Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
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) decile, (b) upper quartile, (c) lower quartile and (d) median annual income of pensioners with a net worth of £1 million or above.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Department does not collect data on individuals’ net worth.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
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 pensioners with a net worth of over £1 million who will be eligible to receive Winter Fuel Payments.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Department does not collect data on individuals’ net worth.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
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 pensioners with a net worth of over £1 million who are eligible for pension credit.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Department does not collect data on individuals’ net worth.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to Chapter 9 of the final stage impact assessment entitled Improve access to Statutory Sick Pay by removing the Lower Earnings Limit and removing the waiting period, if she will make it her policy publish an assessment of the impact of that policy on behaviour in each of the first five years after it is implemented.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government intends to conduct a post-implementation review (PIR) of the Employment Rights Bill within five years of implementation. The impact of the measures to strengthen Statutory Sick Pay will be monitored, including how Statutory Sick Pay is used by employers and how effectively it supports employees.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
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 proportion of young people who have been auto-enrolled in a pension since October 2012; and what their median expected annual pension payments will be.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Automatic enrolment has succeeded in transforming pension saving with over 11 million employees having been automatically enrolled into a workplace pension since 2012. These statistics are available from The Pensions Regulator and are updated on a monthly basis. However, this is not split by age
Automatic enrolment declaration of compliance report.
DWP publish statistics annually on pension participation by age. The latest statistics show 86% of 22-to-29-year-olds who are eligible for Automatic Enrolment are saving into a workplace pension as of 2023, up from 35% in 2012 (when AE was being rolled out). This is comparable to a participation rate of 88% for all eligible individuals aged (22 to 66). Further data on workplace pension participation and saving trends are available on GOV.UK.
Future pension income depends on many individuals factors across an individual’s life time, further analysis on future pensioner incomes by year of retirement are available on GOV.UK.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
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 people in receipt of a pension in the (a) 2025-26, (b) 2026-27, (c) 2027-28 and (c) 2028-29 financial years.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The estimated total number of people in receipt of State Pension in the 2025-26 to 2028-29 financial years is available in the following table. This is from the latest Benefit Expenditure and Caseload tables published following Spring Statement 2025. This covers State Pension recipients in Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and outside the UK. Figures are rounded to nearest one thousand and represent a mid-financial year average. Source: Benefit expenditure and caseload tables 2025 - GOV.UK
As forecasts of private pension receipt are not produced, this response has reference to the State Pension only.
Financial Year | 2025-26 | 2026-27 | 2027-28 | 2028-29 |
Total State Pension Claimant Forecast (in thousands) | 13,196 | 13,209 | 13,075 | 13,157 |
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
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 endometriosis on women in the workplace.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Backed by £240m investment, the Get Britain Working White Paper launched last November will drive forward approaches to tackling economic inactivity and work toward the long-term ambition of an 80% employment rate. We announced in the recent Pathways to Work Green Paper that we would establish a new guarantee of support for all disabled people and people with health conditions claiming out of work benefits who want help to get into or return to work, backed up by £1 billion of new funding.
In addition to this work, the Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions and Business and Trade have launched the Keep Britain Working Review. This review will consider how to support and enable employers to recruit and retain more disabled people and people with health conditions; promote healthy workplaces and support more people to stay in or return to work from periods of sickness absence.
The Department for Work and Pensions and Department for Health and Social Care are committed to supporting disabled people and people with health conditions, including women with endometriosis, with their employment journey.
The Disability Confident Scheme encourages employers to create disability inclusive workplaces and to support disabled people to get work and get on in work. A digital information service for employers, (Support with Employee Health and Disability), has been developed to offer guidance on making reasonable adjustments, supporting employees to remain in work, and understanding legal requirements.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department's press release entitled Nearly fifty thousand extra pensioners receiving vital Pension Credit support following surge in claims processed, published on 27 February 2025, how much her Department spent on promoting Pension Credit uptake.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Pension Credit campaign budget is £5m for the 2024/25 financial year. This supported the development of an expanded Pension Credit campaign encouraging all eligible pensioners to claim.
Activity has included TV and video on demand; radio; national and regional press; paid social media and website adverts; GP and Post Office screens; train panels; digital street displays; podcasts; and a partnership with ITV regional weather.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 18 February 2025 to Question 30412 on Sick Leave: Productivity, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of workplace sickness on productivity.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department published an estimate of the overall cost to the economy due to sickness absence in The cost of working age ill-health and disability that prevents work on 18 March 2025. The analyses do not estimate the specific impact of workplace sickness on productivity at work, but do consider the overall economic output lost as a result of sickness absence. This found that lost output due to sickness absence cost the economy between £38 billion to £56 billion in 2022. The Department currently has no plans to specifically assess the potential impact of levels of workplace sickness on productivity.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the press notice entitled Nearly fifty thousand extra pensioners receiving vital Pension Credit support following surge in claims processed, published on 27 February 2025, if she will make an estimate of the number of people who were (a) eligible for and (b) not in receipt of Pension Credit on 24 March 2025.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Department does not have this data for the period up to March 2025.
The latest available Pension Credit take-up statistics cover the financial year 2022 to 2023 and are available at: Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year ending 2023 - GOV.UK.