Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick

The Department publishes Universal Credit statistics on Stat-Xplore which show there were 7.1 million people on Universal Credit in September 2024 and 5.6 million people on Universal Credit in September 2020.

The Department also publishes the benefit expenditure and caseload tables which reported an average caseload of 4.0 million people on Universal Credit in 2020-21.

There are a number of reasons for the increase in the caseload for Universal Credit. There is a maturing effect, as people on legacy benefits leave the system as their legacy claim ends, they appear as a new claim to Universal Credit. In addition, the Move to UC programme is driving up the caseload numbers as people are moved off legacy benefits onto Universal Credit as part of our migration programme.

Delivering our manifesto commitment to tackle child poverty is an urgent priority for this Government, and the Ministerial Taskforce is working to publish the Child Poverty Strategy in Spring 2025.

Our publication on 23 October ‘Tackling Child Poverty: Developing our Strategy’ sets out how we will develop the Strategy, harnessing all available levers to deliver a reduction in child poverty this Parliament.

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

The Taskforce will hear directly from experts on each of the Strategy’s themes. In October, they heard from partners in industry, regulation and the charity sector about options to reduce essential costs for low-income families. In November, employers, trade unions and think tanks will be invited to discuss options to increase incomes and financial resilience in low-income households.

The vital work of the Taskforce comes alongside our commitments to triple investment in breakfast clubs to over £30 million, introduce a Fair Repayment Rate for deductions from Universal Credit, and increase the National Living Wage to £12.21 an hour from April 2025 to boost the pay of 3 million workers.

£1 billion, including Barnett impact, will be invested to extend the Household Support Fund in England by a full year until 31 March 2026, on top of the six months already announced, and to maintain Discretionary Housing Payments in England and Wales. This will help struggling households facing the greatest financial hardship.

The latest statistics show that in 2022/23 there were 4.3 million children (30%) in relative low income after housing costs.

Statistics on the number of children living in absolute and relative poverty in the UK are published annually in the “Households Below Average Income” publication at Households below average income: for financial years ending 1995 to 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)(opens in a new tab). The latest available data can also be found on Stat-Xplore: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/. The latest statistics published on 21 March 2024 are for the financial period 2022/23.

Delivering our manifesto commitment to tackle child poverty is an urgent priority for this Government, and the Ministerial Taskforce is working to publish the Child Poverty Strategy in Spring 2025.

Our publication on 23 October ‘Tackling Child Poverty: Developing our Strategy’ sets out how we will develop the Strategy, harnessing all available levers to deliver a reduction in child poverty this Parliament.

The Strategy will look at policies 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 Strategy is building on a wealth of existing evidence and expertise from all relevant Departments, as is reflected in the broad membership of the Ministerial Taskforce. Ministers are also committed to leading discussions across all UK nations and regions.

The Taskforce will listen to experts and campaigners, engaging with charities, campaigners and leading organisations across the UK to shape and inform these plans, including hearing directly from families across the UK to gather insight.

While we cannot commit to changing the two child policy, tackling child poverty is at the heart of the Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and improve the life chances of every child.

The Child Poverty Taskforce will explore how we can harness all available levers to reduce child poverty, including by listening to stakeholders on potential changes, before publishing a strategy in Spring 2025.

The lower rate of Universal Credit standard allowance for customers under 25 reflects the fact they are more likely to live in someone else’s household than customers 25 and over and are therefore likely to have lower living costs. They also typically earn less as they are earlier in their careers, with the lower rate maintaining the incentive to work.

The Government is committed to reviewing Universal Credit. Details of the review will be set out in due course.

The Health Mission sets the objective of building a National Health Service fit for the future. As part of that work, and in response to Lord Darzi’s report, we have launched an extensive programme of engagement to develop a 10-Year Health Plan to reform the NHS. The plan will set out a bold agenda to deliver on the three big shifts, from hospitals to the community, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention.

In addition, following publication of the 10-Year Health Plan, we will develop a new national cancer plan, which will include further details on how we will improve outcomes for cancer patients, including those with blood cancer.

We are now in discussions about what form that plan should take, and what its relationship to the 10-Year Health Plan and the Government’s wider Health Mission should be, and will provide updates on this, including on publication dates, at the earliest opportunity.

We are committed to tackling deaths from cardiovascular disease (CVD), of which there are far too many, and setting a goal for fewer lives being lost to the biggest killers, including CVD. The development of the Major Conditions Strategy was paused following the general election. NHS England’s 2019 Long Term Plan sets out a number of actions that aim to help prevent up to 150,000 heart attacks, strokes, and dementia cases by 2029, and progress towards this is ongoing. To deliver the National Health Service Long Term Plan priorities, a CVD programme has been established which is clinically led by national clinical directors and national specialty advisors, and supported by senior clinicians from a breadth of cardiac and stroke specialties, and primary care, as part of expert advisory groups.

Tackling waiting lists and ensuring that patients receive the care they need when they need it is a key part of our Health Mission. Funding announced in the Autumn Budget will support the delivery of an additional 2 million operations, scans, and appointments during our first year in Government, which is the equivalent to 40,000 per week, as a first step in our commitment to ensuring patients can expect to be treated within 18 weeks.

The NHS Health Check programme, England’s CVD prevention programme, finds people aged 40 to 74 years old who are at risk of CVD and supports them to reduce their risk, preventing approximately 500 heart attacks or strokes each year. To improve access and engagement with the life-saving programme, we are developing a digital NHS Health Check which will be ready for testing in early 2025, and will enable people to undertake a check at home. We are also trialling the delivery of heart health checks to over 130,000 people in workplaces across the country, all of which would improve earlier diagnosis of CVD.

At the 2024 Autumn Budget, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced £1.5 billion of capital funding for new surgical hubs and diagnostic scanners. This will build capacity for over 30,000 additional procedures and over 1.25 million diagnostic tests, as well as new beds which will create more treatment space in emergency departments, reduce waiting times, and help shift more care into the community. We will also address the challenges in diagnostic waiting times, providing the number of computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and other tests that are needed to reduce elective and cancer waits. Finally, the NHS is prioritising roll-out of additional diagnostic capacity, delivering the final year of the three-year investment plan for establishing Community Diagnostic Centres, with capacity prioritised for cancer diagnostics.

Heart valve disease (HVD) care in the United Kingdom has made strides in addressing treatment gaps, yet challenges such as late diagnosis, health disparities, and regional variations in care persist. NHS England is driving initiatives to improve pathways, reduce inequalities, and enhance access to timely and equitable care, while also addressing broader elective care pressures.

Significant progress is being made in the care and treatment of HVD patients in the UK. NHS England has established an expert advisory group to drive targeted pathway improvement projects, aiming to reduce referral-to-treatment times for severe valvular disease in 2024/25. Referral rates for cardiac rehabilitation have improved notably, rising from 7% in 2019 to 15% in 2024. Over 80% of heart failure patients consistently receive care from specialist teams, reflecting steady progress in specialist access.

Efforts to address health inequalities are also advancing, including a review of disparities in the presentation and treatment of conditions like aortic stenosis, and updates to primary care eLearning to improve early diagnosis. These strides demonstrate our commitment to improving outcomes in HVD care.

The Women's Health Strategy call for evidence in 2021 received nearly 100,000 responses from individuals, and over 400 written submissions from expert groups and researchers. It identified a range of issues with women’s healthcare, including women not feeling listened to by healthcare professionals, healthcare services not considering women’s needs by default, negative impacts of symptoms and conditions on women in the workplace, and under-representation of women in research.

When asked if a health condition or disability had impacted their experience in the workplace, three in five answered yes, the equivalent to 62%. The most common impact was increased stress levels, at 76%, but one in four also said that it had impacted their earnings, the equivalent to 26%, or opportunities for promotion, equivalent to 25%.

In 2023, the Department commissioned the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to undertake a Women’s Reproductive Health Survey. Findings indicate that one in 10 respondents, or 11.8%, missed, on average, three or more days of work or education due to heavy bleeding or pain during their period over the past year.

We are considering how to take forward the Women’s Health Strategy for England. The Government is committed to prioritising women’s health as we reform the National Health Service, and we will put women’s equality at the heart of our missions.

The Health Mission sets the objective of building a National Health Service fit for the future. As part of that work, and in response to the Darzi report, we have launched an extensive programme of engagement to develop a 10-Year Health Plan to reform the NHS. The plan will set out a bold agenda to deliver on the three big shifts from hospitals to the community, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention.

In addition, following publication of the 10-Year Health Plan, we will develop a new national cancer plan, which will include further details on how we will improve outcomes for cancer patients.

We are now in discussions about what form that plan should take, and what its relationship to the 10-Year Health Plan and the Government’s wider Health Mission should be, and will provide updates on this, including on publication dates, at the earliest opportunity.