Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many families in receipt of the child benefit of UC are exempt from the household benefit cap because they (a) receive limited capability for work and work-related activity, (b) are in a grace period and (c) earn £846 or more a month.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

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

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what data his Department holds on the number of people who have newly claimed Universal Credit in each of the last five years by (a) health-related reasons for claiming and (b) the searching-for-work conditionality group.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 25 November 2025 to PQ UIN 92813.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 24 June 2025 to Question 62284, whether his Department holds further information on the primary medical conditions of the PIP claimants with an active contract for the Motability Scheme whose primary medical condition is stated as (a) missing claim, (b) no illness or impairment claimed or identified and (c) main disability not recorded.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The information requested cannot be provided without incurring disproportionate cost.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many complex case coaches (a) are currently employed and (b) have been for each month since June 2024.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

There is no specific Work Coach role defined as Complex Case Coach.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what analysis his Department has done on the increase in households that off-flowed from the benefits cap as a result of the increase in unemployment over the past 13 months, in the context of the 9-month grace period exemption for newly unemployed.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

No such analysis has been undertaken.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Personal Independence Payment claimants are in a contract with the Motability Scheme to receive a vehicle by primary medical condition.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The information requested will be published in due course.

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of community benefit levels provided by NSIP-scale solar developers (a) relative to the profits generated and (b) in comparison with non-NSIP solar developments.

Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

We believe that, where communities do the country a service by hosting clean energy infrastructure, they should benefit from it directly.

No formal analysis has been carried out to compare the community benefit funds of proposed NSIP projects with those of non-NSIP projects. However, we are aware that the current voluntary provision can be variable and inconsistent.

That is why we recently published a working paper proposing to make it mandatory for developers to contribute to community benefit funds. A government response setting out next steps will be published shortly.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much insurance premium tax was collected from each type of insurance product in the latest year for which data is available.

Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)

HMRC publishes annual statistics on IPT receipts and liabilities within the publication titled “Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) Bulletin” which can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/insurance-premium-tax-ipt-bulletin

However HMRC does not hold the information requested as to how much insurance premium tax was collected from each type of insurance product.

This is because Insurance Premium Tax returns do not include a breakdown of the tax due on different types of products, as this may impose an excessive administrative burden on customers.

HMRC does however include the split between the standard rate and higher rate of insurance premium tax as part of our published annual statistics on IPT receipts and liabilities.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the salary sacrifice policy announced in the Autumn Budget 2025 on individual pension savings.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

A Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN) was published alongside the introduction of the Bill containing the changes to pensions salary sacrifice.

The Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) November 2025 Economic and Fiscal Outlook (EFO) sets out that there is not expected to be a material impact on labour supply from this measure. The OBR also do not expect a material impact on savings behaviour as a result of Budget 2025 tax changes.

The government supports all individuals to save into pensions through a generous system of income tax and NICs reliefs worth over £70 billion a year.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the salary sacrifice cap policy announced in the Autumn Budget 2025 on employee hours worked in (a) the private sector and (b) the public sector.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

A Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN) was published alongside the introduction of the Bill containing the changes to pensions salary sacrifice.

The Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) November 2025 Economic and Fiscal Outlook (EFO) sets out that there is not expected to be a material impact on labour supply from this measure. The OBR also do not expect a material impact on savings behaviour as a result of Budget 2025 tax changes.

The government supports all individuals to save into pensions through a generous system of income tax and NICs reliefs worth over £70 billion a year.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the salary sacrifice policy announced in the Autumn Budget 2025 on pensions and hours worked by (a) sex, (b) age and (c) NUTS region.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

A Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN) was published alongside the introduction of the Bill containing the changes to pensions salary sacrifice.

The Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) November 2025 Economic and Fiscal Outlook (EFO) sets out that there is not expected to be a material impact on labour supply from this measure. The OBR also do not expect a material impact on savings behaviour as a result of Budget 2025 tax changes.

The government supports all individuals to save into pensions through a generous system of income tax and NICs reliefs worth over £70 billion a year.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the salary sacrifice policy announced in the Autumn Budget 2025 on hours worked by people near tax cliff edges.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

A Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN) was published alongside the introduction of the Bill containing the changes to pensions salary sacrifice.

The Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) November 2025 Economic and Fiscal Outlook (EFO) sets out that there is not expected to be a material impact on labour supply from this measure. The OBR also do not expect a material impact on savings behaviour as a result of Budget 2025 tax changes.

The government supports all individuals to save into pensions through a generous system of income tax and NICs reliefs worth over £70 billion a year.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the salary sacrifice policy announced in the Autumn Budget 2025 on overall hours withdrawn by employees.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

A Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN) was published alongside the introduction of the Bill containing the changes to pensions salary sacrifice.

The Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) November 2025 Economic and Fiscal Outlook (EFO) sets out that there is not expected to be a material impact on labour supply from this measure. The OBR also do not expect a material impact on savings behaviour as a result of Budget 2025 tax changes.

The government supports all individuals to save into pensions through a generous system of income tax and NICs reliefs worth over £70 billion a year.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of current numbers of NEET young people on the economy.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

When this Government came to power, we inherited a situation in which almost 1 million young people were not in employment, education or training. We are determined to address this problem.

At Budget, we announced more than £1.5 billion of investment over the next three years, funding £820m for the Youth Guarantee to support young people to earn or learn, and an additional £725 million for the Growth and Skills Levy.

Through the expanded Youth Guarantee, young people aged 16-24 across Great Britain are set to benefit from further support into employment and learning. The details were published on 6^th December 2025 and can be found here: Almost a million young people to benefit from expanded support, new training, and work experience opportunities - GOV.UK.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many NEET young people (a) live with their parents or guardians and (b) live independently.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Office for National Statistics and the Department for Education – who both produce official statistics publications on young people who are NEET – do not publish a breakdown of young people who are not in employment, education or training broken down by whether they live with parents/guardians or live independently.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what projections his Department has made of numbers of NEET young people for each quarter until the end of this Parliamentary term.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

When this Government came to power, we inherited a situation in which almost 1 million young people were not in employment, education or training. We are determined to address this problem.

At Budget, we announced more than £1.5 billion of investment over the next three years, funding £820m for the Youth Guarantee to support young people to earn or learn, and an additional £725 million for the Growth and Skills Levy.

Through the expanded Youth Guarantee, young people aged 16-24 across Great Britain are set to benefit from further support into employment and learning. The details were published on 6^th December 2025 and can be found here: Almost a million young people to benefit from expanded support, new training, and work experience opportunities - GOV.UK.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many NEET young people are parents, broken down by month since January 2020.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Office for National Statistics and the Department for Education – who both produce official statistics on young people who are NEET – do not publish a breakdown of young people who are not in employment, education or training broken down by parental status.

The Department for Education do publish an estimate of the proportion of young people aged 16-24 who are economically inactive for the primary reason of looking after family/home – which shows that in 2024 1.5% of 16-24 years where economically inactive due to looking after family/home – down from 1.7% in 2023. See here for more the annual series back to 2020: Create your own tables on neet age 16 to 24 - Explore education statistics - GOV.UK

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to Budget 2025, what assessment he has of the potential impact of the proposed changes to the salary sacrifice policy for employee pension contributions on the number of hours worked by NHS employees.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The proposed Salary Sacrifice policy’s changes to employer contributions will not have an impact on National Health Service employees' working hours. HM Treasury's Managing Public Money guidelines prevent public funds from being used to offset National Insurance liabilities. As a result, NHS Pension Scheme contributions cannot be paid through salary sacrifice arrangements.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the answer of 8 December 2025 to UIN 96251, whether his Department plans to make an estimate of the level of change in the number of households exempt from the benefit cap following the Autumn Budget 2025.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The department does publish quarterly benefit cap statistics about the number of households that have been capped but this does not provide a breakdown of exemptions nor go into an individual exemption breakdown level.

These were last published on 16 December with data until August 2025 and can be found here: Benefit cap: number of households capped to August 2025 - GOV.UK

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the level of change in the number of households exempt from the benefit cap following the Autumn Budget 2025.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The department does publish quarterly benefit cap statistics about the number of households that have been capped but this does not provide a breakdown of exemptions nor go into an individual exemption breakdown level.

These were last published on 16 December with data until August 2025 and can be found here: Benefit cap: number of households capped to August 2025 - GOV.UK

Found: Responding for the opposition, Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Helen Whately said the