Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the value for money of obesity treatments and weight-loss medicines; and whether their impact on sickness absence, workforce participation and wider economic productivity has been taken into account.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) makes recommendations on whether new medicines should be routinely funded by the National Health Service based on an assessment of clinical and cost effectiveness. When assessing treatments, NICE looks at how well they work and whether they represent good value for NHS money. Its standard approach focuses on NHS costs and does not include wider economic factors such as the impact on sickness absence or workforce productivity.

NICE has recommended a number of medicines licensed for the treatment of obesity for use on the NHS using its standard approach to evaluations, and those treatments are now available for the treatment of NHS patients in line with NICE’s guidance.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what targets they have set for reducing the number of young people aged 16 and 17 with an unknown education, employment or training status.

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

Reducing the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) is a shared priority for government and local authorities, preventing the impacts of disengagement on individuals, the economy and society.

Local authorities support this by maintaining effective systems to identify and support NEET young people. There is already strong practice across the sector, often in the face of significant challenges. The department has written to all local authorities and contacted those where the proportion of young people whose activity is not known is in the highest quintile to provide support and challenge, understand local circumstances, and agree actions.

To support local authorities, we have introduced a new risk of NEET indicator tool and guidance. The department is continuing to refine it with local authorities and monitoring its impact on earlier identification of young people at risk of becoming NEET.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what information will be collected to measure the success of the new Risk of NEET Indicator tool.

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

Reducing the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) is a shared priority for government and local authorities, preventing the impacts of disengagement on individuals, the economy and society.

Local authorities support this by maintaining effective systems to identify and support NEET young people. There is already strong practice across the sector, often in the face of significant challenges. The department has written to all local authorities and contacted those where the proportion of young people whose activity is not known is in the highest quintile to provide support and challenge, understand local circumstances, and agree actions.

To support local authorities, we have introduced a new risk of NEET indicator tool and guidance. The department is continuing to refine it with local authorities and monitoring its impact on earlier identification of young people at risk of becoming NEET.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the reasons why 32,100 young people aged 16 and 17 have an unknown education, employment or training status.

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

Reducing the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) is a shared priority for government and local authorities, preventing the impacts of disengagement on individuals, the economy and society.

Local authorities support this by maintaining effective systems to identify and support NEET young people. There is already strong practice across the sector, often in the face of significant challenges. The department has written to all local authorities and contacted those where the proportion of young people whose activity is not known is in the highest quintile to provide support and challenge, understand local circumstances, and agree actions.

To support local authorities, we have introduced a new risk of NEET indicator tool and guidance. The department is continuing to refine it with local authorities and monitoring its impact on earlier identification of young people at risk of becoming NEET.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to assess the impact of obesity treatment on economic inactivity and workforce participation.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government recognises that obesity is associated with significant labour market challenges, including reduced workforce participation and increased sickness absence. The Government remains committed to monitoring emerging evidence to better understand the full range of health and economic benefits associated with obesity treatments. Indeed, the evidence base for the impact of health interventions on employment outcomes is rapidly growing, with very robust evidence on the impact of bariatric surgery and Talking Therapies.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what metrics they plan to use in future studies on weight-loss medicines to assess employment outcomes, workforce participation and sickness absence.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Studies currently underway in the United Kingdom are examining outcomes which include employment status, work productivity, and sickness absence. For example, the industry funded SURMOUNT-REAL study will examine employment status and work productivity outcomes alongside other factors. The Government funded Scotland CardioMetabolic Impact Study will include an assessment of how improved health through weight loss may help people remain in work and reduce sick leave.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government, in light of their commitment in 2023 to include unearned income in the standard calculation used by the Child Maintenance Service, when they intend to introduce the necessary legislation to facilitate this.

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

The Department has recently completed a review of the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) calculation. This was underpinned by a substantial programme of research the results of which have been published.

Following the review, the Government intends to reduce the income tolerance from 25 per cent to 15 per cent so that changes in income are reflected more quickly in maintenance calculations. The Government also intends to include unearned income within the standard calculation, helping to ensure liabilities more accurately reflect a parent's financial circumstances and that more money reaches children.

Secondary legislation is required before implementation, which is subject to parliamentary approval. Further details on legislation and implementation will be communicated in due course.

We remain committed to ensuring that the CMS provides an effective service for separated parents and their children and continue to keep the operation of the child maintenance system under review and will consider any future changes in the context of wider priorities for supporting children and families.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will reconsider the cancellation of the public consultation on the Child Maintenance Service's calculation process.

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

The Department has recently completed a review of the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) calculation. This was underpinned by a substantial programme of research the results of which have been published.

Following the review, the Government intends to reduce the income tolerance from 25 per cent to 15 per cent so that changes in income are reflected more quickly in maintenance calculations. The Government also intends to include unearned income within the standard calculation, helping to ensure liabilities more accurately reflect a parent's financial circumstances and that more money reaches children.

Secondary legislation is required before implementation, which is subject to parliamentary approval. Further details on legislation and implementation will be communicated in due course.

We remain committed to ensuring that the CMS provides an effective service for separated parents and their children and continue to keep the operation of the child maintenance system under review and will consider any future changes in the context of wider priorities for supporting children and families.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that Child Maintenance Service users who are assigned to the specialist domestic abuse caseworker team are transferred to that team when they contact the Child Maintenance Service helpline.

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

The Government is committed to ensuring that victims and survivors of domestic abuse receive the support they need when using the Child Maintenance Service (CMS).

The CMS has a Specialist Caseworker team that provides targeted support for customers experiencing the most challenging or complex domestic abuse situations. All CMS caseworkers receive training to identify indicators of domestic abuse and to refer appropriate cases to the specialist team.

Once the CMS has moved a customer’s case into the Specialist Caseworker team, all inbound calls from that customer will route directly to that team. If the automated call routing cannot identify the customer, their call will go to a different team, but all caseworkers are trained to identify this and will reroute the call to the Specialist Caseworker Team. CMS has strengthened telephony quality assurance arrangements and provided targeted training for team leaders on service standards, coaching and feedback. These measures are designed to support consistent service delivery and help ensure customers requiring specialist support are identified and transferred appropriately.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the role of temporary work in helping young people who are not in education, employment or training to gain experience and enter the labour market.

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

With over one million young people not in education, employment and training, this Government will not leave an entire generation of young people behind. The Government is investing an additional £2.5 billion over the next three years into the Youth Guarantee and the Growth and Skills Levy.

This investment will support almost one million young people and create up to 500,000 opportunities to earn and learn, including through expanded network of Youth Hubs, earlier intensive support in Jobs Centres through a new Youth Guarantee Gateway, additional work experience and training opportunities, a £3,000 Youth Jobs Grant and £2,000 apprenticeship hiring payment for employers, and a fully funded six month job for long-term unemployed 18–24-year-olds.

We also recognise the crisis of participation that Alan Milburn has so clearly laid out in his interim report. We will use this interim report to continue to build our reforms and look forward to final recommendations in the Autumn.

The government recognises that temporary work can help young people, including those not in education, employment or training (NEET), to gain valuable experience and enter the labour market. Through the Youth Guarantee, the government is expanding access to work experience, training and employment support to help more young people move into work. For example, several Youth Guarantee Trailblazers are connecting young people who are NEET with work placement opportunities to help them gain the experience they need and develop the skills to get sustained employment.

The Employment Rights Act preserves flexibility for genuinely temporary work, including through limited-term contracts. The government is consulting employers, trade unions and wider civil society to ensure the right to guaranteed hours works for businesses and workers.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the potential impact of excluding zero-hours contracts from the Youth Guarantee on employment opportunities for young people who are not in education, employment or training.

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

As part of the Government’s investment of an additional £2.5 billion over the next three years in the Youth Guarantee and the Growth and Skills Levy, young people on Universal Credit are benefiting from enhanced support to help them get into employment, apprenticeships, work experience, Sector-based Work Academy Programme, learning or training from their first appointment in the Jobcentre.

Eligible young people can also benefit from the Jobs Guarantee, which will provide a guaranteed paid job offering regular hours of work of up to 25 hours per week for six months at the relevant National Minimum Wage. Participants will receive the same statutory employment rights and protections as other employees, alongside opportunities to develop skills and experience that support progression into sustained employment. The scheme aims to provide meaningful, secure and predictable employment opportunities for eligible young people who have experienced long-term unemployment. By offering a guaranteed paid job with regular hours, the scheme is designed to help the participants to develop the skills and experience they need to progress into sustained employment.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the numbers of non-British nationals claiming Universal Credit.

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

Figures are routinely published of the number of non ‘Common Travel Area’ (CTA) nationals in the Universal Credit statistics available on GOV.UK.

From the most recently published Universal Credit statistics, there were 8.3 million people on Universal Credit in January 2026, and the percentage of those people by nationality group, compiled from Table 2 of the immigration and nationality data tables, is shown in the table below.

Table 1: Proportion of People on Universal Credit by Nationality group, Great Britain, January 2026

Source: DWP Universal Credit - Immigration Status and Nationality statistics

Notes:

1. The latest non-missing Nationality declared by the claimant, reported across all previous UC claims.
2. CTA – The Common Travel Area (CTA) is a special travel zone that allows for free movement between the UK, Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands (Jersey, Guernsey).
3. “CTA – UK, Ireland, Right of Abode”: British nationals, Irish nationals, and people with right of abode in the UK do not need an immigration status to claim Universal Credit.
4. “EEA (Excluding Ireland)”: Those with nationalities from the 27 European Union (EU) member states, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
5. “Non-EEA”: A person who is not an EEA citizen and is not a British citizen.
6. “No nationality recorded on digital systems”: The individual has not provided their nationality during their claim.
7. If a claimant has dual nationality and one is CTA then they will be recorded as CTA - UK, Ireland, Right of Abode.
8. Right of Abode individuals include Commonwealth citizens.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve the collection of data on young people who are not in education, employment or training.

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

The government is investing an additional £2.5 billion over the next three years into the Youth Guarantee and Growth and Skills Levy, supporting almost one million young people and creating up to 500,000 opportunities to earn and learn.

For young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET), or at risk, the Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper set a clear ambition for improving identification, tracking and data sharing, so that prevention or reengagement support can be targeted at those who need it most.

The department has made a new risk of NEET indicator (RONI) tool available to local areas to identify risk earlier and more consistently, and is investing in support for monitoring attendance in further education to enable earlier intervention.

We are also improving data quality and sharing across education transitions, providing clearer guidance on the use of RONI tools, and exploring the safe and ethical use of artificial intelligence to support professional judgement.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether the introduction of a right to guaranteed hours could reduce access to flexible employment opportunities for young people who are not in education, employment or training.

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

With over one million young people not in education, employment and training, this Government will not leave an entire generation of young people behind. The Government is investing an additional £2.5 billion over the next three years into the Youth Guarantee and the Growth and Skills Levy.

This investment will support almost one million young people and create up to 500,000 opportunities to earn and learn, including through expanded network of Youth Hubs, earlier intensive support in Jobs Centres through a new Youth Guarantee Gateway, additional work experience and training opportunities, a £3,000 Youth Jobs Grant and £2,000 apprenticeship hiring payment for employers, and a fully funded six month job for long-term unemployed 18–24-year-olds.

We also recognise the crisis of participation that Alan Milburn has so clearly laid out in his interim report. We will use this interim report to continue to build our reforms and look forward to final recommendations in the Autumn.

The government's Employment Rights Act 2025 is tackling one-sided flexibility partly through a right to guaranteed hours, where the number of hours offered reflects a qualifying worker’s working hours during a reference period.

The government has published a comprehensive assessment of the potential impacts of the zero hours contract measures in the Employment Rights Act 2025. This includes consideration of the potential impact of the right to guaranteed hours on employment for different types of roles or groups in the labour market.

The government is consulting on these measures, and will consider responses before finalising regulations and implementation.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many Child Maintenance Service-paying parents were liable to pay child maintenance of between £0.01 and £7.00 per week at the latest date for which data are available; and of those paying parents, how many were (1) in receipt of Universal Credit, and (2) subject to a work-search requirement under Universal Credit conditionality.

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

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

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to increase the higher rate of income tax to 50 per cent; and, if so, what estimate they have made of the revenue implications of increasing that rate.

Answered by Lord Pitt-Watson - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Government remains committed to its manifesto which pledged to protect working people by not increasing rates of income tax.

HM Revenue and Customs regularly publishes estimates of the effects of illustrative tax changes on tax receipts. The most recent update from June 2025, is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/direct-effects-of-illustrative-tax-changes

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to increase taxes on vapes, smoking, gambling, alcohol and food; and, if so, what estimate they have made of the revenue implications of increasing those taxes.

Answered by Lord Pitt-Watson - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

Decisions on taxes are taken at the Budget by the Chancellor.

Tax changes announced at Budget are accompanied by a Tax Information and Impact Note which sets out the expected revenue impact.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the revenue implications of ending private residence relief.

Answered by Lord Pitt-Watson - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The estimated cost of private residence relief in the 2025 to 2026 tax year was forecast as £32.9 billion.

The estimated cost of private residence relief from this year and from previous tax years can be found online here: Tax relief statistics (January 2026) - GOV.UK

The estimated cost of this relief does not represent the yield if it were to be abolished, as consequential behavioural effects could substantially reduce yield.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the revenue implications of implementing the overnight visitors levy nationally.

Answered by Lord Pitt-Watson - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The revenue implications of the English levy will largely be determined by local decisions. Local leaders will decide whether to implement a levy and, if so, consult with local businesses and their communities on specific proposals.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Livermore on 13 July (HL1420), what estimate they have made of the revenue implications of levying Capital Gains Tax at the same rate as Income Tax.

Answered by Lord Pitt-Watson - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Government does not comment on tax speculation. Decisions on tax policy are taken by the Chancellor at the Budget.

Found: Baroness Humprheys Baroness Williams of Trafford Apologies: Earl of Kinnoull, Lord Mawson, Baroness Stedman-Scott

Found: Lord Faulkner of Worcester Baroness Wilcox of Newport Apologies: Max Wilkinson, Baroness Stedman Scott

Found: The Chair announced that Baroness Stedman-Scott had left the Committee, the Committee thanked her for

Found: Letter dated 30/07/2026 from Baroness Sherlock to Baroness Stedman-Scott regarding the Universal Credit