Department for Work and Pensions

The Pathways to Work Green Paper was published on 18 March 2025 and closed on 30 June 2025, setting out plans and proposals to reform health and disability benefits and employment support.

We ran a programme of consultation events to hear from disabled people and people with health conditions directly, including 7 virtual events and 11 in-person events across England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

As part of the consultation, we welcomed views on raising the age someone can access the Universal Credit Health Element to 22. This consultation received over 45,000 responses and we are considering responses; we will set out our plans in due course.

If we proceed with this change, we will consider what special provisions need to be put in place for those young people where engagement with the Youth Guarantee is not a realistic prospect.

As part of the Pathways to Work Green Paper consultation, the Government invited views on the proposal to raise the minimum age for accessing the Universal Credit (UC) health element to 22. The consultation closed on 30 June, and we are now considering responses. The Government’s conclusion will be announced in due course.

I refer the noble Lord to the answer I gave to question HL9238 on 17 July.

The Government has committed to a cross-government strategy to get the country back on track to ending homelessness. We have already taken the first steps, making a £1 billion investment in homelessness and rough sleeping services in 2025/26, a £233 million increase on the previous year, to prevent rises in the number of families in temporary accommodation and to help prevent rough sleeping

My department is committed to ensuring people experiencing homelessness receive the benefits and support they need. Support is in place to help people experiencing homelessness claim and receive benefits, including:

• The DWP funded ‘Help to Claim’ service delivered by Citizen’s Advice
• The use of a 'care of' address, such as a local jobcentre
• Payment through the Payment Exception Service, enabling cash withdrawal from a PayPoint outlet, where the customer does not have a bank account

Jobcentres provide outreach in community and homelessness settings in areas with high levels of homelessness and organise referrals to local authority housing teams under ‘Duty to Refer’ legislation. There are single points of contact in every jobcentre to support work coaches with complex homelessness cases, along with training to better understand and support vulnerable customers. Our advanced customer support senior leaders and vulnerable customer champions review our processes to ensure we are effectively safeguarding such customers

The Government’s plans to get Britain working include the new Jobs and Careers Service, which will provide individualised support to those with the greatest barriers to work, while Connect to Work will provide support to people with disabilities, health conditions and complex barriers, including those experiencing homelessness.

DWP is responsible for the disability benefits which passport people to the Motability Scheme. To be eligible for the Scheme individuals must be in receipt of a qualifying benefit such as enhanced mobility Personal Independence Payment, higher rate mobility Disability Living Allowance, War Pensioner’s Mobility Supplement and Armed Forces Independence Payment (including equivalent Scottish benefits).

Disability benefits are awarded based on how conditions affect a claimant, a determination of their functional needs and not the condition itself.

DWP is responsible for the disability benefits which passport people to the Motability scheme. Motability Foundation is a registered charity, incorporated by Royal Charter, to help disabled people with their mobility and transport needs. They own and have oversight of the Motability Scheme which is delivered by an independent commercial company Motability Operations.

The National Audit Office made a number of recommendations in their 2018 report. Those relating to remuneration of senior staff were directed to Motability and Motability Operations. The Department has worked closely with Motability Foundation since then in relation to developing a long-term strategy to put its charitable funding to best use and governance.

The Department recently published Universal Credit Immigration status and nationality summary statistics on GOV.UK and this shows that 96.0% of UC claimants are either citizens or have been living and contributing to the UK for a very long time.

Data about the receipt of driving lesson grants from the Motability Scheme is not held by the Department.

The Motability Scheme is overseen by the Motability Foundation and is delivered by Motability Operations Ltd.

Motability is independent of the government and is wholly responsible for the terms and administration of the Scheme.

Guidance for DWP staff making benefit decisions is available on gov.uk. Specific guidance on new customers arriving in the UK from Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories will be published in the usual way.

No assessment has been made.

Transitional Protection was introduced as part of the Move to UC journey to ensure legacy benefit customers maintain the same level of entitlement on moving to UC at the point of transition.

Transitional protection is considered for both single and couple households that manage migrate to UC. It is not extended to customers in receipt of the transitional element that have a significant change of circumstances or where a couple forms and makes a new claim to UC.

The Universal Credit (Managed Migration Pilot and Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2019 made provision for transitional protection. DWP has no plans to amend the regulations to extend transitional protection to include couples who form a household after they have moved to Universal Credit.

The Department for Work and Pensions uses sanctions such as sending Paying Parents to prison, disqualifying them from holding, or obtaining a passport or driving licence as a last resort and only used when every other method of recovering unpaid child maintenance has been tried. The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) on behalf of the Department only pursues these sanctions when they believe the Paying Parent can pay but is refusing to do so. In these circumstances enforcement powers will have a deterrent effect on Paying Parents.

From the latest Child Maintenance Service official statistics, table 6.2, in the National tables, provides the outcome information where the CMS applied to courts to sanction Paying Parents for non-compliance. The latest statistics show there were three immediate passport confiscations and seven immediate driving disqualifications in Great Britain between July 2019 and March 2025.

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

Given the circumstances in which British nationals and their eligible families have urgently travelled to the UK following the Government’s evacuations, DWP want to ensure that those arriving can access benefits as soon as possible (where they meet all other eligibility requirements).

This does not enable DWP to pay benefits to anyone who does not already have an underlying entitlement to benefits. For those who are not British or Irish citizens, they must have a valid immigration status that provides recourse to public funds to access benefits, on top of meeting other benefit-specific eligibility criteria.

More detail can be found in the explanatory memorandum for this amendment: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2025/884/memorandum/contents.

DWP is committed to processing data lawfully, proportionately, and ethically, with meaningful human input and safeguards in place to protect individuals. “Algorithmic fraud detection tool” is not a term we use in DWP however, the department develops, tests, and invests in advanced analytics to support the detection of fraud and error. Currently, the UC Advances model is the only machine learning model deployed at scale in live service. On the 17^th July, the Department published a fairness assessment of the UC Advances model, which includes consideration of the model’s performance. The model remains an effective fraud prevention control, performing approximately three times better than a control group in identifying high-risk advances.

Fairness assessment including statistical analysis of the Universal Credit advances machine learning model: 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025 - GOV.UK

No Artificial Intelligence is currently deployed to make decisions regarding benefit entitlement or value in isolation. There is automation in some benefit processes but decisions regarding entitlement and value will have a human decision maker involved.

We have AI governance in place to ensure we use AI in a safe, ethical, and transparent way. DWP is committed to publishing details of its use of algorithms against the cross-Government Algorithmic Transparency Reporting Standard (ATRS). We ensure our generative AI tools can trace outputs back to the source data so that humans can understand how the output has been created. Outputs from our use of AI technology are traceable for governance purposes.

DWP’s Personal Information Charter (PIC) (Personal information charter - Department for Work and Pensions - GOV.UK) outlines how DWP processes personal data related to and its use of both Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automated Decision Making (ADM).

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

The Department is committed to publishing details of its use of complex algorithms in line with the cross-Government Algorithmic Transparency Reporting Standard (ATRS). We also engage with external bodies, such as the Information Commissioner's Office, the National Audit Office, and Parliament as required.

DWP is committed to regularly assessing AI use in the Department to ensure it meets business needs, is quality assured, and does not lead to a risk of discrimination or harm. In some areas, the Department uses automated decision-making to make benefit awards, but AI is not used as part of that process. DWP has a legal requirement to ensure appropriate safeguards are in place when carrying out automated decision-making or the use of AI, using tools such as Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) and fairness assessments to highlight any potential bias or discrimination risks associated with AI and automation. The Department carries out regular checks to ensure our systems are working as intended.

The number of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessments carried out by (a) face-to-face and (b) telephone in the last two calendar years are readily available on tab T2_32_Assessment_by_Channel, in Tables 2.32a and 2.32b of Pathways to Work: Evidence pack: Chapter 2 reforming the structure.

In addition to face-to-face and telephone, PIP assessments have also been conducted via paper-based and video assessments during the time period requested. These assessment channels are also shown in the tables contained in the evidence pack.

The Department recently published new Universal Credit - Immigration Status and Nationality statistics. Further breakdowns of these statistics are not currently available.

The information requested on the proportion of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) Tribunal hearings the Department sent a presenting officer to is not readily available within the Department. However, we estimate that 47% of DLA Tribunal hearings had a presenting officer in FY2024/25. This estimate uses DWP internal statistics on total number of DLA Hearings Attended by presenting officers and published statistics on number of DLA disposals cleared at hearing from Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS).

Our reforms are not condition specific. People with ME/CFS will be treated equally to those with other health conditions and disabilities. We are aware of the fluctuating nature of ME/CFS, the wide variety of disability associated with this condition and the specific needs of those individuals.

The Pathways to Work offer announced in the Green Paper will improve the employment support available for disabled people and people with health conditions, including those with fluctuating chronic illnesses such as ME/CFS.

The Department of Health and Social Care published the final ME/CFS delivery plan on 22 July. The plan focuses on boosting research, improving attitudes and education, and bettering the lives of people with this debilitating disease. The latter includes helping people with ME/CFS to find and maintain employment, where appropriate, through our department’s plans to improve employment support available for disabled people and people with long-term health conditions.

No such assessment has been carried out. The Bill will not alter the existing Work Capability Assessment.

The Pension Schemes Bill could mean nationally an average earner saving over their career may have around £29,000 more in their Defined Contribution pension pot at retirement. In total, around 20 million savers could benefit from the Bill and around 2 million are estimated to be in the East of England. Breakdowns by constituency are not available. See page 52-53 of the Pension Schemes Bill Impact Assessment for further details.

Latest caseload statistics show that as of November 2024, there were 1,391,728 pensioner households in receipt of Pension Credit. This data is available via DWP Stat-Xplore. This can be broken down into constituency and local authority level as well as by various characteristics such as age, gender and partner indicator. However, this cannot be broken down by religion or ethnic group, as this information is not collected as part of the PC claim process.

As of November 2023, 2,586 pensioner households were in receipt of Pension Credit in Birmingham Edgbaston constituency.

The latest Pension Credit statistics were published in May 2025 and cover the period up to November 2024. These show that as of November 2024, 2,577 pensioner households were in receipt of Pension Credit in Birmingham Edgbaston constituency. This data is available via DWP Stat-Xplore.

The Pension Credit caseload statistics for 2025 are not available yet. The next iteration of Pension Credit caseload statistics will be released on 12^th August 2025 as part of the DWP Benefits Statistics quarterly release. This release will cover the quarterly period up to the end of February 2025.

The Department for Work and Pensions has had no discussions with Hewlett Packard on this issue. Discretionary increases in benefits above the statutory minimum and those required by scheme rules are a matter for the scheme sponsor and trustees.

Most schemes do pay some pre-1997 indexation, because of scheme rules or as a discretionary benefit. Analysis published last year by the Pensions Regulator shows that as of March 2023, only 17 per cent of members of private sector defined benefit pension schemes did not receive any pre-1997 indexation on benefits. This information can be found at: https://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/en/document-library/research-and-analysis/data-requests#f3a5fe60511a445f91112bd7dd8a64ae

The Government’s pension reforms on the use of surpluses in defined benefit schemes will make it easier for individual schemes to make decisions that improve outcomes for both sponsoring employers and members, which could include discretionary benefit increases. These changes are being taken forward through the Pension Schemes Bill which had its second reading on Monday 7^th July.

We are working closely with local authorities and stakeholders on the detailed design of the fund, and we plan to issue guidance as soon as possible ahead of the new scheme starting on 1 April 2026.

The Government is committed to tackling poverty, including deep poverty across the UK.

The Child Poverty Taskforce is developing an ambitious child poverty strategy which we will publish in the autumn. 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.

Good work can significantly reduce the chances of people falling into poverty so this will be the foundation of our approach to delivering lasting change, as reflected in the proposals in our plan for Making Work Pay and our Get Britain Working White Paper. We have also commenced reviewing Universal Credit to make sure it is doing the job we want it to do, to make work pay and tackle poverty. We have begun this work by introducing a Fair Repayment Rate for deductions from Universal Credit and announcing the first sustained above inflation rise in the basic rate of Universal Credit since it was introduced.

As a significant downpayment ahead of strategy publication, we have already taken substantive action across major drivers of child poverty through the Spending Review 2025. This includes an expansion of Free School Meals that will lift 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of the parliament, establishing a long-term Crisis and Resilience Fund supported by £1bn a year including Barnett impact, investing in local family support services, and extending the £3 bus fare cap. We also announced the biggest boost to social and affordable housing investment in a generation and £13.2bn including Barnett impact across the Parliament for the Warm Homes Plan.

Over the period from 22/23 to 24/25, PPF spend on equipment to enable staff to work from home has been minimal (less than £1.5k over the period).

The Government is committed to supporting pensioners and giving them the financial security and dignity they deserve. The State Pension is the foundation of support for older people and together with the private and workplace pensions system provides for security in retirement. That’s why we have made a commitment to the Triple Lock for the entirety of this Parliament which will see the forecast annual spend on people’s State Pensions rise by around £31 billion.

In April this year, the basic and new State Pensions increased by 4.1%, benefitting 12 million pensioners by up to £470 this year. That’s up to £275 more than if pensions had been up rated by inflation. The standard minimum guarantee in Pension Credit, which provides a vital safety net for around 1.4m pensioners on the lowest incomes, also increased by 4.1%. Pension Credit can passport pensioners to a range of extra support including help with rent, council tax reduction, fuel bills (via the Warm Home Discount scheme and Cold Weather Payments) and a free TV licence for those over 75. We have been running the biggest ever Pension Credit campaign across Great Britain since Autumn 2024. Our drive to maximise Pension Credit take-up has seen the Department receive around 285,600 claims from July 2024 to May 2025 with almost 60,000 extra awards on the comparable period the previous year. Further promotional activity is planned from this Autumn through to the end of the financial year, as part of a nationwide campaign aimed at eligible pensioners, their friends and their families – including those in Surrey Heath.

The Household Support Fund also continues to provide support to those most in need, including older people in financial hardship. The Government has extended it in England until 31 March 2026 with funding of £742 million – and additional corresponding funding for the devolved administrations.

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) operates on the principle that a child's welfare is best served by the continued involvement of each parent in their life, provided that involvement is safe and meets the needs of the child. It is aware that paying parents can face difficulties when attempting to spend meaningful time with their child following separation. Issues relating to access and contact are managed by family courts.

The aim of the child maintenance shared care regime is to try and reflect, as far as possible, the actual patterns of care taking place between parents, and the financial consequences of that for the costs of the child. It does not dictate what should happen or require any particular conduct from parents – except that they are truthful in reporting what happens between them in respect of care. Where parents do not tell the truth, the CMS has powers to investigate if fraud is suspected.

Reductions can be made for the extra cost of care where it is shared by the paying parent. The paying parent must have overnight care of any qualifying children for at least 52 nights a year, equivalent of 1 night per week. The amount payable is reduced by a maximum of fifty per cent within bands based on the number of nights overnight care is provided over a 12-month period. The bands are used to give greater stability to maintenance payments and as a result there is greater reliability of payments, which contributes towards the welfare of the children in the case.

Where a dispute does arise, the CMS will seek to collect evidence from parents, for example a Court ordered arrangement, to establish the correct figure.

The evidence acceptable in these circumstances is

• a current court order providing for contact between the paying parent and the child
• a formal written agreement, for example drawn up by a solicitor, or
• another official document for example, Social Services or Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS) reports.

The spend in the period of January 2024 – December 2024:

a) Translation: £882,118

b) Interpreting: £6,774,336

Under the Equality Act 2010, DWP must make suitable provision to communicate with claimants where English is not their first language or who are deaf, hard of hearing or speech impaired. DWP provide Telephone Interpreting, Face-to-face interpreting, BSL interpreting service, Video Remote Services, and written translation to meet this requirement. The Language Service Provision is on-demand, and our supplier is suitably resourced to meet our various language demands against our Performance Expectations. We have a designated Language Services team that work closely with our supplier to ensure current service delivery is met and accounted for, and to ensure future demand is anticipated and planned for accordingly.

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) can only be used where the receiving parent, paying parent and any qualifying children are all habitually resident in the United Kingdom (UK). The CMS does not have jurisdiction where this does not apply.

The process for handling cases where the paying parent may be non-resident in the UK is managed according to a range of international treaties under the umbrella term REMO (Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Orders).

The UK has arrangements with a number of other countries and territories that allow a parent with care to claim maintenance from a non-resident parent resident in one of those countries. REMO can be used to register and enforce child maintenance orders internationally, or for example, when the paying parent is habitually resident in the UK but has assets and/or income in another country. If the paying parent has moved to an EU country, The CMS may be able to enforce collection of outstanding child maintenance arrears.

The CMS works closely with the Ministry of Justice, with whom the process is managed by, and the CMS's caseworkers are trained to signpost parents to that department for advice.

The Department aims to respond to all correspondences within 20 working days, but there may be instances where there is additional information needed that may cause delays. We are sorry for the length of time it has taken to reply to the Hon. Member. The response to their letter was sent on 18 July.

The Department plans to complete migration of ESA claimants to UC by March 2026. As part of this ESA claimants will be migrated to the UC Health Element. To protect any claimants who have not migrated by April 2026 we intend to mirror as closely as possible the changes made in UC in the ESA rates. Changes to the “support component” and the two disability premia (severe and enhanced disability premium rates) will reflect changes to UC LCWRA rates for existing claimants.  Including these commensurate measures aims to give fair treatment for all customers moving onto UC from income related ESA, regardless of their point of migration.

At the heart of our reforms is the principle that those who can work should work. If you need help into work, the government should support you, while those who can’t work should be supported to live with dignity.

We are committed to protecting the most vulnerable. That is why we are legislating in the Universal Credit Bill to ensure any claimants who meet the Severe Conditions Criteria – or who qualify under Special Rules for End of Life – see their combined standard allowance and LCWRA rise at least in line with inflation every year until 2029/30.

The Timms Review will also ensure that PIP is fair and fit for the future, and will be co-produced with disabled people, the organisations that represent them, clinicians, experts, MPs and other stakeholders, so a wide range of views and voices are heard.

The oral contribution refers to the PIP assessment process and outlines our commitment to audio recording assessments.

Appeals are lodged directly with, and administered by, HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS). Making appeal hearings more accessible is therefore a matter for HMCTS and MoJ.

In line with its published Strategy 2022 to 2032, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) focuses on the most effective and efficient ways to improve the health and safety performance of all industries in Great Britain, including farming.

Between 2018 and 2024, in partnership with the industry, HSE ran a campaign to offer farmers free health and safety training which was then followed up by an inspection to a selection of those farms invited to take the training.

HSE will continue to visit farms where they have intelligence to suggest risk is not being managed adequately and investigate incidents in line with their published selection criteria.

As well as appropriate site visits, HSE continues to engage with farming through a variety of other methods including delivering industry talks; webinars and presentations; engaging with the media and publishing targeted articles for farmers; producing industry notifications which include safety messaging; and producing awareness raising campaigns. It also produces a range of freely available guidance to enable farmers to comply with health and safety law and keep themselves and others safe.

HSE’s commitment to working with the agricultural industry through stakeholders such as Britain’s Farm Safety Partnerships (FSPs) remains strong. The most recent activity includes supporting the FSPs with a campaign on safe use of quad bikes.

Information on overturned appeals for Personal Independence Payment (PIP), Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) can be found in Table SSCS_3 of the Tribunal Statistics Quarterly publication here: Tribunals statistics - GOV.UK.

As part of the Pathways to Work Green Paper, we consulted on the future of the Access to Work scheme, including how we may better support deaf professionals who require full-time BSL interpreters. Following the conclusion of the consultation, we are now considering our responses and will set out our plans in due course.

This Government is committed to ensuring Universal Credit is fit for the future so that it drives up living standards, reduces poverty and makes work pay. Through this work, the Universal Credit review is considering the support across three themes:

1. Tackling poverty and helping people manage their money
2. Making work pay and improving work incentives
3. And Maximising UC's potential and its impact on customers

We have not published terms of reference for the review, allowing us to take a flexible approach, shaped by the people with direct experience of Universal Credit. We are continuing to work with stakeholders so they are able to set out their concerns about Universal Credit as well as make suggestions about where it could be improved.

The Department acknowledges there is a challenge presented by the interaction between Universal Credit and Housing Benefit for those living in Supported and Temporary Accommodation and receiving their housing support through Housing Benefit. The department is considering the issue carefully in partnership with stakeholders.

Despite this challenge, the Housing Benefit taper ensures a person is better off in work than wholly reliant on benefits. In addition to any financial advantage, there are important non-financial benefits of working. These benefits include learning new skills, improved confidence and independence, as well as a positive effect on an individual's mental and physical health.