Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the answer of 21 July 2026 to UIN 18353, if he will set a timeframe for legislating on the removal of Direct Pay and moving of all cases to a single service, in accordance with the Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Act 2023.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government remains committed to legislating to remove Direct Pay and move to a single child maintenance payment service where the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) monitors and transfers payments.
Implementing this reform requires primary legislation, and the timing of any legislation will depend on securing Parliamentary time.
In the meantime, the CMS is strengthening its support for victim/survivors by making it easier for parents to switch to the Collect and Pay service through our improvements to the ‘change to service type’ process. The CMS is also being clearer in its communication about what support is available for victims and survivors of domestic abuse and how to access it.
The CMS is also working with stakeholders to understand what additional support it can give to victims and survivors of abuse across the CMS customer journey.
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that contractor providers of medical assessments for Personal Independence Payments ensure that health care assessors carrying out an assessment properly understand the condition of the claimant they are assessing.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government) (Equalities)
Personal Independence Payment assessments are functional assessments designed to consider how a person’s health conditions or impairments affect their ability to carry out daily living and mobility activities.
All assessment suppliers are required to ensure that health professionals (HPs) have appropriate training and knowledge of the clinical aspects and likely functional effects of a wide range of health conditions and impairments. All HPs undertaking assessments on behalf of the department must be registered practitioners and receive comprehensive training in disability analysis, including how to assess the impact of health conditions on day-to-day activities, alongside awareness training covering a range of conditions, symptoms and disabilities. From 9 September 2024 the educational material for all Health Assessment Advisory Service HPs has been provided by DWP.
HPs have access to a wide range of Core Training and Guidance Materials (CTGM). These resources offer detailed clinical and functional information, including the potential risks and limitations of a range of conditions to support HPs in delivering informed assessments.
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to his Department's publication entitled The Timms Review: Co-chair update, September 2026, updated on 11 September 2026, whether the Review's steering group will evaluate the need and potential alternatives for medical assessments provided by an outsourced contractor.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government) (Equalities)
The Timms Review steering group is considering its recommendations ahead of the final report's publication in late autumn.
The Review will report to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who will consider the findings before deciding any next steps.
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of aligning the rate of Universal Credit for 16 to 24 year-olds receive with that of claimants aged over 25.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government) (Equalities)
This Government is committed to ensuring that every young person has the opportunities they need to fulfil their potential and succeed in work.
The lower rate of the Universal Credit standard allowance for customers under 25 is designed to maintain the incentive for young people to enter, remain in and progress in work, complemented by the employment support we provide to help young people develop their skills and build successful careers. The lower rate also reflects that the majority of young people live in someone else’s household and are therefore likely to have lower living costs.
Where young people do live independently or have extra living costs, Universal Credit provides additional support for eligible customers, including help with the cost of housing, children, childcare, disability-related needs, and caring responsibilities.
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent progress he has made in reforming the Child Maintenance Service.
Answered by Andrew Western - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This Government has committed to a series of reforms to the Child Maintenance Service (CMS).
These include the intention to remove Direct Pay and move to a single, enhanced Collect and Pay system. This will enable the CMS to monitor all payments, identify non-compliance more quickly and take faster enforcement action. It is estimated that these changes could lift around 20,000 children out of poverty on the relative low-income after housing costs measure. This requires legislation; we will pass such legislation and implement this reform when Parliamentary time allows.
To improve arrears collection, the Government will introduce administrative liability orders to replace the current court-based process, streamlining enforcement and reducing delays. The new process is expected to reduce the time taken to secure a liability order in most cases and allow the CMS to take enforcement action more quickly against parents who do not meet their responsibilities. Work with His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service and the Scottish Government is ongoing, and the necessary regulations will be brought forward as soon as possible.
The Department has also recently completed a review of the child maintenance calculation. Following the review, we plan 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. We also plan 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. Similarly, these changes are dependent upon legislation and we are exploring different options in order to pass these reforms in Parliament and implement when possible.
These legislative changes are running alongside ongoing CMS modernisation which are enhancing online services, delivering improved case handling and customer communications across multiple channels.
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will take steps to help ensure that an existing claimant with a new or worsening health condition can request a review of their capability for work and have it reassessed with the same priority given to a new claimant.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government) (Equalities)
We prioritise initial assessments for new benefit customers to ensure that people receive the correct entitlement and employment related support as early as possible. Reassessments are carried out when there is capacity in the system to do them. We have no immediate plans to change this approach. We are, however, taking steps to extend the period between PIP assessments, to increase the amount of assessment resource available for WCA reassessments.
When an individual is reassessed, if the outcome of the assessment means they are entitled to a higher rate of benefit, that rate will be backdated accordingly.
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what is the (a) average time and (b) target time for a substantive response to enquiries by the MP hotline.
Answered by Andrew Western - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department for Work and Pensions responds to enquiries received via the MP Hotline as quickly as possible.
(a) Information on the average time taken to provide a substantive response to MP Hotline enquiries is not centrally collated, as the service is primarily designed to handle urgent, non‑complex cases which are often resolved on the same day.
(b) The MP Hotline is intended for urgent enquiries requiring immediate intervention and, where appropriate, cases are responded to on the same day. Where an enquiry is more complex or requires formal investigation, the Department’s service standard (target) is to provide a full response within 15 working days.
More complex cases may take longer; however, the Department seeks to keep Honourable Members informed of progress and expected timescales.
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Answer of 22 October 2025 to Question 80479 on Personal Independence Payment, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of increasing decision making resource on reducing median clearance times for mandatory reconsiderations.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government) (Equalities)
From October 2025 onwards, the Department has cleared more PIP Mandatory Reconsiderations than it has received. This coincides with an increase in decision-making resource.
The latest published statistics indicate this has had an effect on median clearance times - a reduction from 87 calendar days in October 2025 to 79 calendar days in January 2026. Information on clearance times is in section 7 of the PIP official statistics: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-independence-payment-statistics-to-january-2026/personal-independence-payment-official-statistics-to-january-2026
Data on PIP Mandatory Reconsideration clearances and registrations is available on Stat-Xplore (https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/jsf/login.xhtml). An account is not required to use Stat-Xplore, the ‘Guest Login’ feature gives instant access to the main functions. Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore is also available here: Personal Independence Payment data on Stat-Xplore: user guide - GOV.UK.
The relevant information can be found in the ‘PIP MR Clearances’ and ‘PIP MR Registrations’ data.
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many UK exports of highly hazardous substances listed in Parts II and III of GB Prior Informed Consent Regulation are exported using the waiver from explicit consent from the importing country; and what estimate his Department has made of the number of exports permissible under changes to Article 14 Chemicals (Health and Safety)(Amendment, Consequential and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2026.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government) (Equalities)
Information about waivers used in the past five years under the Great Britain (GB) Prior Informed Consent (PIC) Regulations is in the table provided below:
Year | Exports notified | Waivers used for export |
2025 | 962 | 12 (1.2% of exports notified) |
2024 | 853 | 24 (2.8% of exports notified) |
2023 | 914 | 21 (2.3% of exports notified) |
2022 | 919 | 22 (2.4% of exports notified) |
2021 | 1017 | 25 (2.5% of exports notified) |
Prior to 2021, and so during the time when the United Kingdom was a member of the European Union, waivers were issued by the European Commission.
The current waiver provision in the GB PIC Regulations applies hazard criteria to the use of the waiver for those chemicals that are listed under the Rotterdam Convention (i.e., those chemicals listed in Part 3 of the GB PIC list). This goes beyond what the Convention requires and potentially creates a barrier to the export of a chemical that falls within these criteria when the importing country fails to respond to repeated requests for consent to import.
In order to facilitate regulatory decision-making, harmonise conditions, and create greater clarity for businesses, the draft Chemicals (Health and Safety) (Amendment, Consequential and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2026 includes an amendment to Article 14(7) in the GB PIC Regulations. This will ensure the same waiver conditions apply to all chemicals that require explicit/prior informed consent to import.
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if the Health and Safety Executive will publish a regularly updated list of GB exports of highly hazardous substances listed in Annex II and III of GB PIC that are permitted using the waiver for explicit consent, including (a) the importing country, (b) the UK company, (c) the substance exported and tonnage band and (d) the reasons for which the export met the waiver conditions.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government) (Equalities)
There is no statutory requirement to publish information on waivers used under the Great Britain (GB) Prior Informed Consent (PIC) Regulations. However, each year, companies have to report the name of the chemical in the GB PIC list that they have exported or imported during the previous calendar year, the quantity of the chemical, and the name of the importing or exporting country. The Health and Safety Executive, as the Designated National Authority, publishes that information on its website: https://www.hse.gov.uk/pic/annual-reporting.htm.