

Current legislation for driving license and passport removal requires repayment of the debt within six months, whereas legislation covering commitment to prison allows the courts to order the paying parent to repay debt in instalments over a two-year period. This longer period is generally more appropriate, so the commitment to prison power is used more often.

It should also be noted that these are actions of last resort and are intended to have a deterrent effect. The low number of sentences given may not reflect the number of people persuaded to pay by the prospect of these powers being used.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department has taken to assess the (a) number and (b) causes of incorrect deduction orders.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The data requested is not held centrally. To extract this data would involve the manual review of all relevant cases to identify those deduction orders with an error and the reason which would be at a cost to the department and taxpayer.

CMS has taken positive steps to ensure the correct administration of deduction orders. Improvements include updates to CMS computer system 2012, amendments to operational procedures and inclusion in the Quality Assurance framework.

When any error is identified CMS undertake a thorough review of the case and action to correct the error. Each case is used as a learning opportunity with staff and to review and update our operational procedures to prevent future reoccurrences.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she plans to take to support parents who live in (a) Newcastle-under-Lyme constituency and (b) Staffordshire into work.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Our recently published Get Britain Working White Paper sets out our aspirations to overhaul the Jobcentre system and establish a new Job and Career Service, which will focus on people’s skills and careers instead of just monitoring and managing benefit claims. This will be kickstarted by £55million of investment, to help people – including parents - get into work, stay in work, build skills and progress in their career.

The Get Britain Working White Paper also committed DWP to supporting and providing all areas in England with resource to produce a local ‘Get Britain Working Plan’. Initially focussing on economic inactivity, local Get Britain Working plans will enable all areas to take the lead in shaping a coherent offer of support for their local citizens, including the offer of support for parents, across work, health, and skills.

We are also considering how we can improve our support to help parents into work as part of our Child Poverty Strategy which will be published later this year.

At present Work Coaches provide individual, tailored support to all customers across the country, this includes advice to parents on childcare support or help to address their skills gaps to aid career progression.

Both areas also have access to The UK Shared Prosperity Fund, which was extended for a further year until March 2026. Areas are free to select from three investment priorities, with People and Skills interventions are designed to help reduce the barriers some people – including parents - face to employment, support them closer towards employment and education, reduce economic inactivity and to fund skills support.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what reforms to disability benefits she plans to introduce in 2025; when each reform will be implemented; and whether she plans to publish any further consultations on planned reforms.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

This Government is committed to reforming the system of health and disability benefits so that it promotes and enables employment among as many people as possible.

We are working to develop proposals for health and disability reform in the months ahead and will set them out in a Green Paper ahead of the Spring Statement. This will launch a public consultation on the proposals. This Government is committed to putting the views and voices of disabled people at the heart of all that we do, so we will consult on these proposals, where appropriate, with disabled people and representative organisations.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what disability rights organisations and campaigners her Department is consulting with on planned reforms the disability welfare system; and whether any user-led organisations have been consulted.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

This government is committed to putting the views and voices of disabled people at the heart of all that we do. We have already started discussing the case for reform, including with representatives from the Disability Charities Consortium and the Disabled People’s Organisations Forum England. We intend to publish a Health and Disability Green Paper ahead of the Spring Statement later this year. After publication, the proposals will be subject to a consultation involving disabled people and representative organisations, with the conclusions to be set out in a white paper later in the year.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many (a) male and (b) female pensioners in Edinburgh South West will receive the 2025 increase in the state pension.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

All State Pension recipients in Edinburgh South West will receive an increase in their State Pension from April 2025. At the quarter ending May 2024, the latest published State Pension caseload data, there were (a) 7,040 Male and (b) 8,501 Female State Pension recipients in Edinburgh South West. Source: DWP Stat-Xplore.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help tackle (a) discrepancies between contribution amounts on pension statements and payslips, (b) lack of online access to manage pensions and (c) other common issues with workplace pensions.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The independent Pensions Regulator (TPR) is responsible for providing detailed guidance to employers on how to meet their automatic enrolment duties. This includes guidance on avoiding common errors, such as incorrect pension contributions, failing to enrol employees correctly and missing or late payments. Pension scheme managers and trustees also have a responsibility to ensure the correct management of schemes including monitoring the payment of contributions.

If an employee has concerns regarding their workplace pension such as unpaid contributions, they should raise this with their employer in the first instance. An individual can report their employer to TPR if it is not complying with the law and/or make a complaint to The Pensions Ombudsman (TPO) who can investigate the complaint and provide a remedy if the employer is found to be at fault. TPO, in collaboration with MoneyHelper and TPR, has published a factsheet for customers about this: Workplace pensions – unpaid pension contributions | The Pensions Ombudsman.

Accessible information and good communications are important in enabling savers to better understand their pensions. Some schemes already offer online access to help members easily and securely view their pension details. The government is also supporting the delivery of pensions dashboards, which will allow people to view their whole pensions picture, including their State Pension, securely and in one place. This will help reunite people with their lost pension pots and support better engagement – empowering individuals to better prepare for retirement.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the cost of increasing the State Pension for people in Edinburgh South West constituency in 2025.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

No such estimate has been made for Edinburgh South West. In April 2025, the basic and new State Pension will increase by 4.1% as confirmed in the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2025. In 25/26, it is estimated the total State Pension expenditure, covering Great Britain and including State Pension paid outside UK, will increase by around £9bn. This estimation is available in the latest Benefit Expenditure and Caseload tables published at Autumn Statement 2024. Geographical breakdowns are not available.

Source: Benefit expenditure and caseload tables 2024 - GOV.UK

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to support pensioners with (a) the cost of household bills and (b) food insecurity.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The State Pension is the foundation of income in retirement and will remain so, protecting 12 million pensioners through the triple lock, with a 4.1% increase to the basic State Pension and the new State Pension from April 2025. We are also increasing the standard minimum guarantee in Pension Credit by 4.1%.

We know there are low-income pensioners who aren’t claiming Pension Credit, which provides extra money to help with living costs for people over State Pension age and on a low income. We want to ensure as many people as possible have access to this support and urge pensioners to check their eligibility. Pension Credit will passport them to receive other benefits – including Winter Fuel Payments, help with rent, council tax, fuel bills and a free TV licence for those over 75. That’s why Government is taking significant steps to raise awareness and maximise take-up.

Low-income pensioners and others struggling with the cost of living should contact their local council to see what further support may be available to them. They may be able to receive support from energy support programmes or through the Household Support Fund, a scheme providing discretionary support to those most in need towards the cost of essentials, such as food, energy and water.

The Government has extended the Household Support Fund in England by a further year, (until 31 March 2026) – with funding of £742 million provided to enable this extension in England, plus additional funding for the devolved Governments to be spent at their discretion, as usual.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has had recent discussions with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on the recommendations of the independent report entitled Our Future Homes: Housing that promotes wellbeing and community for an ageing population, published on 26 November 2024.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

DWP works closely with the Ministry of Housing, Community and Local Government to ensure housing needs of those on low incomes, including pensioners, are considered as part of the Government’s Strategy. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has not met with her counterparts in the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Health and Social Care to discuss the report specifically.

There are cross-government ministerial meetings to shape the strategy which will set out a long-term vision for a housing market that works for communities. The Government aims to build 1.5m high-quality homes, delivering the biggest increase in affordable housing for a generation. The strategy will also include the actions we will take to provide long-term certainty for the market.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many households in Edinburgh South West constituency claimed the Winter Fuel Payment in (a) 2023-24 and (b) 2024-25; and how many of those were new claimants in each of those years.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The vast majority of Winter Fuel Payments are made automatically without the need to claim. Linking Winter Fuel eligibility to Pension Credit and other means tested benefits for pensioners ensures the least well-off pensioners still receive the help they need.

In winter 2023-24, there were around 11,500 pensioner households in the Edinburgh South West constituency receiving the Winter Fuel Payment. This is based on Winter Fuel Payment statistics for winter 2023 to 2024.

We do not yet hold data on the number of Winter Fuel Payment recipients through winter 2024-25. These figures will be released as part of the Winter Fuel Payment statistics for Winter 2024 to 2025.

Powers to pay winter heating assistance in Scotland have been devolved to the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Government have replaced Winter Fuel Payment with Pension Age Winter Heating Payment from 2024/25. It is up to the Scottish Government how it operates these payments.

Information on new recipients of Winter Fuel Payments in 2023-24 is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has had recent discussions with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on the recommendations of the independent report entitled Our Future Homes: Housing that promotes wellbeing and community for an ageing population, published on 26 November 2024.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

DWP works closely with the Ministry of Housing, Community and Local Government to ensure housing needs of those on low incomes, including pensioners, are considered as part of the Government’s Strategy. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has not met with her counterparts in the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Health and Social Care to discuss the report specifically.

There are cross-government ministerial meetings to shape the strategy which will set out a long-term vision for a housing market that works for communities. The Government aims to build 1.5m high-quality homes, delivering the biggest increase in affordable housing for a generation. The strategy will also include the actions we will take to provide long-term certainty for the market.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of the number of eligible pensioners who were not claiming Pension Credit in Bromsgrove constituency on 31 January 2025.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

In published DWP Pension Credit Take-up statistics, it is estimated that up to 760,000 households who were entitled to receive Pension Credit did not claim the benefit. These statistics are only available at Great Britain level and cannot be broken down to smaller geographical areas. The latest available Pension Credit take-up statistics for Great Britain cover the financial year 2022 to 2023 and are available at: Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year ending 2023 - GOV.UK

Latest caseload statistics show that at May 2024, there were 1,354,446 people in receipt of Pension Credit in Great Britain, of which 1,443 were in Bromsgrove constituency. This data is available via DWP Stat-xplore.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what purposes the Pension Protection Fund has used artificial intelligence in the last 12 months.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The PPF has used AI over the past 12 months as a support tool to boost productivity and enable faster decision making.

The PPF has put restrictions in place to control the use of AI, such as only using tools that don’t hold or store data. It continues to look at AI capabilities and what is appropriate and proportionate for the organisation.

The PPF has drafted an AI acceptable use standard which aligns to the NCSC guidelines for secure AI system development.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to help improve the (a) affordability and (b) accessibility of parental leave.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

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, the rate will increase by September 2024's CPI figure of 1.7%, subject to parliamentary approval, 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.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will publish the total cost to the public purse for the provision of diversity, equality and inclusion courses for staff in her Department in 2024.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

In the Department for Work and Pensions diversity with regard to employees is defined as valuing difference, diversity, and inclusion, ensuring fairness and opportunity for all. This includes promoting diversity, inclusion, and equality of opportunity, respecting differences and external experiences, and welcoming the views and challenges of others.

DWP is committed to being an inclusive employer and is committed to creating an environment where everyone belongs and can be at their best, and our workforce is representative of the customers and communities that we serve. To support with these ambitions, we have invested a total of £69,198 in supporting our employees with specific equality and diversity related training needs and external memberships within the 2023-2024 financial year.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the value of the Bereavement Support payment.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Bereavement Support Payment is intended to help people through the immediate period following a bereavement. It is not a cost-of-living benefit like Universal Credit, which is generally increased in line with inflation. The rate of Bereavement Support Payment is reviewed on a discretionary basis as part of the annual uprating process, but there is no legal requirement to uprate it.

Whilst we have no plans to uprate BSP from April, the Government keeps all benefits including Bereavement Support Payments, under review.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make it her policy to uprate Bereavement Support Payments annually in line with inflation.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Bereavement Support Payment is intended to help people through the immediate period following a bereavement. It is not a cost-of-living benefit like Universal Credit, which is generally increased in line with inflation. The rate of Bereavement Support Payment is reviewed on a discretionary basis as part of the annual uprating process, but there is no legal requirement to uprate it.

Whilst we have no plans to uprate BSP from April, the Government keeps all benefits including Bereavement Support Payments, under review.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of reforming the Child Maintenance Service to (a) increase protections for the victims of domestic abuse and (b) to prevent the withholding or artificial reduction of child maintenance payments being used as a form of economic abuse.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

A consultation on proposed reforms to the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) was published by the previous Government on 8 May 2024. This included:

• removing Direct Pay and managing all CMS cases in one service to allow the CMS to tackle non-compliance faster,
• exploring views on collection fees and the impact of proposals to reduce, but maintain, fees and
• exploring how victims and survivors of domestic abuse can be better supported.

This follows the Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Act receiving royal assent in July 2023. The consultation was extended by this Government at the end of July and ran until 30 September 2024. We are currently analysing the responses we have received, and the Government will publish a response in due course.

CMS Domestic Abuse training has been updated with input from external stakeholders and wider DWP to ensure caseworkers recognise and respond safely and appropriately to customers who are experiencing domestic abuse or are survivors of domestic abuse. This package includes an understanding of abuse, including economic abuse, and, of course, given the context, covers post separation abuse.

The CMS will use its strong enforcement powers to pursue those who willfully avoid their financial obligations to their children. Cases involving complex income can be investigated by the Financial Investigation Unit (FIU). This is a specialist team which can request information from financial institutions (such as banks, investment companies and mortgage companies) to check the accuracy of information the CMS is given.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the number of fraudulent claims there were for the Personal Independence Payment in each (a) nation and (b) region in each of the last five years.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

We publish annual estimates of fraud and error levels in the benefit system in Great Britain, however as these figures are produced using sample data, they are not available below the national level.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the HSE plans to expedite its assessment of the European Chemicals Agency Risk Assessment Committee proposal to reclassify lithium salts as Category A reproductive toxicants.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The three lithium substances (lithium carbonate, lithium hydroxide and lithium chloride) referred to above, do not currently have mandatory classification and labelling in Great Britain (GB). HSE specialists are considering the need to fully evaluate the available data using the Article 37A process under the GB Classification, Labelling and Packaging Regulation (GB CLP) following publication of the Agency Opinion by HSE in August 2023 to determine whether mandatory classification and labelling is warranted.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether the review of devolution and local government will impact any plans to (1) publish the job entry and sustainability rates for Jobcentre Plus and its contractors, and (2) merge JobCentre Plus and the National Careers Service.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

DWP is always exploring ways to publish more information to enrich the public discourse.

DWP published new analysis of Universal Credit (UC) into-work rates and flows between conditionality groups - including what proportion did not flow out of the UC “Searching for work” labour market regime, over a six month period, as part of the recent Get Britain Working White Paper here.

Plans are being developed for regular and proportional update to this analysis.

Additionally, statistics and management information on contracted employment provisions such as Restart and the Sector-based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs) interventions are published on Gov.UK (Restart Scheme statistics to October 2024 - GOV.UK, Sector-based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs) Management Information, April 2021 to March 2024 - GOV.UK).

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will publish data on levels of child poverty in Telford constituency for each year that data is available.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Statistics on the number of children living in absolute and relative poverty on a before housing costs basis by parliamentary constituency are published annually in the “Children in low income families: local area statistics” publication and can be found in tabs “6_Absolute_ParlC” and “5_Relative_ParlC” at Children in low income families: local area statistics 2014 to 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). The latest statistics published on 21 March 2024 are for the financial period 2022/23. The figures provided for parliamentary constituencies are on the 2010 boundaries.

The latest available data can also be found on Stat-Xplore (https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/) in the Children in low income families dataset. Figures on both the 2010 and 2024 parliamentary constituency boundaries are available here.

Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here: Getting Started (dwp.gov.uk). An account is not required to use Stat- Xplore, the ‘Guest Login’ feature gives instant access to the main functions.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will publish the job entry and sustainability rates for Jobcentre Plus and its contractors.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

DWP is always exploring ways to publish more information to enrich the public discourse.

DWP published new analysis of Universal Credit (UC) into-work rates and flows between conditionality groups - including what proportion did not flow out of the UC “Searching for work” labour market regime, over a six month period, as part of the recent Get Britain Working White Paper here.

Plans are being developed for regular and proportional update to this analysis.

Additionally, statistics and management information on contracted employment provisions such as Restart and the Sector-based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs) interventions are published on Gov.UK (Restart Scheme statistics to October 2024 - GOV.UK, Sector-based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs) Management Information, April 2021 to March 2024 - GOV.UK).

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people have applied for a Skills Passport; and how many of those applications have been approved.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Some sectors and organisations use skills passports as a way of recognising accredited training relevant to that sector or organisation, for example, the recently developed Hospitality Skills Passport by UKHospitality and deployed as part of the DWP/UKH Destination Hospitality Sector-based Work Academy Programme (SWAPs) offer. DWP does not issue or collect data on skills passport. However, DWP does offer tailored, flexible advice and support through Jobcentre Plus as part of its core offer.

Jobcentre Work Coaches offer jobseekers a comprehensive menu of help, including referral into skills provision and job search support. Skills are essential to helping customers secure, retain, and progress in work. Work Coaches help customers to access a broad range of provision including Apprenticeships, Skills Bootcamps, vocational and essential English, maths, digital skills training and ESOL, as well as careers advice and Sector-based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs).

DWP Work Coach brokered skills interventions help claimants gain the skills they need to enter and progress in employment, providing the means to enhance career prospects and earnings in line with labour market needs. Creating a highly skilled workforce and contributing to Government’s overall growth ambitions.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, which employment sectors have the highest number of Skills Passport users securing jobs.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Some sectors and organisations use skills passports as a way of recognising accredited training relevant to that sector or organisation, for example, the recently developed Hospitality Skills Passport by UKHospitality and deployed as part of the DWP/UKH Destination Hospitality Sector-based Work Academy Programme (SWAPs) offer. DWP does not issue or collect data on skills passport. However, DWP does offer tailored, flexible advice and support through Jobcentre Plus as part of its core offer.

Jobcentre Work Coaches offer jobseekers a comprehensive menu of help, including referral into skills provision and job search support. Skills are essential to helping customers secure, retain, and progress in work. Work Coaches help customers to access a broad range of provision including Apprenticeships, Skills Bootcamps, vocational and essential English, maths, digital skills training and ESOL, as well as careers advice and Sector-based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs).

DWP Work Coach brokered skills interventions help claimants gain the skills they need to enter and progress in employment, providing the means to enhance career prospects and earnings in line with labour market needs. Creating a highly skilled workforce and contributing to Government’s overall growth ambitions.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she plans to take to support (a) the right to work and (b) financial security for older people.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

On 26 November 2024, the Government published the Get Britain Working White Paper which sets out fundamental reforms to employment support to help people into good work and create an inclusive labour market in which everyone can get into and on at work.

Increasing the proportion of older people returning to work and staying in work reduces the risk of later life poverty as it increases pensions saving and improves physical and mental wellbeing. On an individual scale it ensures people can fulfil their potential into later life and save towards a financially resilient retirement.

The Equality Act 2010 is very clear on the need for employers to recruit the best talent based on merit, irrespective of a person’s age. The Department for Work and Pensions therefore works across government, and through regular engagement with employers to encourage positive attitudes towards older workers.

The Department already offers employment support through Jobcentres and tailored one-to-one engagement for eligible over 50s on Universal Credit. Midlife MOT reviews, delivered in Jobcentres across the UK and online also support older people to review their health, finances and skills.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on steps to help create skilled jobs in South West Norfolk constituency.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

South-West Norfolk Jobcentres Plus engage directly with local businesses as well as employment and skills forums across the region to both understand local labour market need and to influence the delivery of skills provision in line with these requirements, including training provision needed to deliver our successful Sector-based Work Academy Programme (SWAPs).

As outlined in the Get Britain Working White Paper, the Government is committed to creating in England a new single universal service that will provide a stronger focus on skills and careers by bringing together Jobcentre Plus and the National Careers Service. The service will be crucial in ensuring more of our domestic workforce, especially those in regions of higher unemployment and economic inactivity can take full advantage of the opportunities and job creation that the Industrial Strategy and Government’s wider sectoral priorities will bring.

As the HR department for the Government’s growth mission, the DWP ministerial team and officials work closely with colleagues across to help employers including those in sectors crucial to growth, including Industrial Strategy sectors, to help meet their recruitment needs and break down barriers to opportunity across the country.

This includes the steps announced by DWP Secretary of State to overhaul our relationship with employers https://www.gov.uk/government/news/dedicated-team-to-serve-businesses-amongst-dwp-overhaul-of-employer-support-to-get-britain-working and the forthcoming joint ministerial Get Britain Working sectoral workforce summits, starting with construction, health and social care and clean energy.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she plans to take to promote and support the active participation of older people in society.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Government knows that work can help older people play active and fulfilling roles in society, improve physical and mental wellbeing and build towards a financially comfortable retirement.

The Department already offers employment support through Jobcentres and tailored one-to-one engagement for eligible over 50s on Universal Credit. Midlife MOT reviews, delivered in Jobcentres across the UK and online also support older people to review their health, finances and skills.

Getting more older people who are economically inactive but want to work into employment is crucial to meeting our long-term ambition of an 80 per cent employment rate. Our Get Britain Working White Paper sets out our approach to the employment support system to target and tackle the root causes of unemployment and inactivity and better join up health skills and employment support based on the needs for all, including older people.

The Government has also launched an independent review into the role of UK employers in promoting healthy and inclusive workplaces which will run until Summer 2025.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of the number of households impacted by changes to the eligibility criteria for Winter Fuel Payments in Sutton Coldfield constituency.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

Looking back at winter 2023-24, there were around 13,400 pensioner households in Sutton Coldfield Constituency receiving the Winter Fuel Payment but not receiving Pension Credit. This is based on February 2024 Pension Credit statistics which are available via DWP Stat-Xplore and the Winter Fuel Payment statistics for winter 2023 to 2024 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

Please note that the above does not take into account any potential increase in Pension Credit take-up that we might see as a result of the Government’s Pension Credit Awareness Campaign.

We do not yet hold data on the number of Pension Credit or Winter Fuel Payment recipients through winter 2024-25.

The published Pension Credit figures refer to households, so the number of individual pensioners in respect of whom Pension Credit is paid will be higher (i.e. taking account of households where a claimant has a partner and / or dependents).

In addition, while Pension Credit claimants constitute the majority of those that will be eligible for the Winter Fuel Payment, pensioners who claim other qualifying means-tested benefits will also be eligible for the Winter Fuel Payment. It is not, however, possible to include those on other qualifying means-tested benefits in these figures.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to tackle (a) age discrimination and (b) ageism in the workplace.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Government recognises the need to recruit on merit, irrespective of a persons' age. The 2010 Equality Act provides strong protection against direct and indirect age discrimination in employment, rendering it unlawful for employers to discriminate against employees or job applicants based on age.

The Government acknowledges the key role employers play in helping older individuals to remain in or re-enter the workforce, and the importance of embracing policies conducive to this support. Age diversity within the workforce brings numerous benefits to businesses, in addition to broader advantages such as fresh perspectives and knowledge-sharing.

The Department for Work and Pensions, (DWP) is therefore working across government, and through regular engagement with employers, to encourage positive attitudes towards older people.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what percentage of applicants that started a Pension Credit online application did not complete it or submit the form in the latest period for which figures are available.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The total number of Pension Credit online applications started is unavailable because only data from users who opt-in to performance cookies on GOV.UK is collected.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what progress has been made in the merger of Jobcentre Plus and the National Careers Service.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We are reforming Jobcentre Plus and creating a new service across Great Britain that will enable everyone to access support to find good, meaningful work, and support to help them to progress in work, including through an enhanced focus on skills and careers. We will design, develop, and test options for the new service in partnership with key stakeholders as we move into policy design and delivery.

As a first step to better integrate employment support and careers advice in England, we will launch a pathfinder in early 2025 to test more enhanced collaboration between Jobcentre Plus and the National Careers Service. The department has also worked with the Department for Education to put in place a new agreement on data sharing between the National Careers Service and Jobcentre Plus in England. This will be used to encourage closer co-operation in the collective delivery of jobs and careers guidance for adults and promote a simpler and more streamlined process for our customers. Joining up the support a customer receives from both a work coach and national careers advisor can remove unnecessary repetition, link up advice and ensure holistic support for the customer to help improve outcomes.

We currently have two large scale trials in progress contributing towards our vision for the new jobs and careers service. The first, to test providing support for people by telephone and video as well as face to face appointments. The second, to test whether meeting unemployed people less frequently in a Jobcentre would have an impact on their work outcomes and whether this approach is more beneficial for particular groups.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of changes to the winter fuel payment on recent trends in the level of economic growth.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

It is not possible to attribute changes in consumer spending or economic growth to any changes to Winter Fuel Payments. It is not possible to disentangle these from other much larger factors that could affect economic growth or consumption.

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 impact of changes to eligibility for Winter Fuel Payments on consumer spending.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

It is not possible to attribute changes in consumer spending or economic growth to any changes to Winter Fuel Payments. It is not possible to disentangle these from other much larger factors that could affect economic growth or consumption.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of the proportion of Winter Fuel Payments that were spent through (a) direct and (b) indirect taxation in 2023-24.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The department does not hold information on how Winter Fuel Payments were spent in 2023–24.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the pension review will consider adequacy.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

This government is committed to enabling tomorrow’s pensioners to have security in retirement– which is why we announced the landmark Pensions Review days after coming into office in July.

The first phase is focussed on boosting investment and economic growth and we are committed to a second phase that will include retirement adequacy within its considerations. We will provide further detail on the full scope and timetable for the second phase in due course.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to ensure the State Pension reflects increases in the cost of living.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Government is committed to the Triple Lock, which means that in April 2025, the basic and new State Pension will increase by the higher of the growth in average earnings, price increases or 2.5%. As a result, the basic and new State Pension will increase by 4.1%, in line with earnings growth. Inflation in the reference period was 1.7%.

This means that over 12 million pensioners will benefit from an increase of up to £470 to their State Pension from April this year. That’s £275 more than if pensions had been uprated by the rise in prices.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what purposes the Pensions Ombudsman has used artificial intelligence in the last 12 months.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is at the heart of the Government’s plan to kickstart an era of economic growth, transform how we deliver public services, and boost living standards for working people across the country.

The Pensions Ombudsman has not engaged in the use of artificial intelligence in the last 12 months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 27 January 2025 50 Question 22715 on Medical Certificates: Public Consultation, whether she plans to launch the fit note trailblazers.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

In 2024, the previous government announced that fit note trailblazers would be included in some of the 15 WorkWell pilot areas across Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) in England. Due to the timings of the General Election, they were not launched.

As part of £240m investment to support our employment reforms in the Get Britain Working White Paper, we are providing three ICBs with a share of £45m to become 'Health and Growth Accelerators'. These 3 ICBs are North East and North Cumbria, South Yorkshire, and West Yorkshire.

We are working with the accelerator ICBs to deliver an intervention aimed at improving the quality of work and health advice and support following a request for a fit note. This will ensure the fit note process is part of our wider system designed to get support to people who are already economically inactive or at risk of falling out of work due to ill health.

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 impact of occupational and state pension payments on eligibility for Carer's Allowance.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

I refer the honourable member to the answer I gave on 14 October 2024 to question UIN 6904, this outlines the interaction between Carer’s Allowance and State Pension. Personal pensions paid to the carer are not treated as earnings and therefore do not affect their Carer’s Allowance award. Some contributions to personal pensions can be deducted from earnings so as to calculate the net earnings figure for Carer’s Allowance purposes.

Social security is a transferred matter in Northern Ireland.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to support the delivery of the Youth Guarantee.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Department is taking a number of steps to deliver the Youth Guarantee, to ensure all 18-21 year olds in England have access to quality education, employment and training opportunities.

The Get Britain Working White Paper announced £45 million of funding to test delivery of the Youth Guarantee in eight trailblazer areas that will start delivering support from April 2025. These are: Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, East Midlands, Liverpool City Region, Tees Valley, West of England, West Midlands, and two areas within the Greater London Authority. The trailblazers will be led by the Mayoral Strategic Authorities, providing learnings that will inform the future roll-out of the Guarantee across England.

The Guarantee will also be supported by our first national partnerships with The Premier League, Channel 4 and the Royal Shakespeare Company, who will generate a range of opportunities that engage young people and set them on the path to success.

There is already a range of existing provision available to young people, including the Department’s Youth Offer, which provides individually tailored Work Coach support for young people aged 16 to 24 and claiming Universal Credit.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has specific time targets for processing Carer’s Allowance claims for individuals with an underlying entitlement.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Department does not have any processing targets for Carer’s Allowance claims when there is an underlying entitlement element.

The current average clearance time for all Carer’s Allowance claims is 16.5 working days. This includes claims when there is underlying entitlement.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of fraud in the social security system in financial year 2023-24 by benefit.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Estimates of the levels of fraud and error in the benefit system for the financial year 2023-24 can be found at: Fraud and error in the benefit system, Financial Year Ending (FYE) 2024 - GOV.UK

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Home Affairs on tackling financial crime in relation to the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill will help government better identify, prevent and deter public sector fraud and error and enable the better recovery of debt owed to the taxpayer. DWP has close links with other government departments and law enforcement agencies, including strong collaborative relationships with HMRC, Home Office and National Crime Agency, and will continue to build upon these to ensure the Bill measures are designed effectively.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with the National Crime Agency on tackling financial crime in relation to the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill will help government better identify, prevent and deter public sector fraud and error and enable the better recovery of debt owed to the taxpayer. DWP has close links with other government departments and law enforcement agencies, including strong collaborative relationships with HMRC, Home Office and National Crime Agency, and will continue to build upon these to ensure the Bill measures are designed effectively.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of assessing money received from the settlement of an estate claim to be treated in line with money received from a (a) personal injury claim and (b) special compensation scheme settlement for cases related to (i) maternity and (ii) death of a baby for the purposes of Universal Credit entitlements.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We have no plans to change the Universal Credit capital rules to disregard the settlement payments from estates for cases related to (i) maternity and (ii) death of a baby for the purposes of Universal Credit entitlements.

Found: Government Department £000 Cabinet Office -158 Department for Work and Pensions 2,798 Driver and

Found: We have already announced with DWP our intention to develop a partnership to support the Youth Guarantee

Found: with a core role such as DCMS, DfE and DHSC – but also other departments including DEFRA, MHCLG, DWP

Found: cross-departmental collaboration with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: There is even evidence to suggest that certain processes within some parts of government, like DWP,

Found: Moreover many of those that fall within, for example, ONS or DWP classifications would not self identify

Found: and more communication between the different departments working on childcare policy, particularly DWP

Found: If you are thinking about DWP, for instance, you are thinking about a very large number of transactions

Found: February 2025 15 Department for Work and Pensions, HM Treasury and Department for Education (2024) Get

Found: school pupil data from the Department for Education, benefits claims data from the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: school pupil data from the Department for Education, benefits claims data from the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: Storage HC 351 7th Asylum accommodation: Home Office acquisition of former HMP Northeye HC 361 6th DWP

Found: DWP staff support people to ensure housing benefit continues to be paid where applicable (i.e. during

Found: For example, where DWP arrange benefit payments pre-release, this supports the initial transition.

Found: DWP Restart, Work and Health Programme), so it is unable to deliver comparable levels of specialist

Found: as a critical and scalable solution to breaking down barriers to employment and engagement with the DWP

Found: services including the Restart Scheme, Work and Health Programme, and Access to Work on behalf of DWP

Found: Employability courses including advice on interview skills such as writing a curriculum vitae • Working with DWP

Found: services across four pillars (Justice, Employability, Health and Youth) for commissioners including MOJ, DWP

Found: John Tuckett: I would go back to a review that I led in the Department for Work and Pensions, where

Found: a formal written response to the Inquiry from the Department for Education and the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: of you will know, to the public sector, whether that is in healthcare, in supporting decisions that DWP

Found: matter states: “If an elector applying for a postal vote close to the deadline for a poll fails the DWP

Found: system of Individual Electoral Registration (IER), electors sign up online and are verified against DWP

Found: Where an application failed the identity check against DWP records the ERO had to request proof of identity

Found: EROs could therefore be given the powers to have access to an increased range of data sources (eg DWP

Found: Number and Date of Birth of the elector are checked against the records held by the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: He joined the NAO in 2011 and has led its value for money audit of the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: He joined the NAO in 2011 and has led its value for money audit of the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: The DWP perhaps might understand that best because they are concerned about the benefits bill and making

Found: of you will know, to the public sector, whether that is in healthcare, in supporting decisions that DWP

Found: of you will know, to the public sector, whether that is in healthcare, in supporting decisions that DWP

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether her Department has plans to change the access to (a) Junior ISAs and (b) Child Trust Funds for parents of SEND young adults.

Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)

Access to Junior ISAs (JISA) and Child Trust Funds (CTF) for parents of young adults with special educational needs and disabilities is already possible in certain circumstances.

Where a young adult lacks mental capacity, including due to a disability, the law requires parents or a guardian to have legal authority to make decisions on their behalf about financial assets or property. This includes in relation to accessing funds held in a CTF or a JISA

The Ministry of Justice has published a toolkit on gov.uk explaining the process for parents and guardians of disabled children to obtain legal authority if no other arrangements are in place. The Ministry of Justice has worked with The Investment and Savings Alliance (TISA) to promote the toolkit with parents and carers, and is working with the Department for Work and Pensions on ways to inform parents and carers about the relevant legal processes as their young person approaches the age of 18.

The Government continues to keep all aspects of savings policy under review.

Found: On 20 November 2024, the Department for Work and Pensions published a white paper titled Get Britain

Found: Invest 2035, a green paper on the UK’s industrial strategy.2 • In November 2024, the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: [3] A recent freedom of information request submitted to the Department for Work and Pensions has

Found: Life expectancy: recent data published by the Department for Work and Pensions reveals that 1 in 5 people

Found: Qualification was originally 6 months’ life expectancy, amended to 12 months after a DWP review showed

Found: The DWP recognised Kickstart should be targeted at people who would otherwise face significant disadvantage

Found: (DWP) for Fraud Prevention Fund Home Office Abroad Fund 1,700,000 (Section L) Science

Found: (DWP) for Fraud Prevention Fund Home Office Abroad Fund 1,700,000 (Section L) Science

Found: Capital 59,100 26,595 Non-Budget Expenditure - - Net Cash Requirement 450,007 202,503 Department for Work and Pensions

Found: Capital 59,100 26,595 Non-Budget Expenditure - - Net Cash Requirement 450,007 202,503 Department for Work and Pensions

Found: Grades 6 and 7 1845 15 80 10 100 25 80 1760 425 590 4925 3910 Department for Work and Pensions

Found: Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Employment and Support Allowance Online Medical Matching: A tool

Found: Commonwealth Office (FCO), Department for International Development (DfID), and the Department for Work and Pensions

Found: From: Department for Work and Pensions and Government Social Research Profession Published 14 February

Found: discretionary paymentshousgfcfbnfRA4457Housing benefits administration=IF(F101DWP

Found: Remaining Estate DWP Core Leasehold Floor Area 395573 Offices 412615 Offices DWP Core Other 17274261

Found: These assets were onboarded by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) at the outset of the pandemic

Found: Development Office Home Office Natural England College of Police HM Revenue and Customs Department for Work and Pensions

Found: 2 How do people experiencing unemployment engage with employment support from DWP?

Found: questions. 11 When to run a PE How do people experiencing unemployment engage with employment support from DWP

Found: doing user research for AI products 106 CCS commercial agreement recommendation system 108 DWP

Found: and tackle care worker visa abuse, Home Office, Department of Health and Social Care, Department for Work and Pensions

Found: tackle care worker visa abuse, Home Office, Department of Health and Social Care, Department for Work and Pensions

Found: Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Employment and Support Allowance Online Medical Matching: A tool

Found: Schemes (Climate Change Governance and Reporting) Regulations 2021 Policy 2021 The Department for Work and Pensions

Found: servant, who worked for the Ministry of Defence before, from 1992, the Department of Work and Pensions (‘DWP

Found: was that he had this direct from the Department as he was asked if he had spoken to anyone in the DWP

Found: Document 1 – Case Reference: 202500447024 Meeting Note - 17 December 2024 DWP – Scottish Government

Found: the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice has made any contact with the UK Government, including the DWP

Found: • All data already shared by DWP for the purposes of administering Scottish Child Payment but expanded

Found: eligibility criteria for Adult Disability Payment.One member of the Group highlighted recent research from DWP

Found: £25bn April 2023 DWP Benefits uprated Department for Work and Pensions benefits that are linked to