Sarah Champion

The table below shows Average Actual Clearance Times (AACT) from the end of week commencing 2nd September to the end of week commencing 21st October, in working days.

DWP currently works to a planned timescale of 50 working days to clear Pension Credit claims.

Please note.

• The data shown is unpublished management information, collected and intended for internal departmental use and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard.

• These figures will not align to previous PQ responses due to retrospective updates as the data is sourced from live systems.

If a claim is made by 21 December, Pension Credit can be backdated for three months if the entitlement conditions have been met throughout that period, and if the claimant was eligible, they would also receive a Winter Fuel Payment.

Winter Fuel Payments will continue to be paid to pensioner households with someone receiving Pension Credit or certain other income-related benefits. They will continue to be worth £200 for eligible households, or £300 for eligible households with someone aged 80 and over.

Pensioners in receipt of Attendance Allowance and on a low-income may qualify for Pension Credit if all other eligibility criteria are met. Moreover, pensioners on low incomes and in receipt of Attendance Allowance can qualify for an additional amount in Pension Credit, providing they meet the other eligibility criteria.

Entitlement to Attendance Allowance is based on the on-going need for frequent personal care and attention, or supervision to ensure personal safety, rather than on the individual’s medical condition. It is paid out of general taxation and is a tax-free, non-contributory, and non-means-tested benefit so is not affected by other income or savings.

I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave on 9 September 2024 to Question 2902.

The Department continues to advise patients to follow National Health Service guidance on reducing the risk of melanoma. The advice is available at the following link:

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/seasonal-health/sunscreen-and-sun-safety/

Primary care will play an important role in helping the National Health Service achieve the net zero targets outlined in the report, Delivering a Net Zero NHS, published in July 2022, by decarbonising its estate, travel, and supply chain. Targeted efforts are needed to reduce emissions from medicines, which make up nearly two-thirds of primary care’s carbon footprint. There is range of support available to general practice (GP) surgeries to achieve this transition.

Supported by NHS England, the Royal College of General Practitioners is actively working to reduce the carbon footprint of GP surgeries through several initiatives like the Net Zero Hub, which provides guidance, eLearning, and tools for sustainability, and the Green Impact for Health Toolkit, which offers practical advice and awards for sustainable practices, among others. GP surgeries are also encouraged to use grants through the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, for low-carbon heating solutions.

On efficiency and heat, all new buildings and major refurbishment projects, including primary care upgrades, will need to comply with NHS England’s Net Zero Building Standard, published in 2023.

Overprescribing can be addressed by taking a shared decision making approach and optimising a person's medicines; ensuring that patients are prescribed the right medicines, at the right time, in the right doses. The National Health Service is responding to the challenge of overprescribing and driving changes in this area by:

• Implementing the National Medicines Optimisation Opportunities for ICBs, more information can be found at the following link: https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/national-medicines-optimisation-opportunities-2023-24/
• Addressing problematic polypharmacy
• Delivering Structured Medication Reviews, more information can be found at the following link: https://www.england.nhs.uk/primary-care/pharmacy/smr/
• Improving repeat prescribing processes
• Optimising personalised care for adults prescribed medicines associated with dependence or withdrawal symptoms, more information can be found at the following link: https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/optimising-personalised-care-for-adults-prescribed-medicines-associated-with-dependence-or-withdrawal-symptoms/

Offering treatments that are not medicines is also key to addressing overprescribing. Many other initiatives delivered across the NHS contribute towards this. These include delivery of personalised care and shared decision-making, NHS Talking Therapies for anxiety and depression, and social prescribing.

In addition to the £97 million of UK ODA to Sudan so far this year, and £16.5 million to support neighbouring countries hosting people displaced by the conflict, on 17 November, the UK announced a further £113 million of aid to support over a million people affected by the violence in Sudan, and displaced across the region including to South Sudan, Chad and Uganda. With this announcement, the UK has doubled our aid in response to the conflict in Sudan this year to £226.5 million. Our funding supports UN and NGO partners, providing food, cash, shelter, medical assistance, water and sanitation. Education Cannot Wait will also receive £10 million of this funding to provide safe learning spaces and psychosocial for 200,000 vulnerable children in refugee and host communities in Chad, Ethiopia, Libya, South Sudan, Central African Republic and Uganda. UK ODA continues to support the Sudan Humanitarian Fund (SHF) which is supporting local and national responders, including Emergency Response Rooms and a consortium of INGOs.

As of the end of September 2024, £70 million had been disbursed. The rest of the UK's funding to Sudan this year - which now stands at £97 million following further UK support since March - will be distributed by the end of the financial year.

We are committed to addressing the causes of global food insecurity and malnutrition. The UK is leveraging expertise and investment to build greater resilience to shocks. The UK is also helping to transform agrifood systems for greener, inclusive growth and nutritious and sustainable foods and support smallholder farmer livelihoods. Our support to the Child Nutrition Fund and CGIAR, the world's leading agricultural science and innovation organisation, is helping to tackle malnutrition.

At the G20 Development Ministers Meeting in July, I announced the UK would join the Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty to work in partnership to lift ambition and finance for long-term solutions.

This Government will bring a consistent, long-term and strategic approach to managing the UK's relations with China, driven by the national interest. We will co-operate where we can, including on global net zero, health and trade; compete where we have different interests; and challenge where we must, to protect our national security and values. An audit of the UK's relationship with China will improve the UK's capability to understand and respond to the challenges and opportunities. A timeline for the audit is to be determined.

We have used our position as penholder at the UN Security Council to call meetings to call for a ceasefire, and for all warring parties to protect civilians in Sudan. On 13 June, the UNSC adopted a UK-led resolution 2736 demanding a halt to the Rapid Support Forces' siege of El Fasher and requesting the Secretary-General to provide recommendations on the protection of civilians. The UK is engaging closely with the UN on the development of those recommendations which will be released in October ahead of the next 120-day meeting on Sudan. I met with the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa to discuss pathways to ceasefire negotiations and we will continue to work alongside our international partners, including those in the region such as the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the AU, to urge the warring parties to engage constructively to secure a ceasefire.

VAT is a broad-based tax on consumption, and the 20 per cent standard rate applies to most goods and services. It is the UK’s second largest tax, forecast to raise £176 billion in 2024/25. Tax breaks reduce the revenue available for public services, and must represent value for money for the taxpayer.

One of the key considerations when assessing any potential new VAT relief is whether the cost saving is likely to be passed on to consumers. Evidence suggests that businesses only partially pass on any savings from lower VAT rates. In some cases, therefore, reliefs do not represent the best value for money, as there is no guarantee that savings would be passed on to consumers, and therefore no guarantee that it would make certain products more accessible to the public.

The Home Office assigns severity classification to protocols in accordance with the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (as amended) which is published at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/14/contents.

The classification takes account of the highest severity likely to be experienced by any animal used in the protocol and takes account of the pain, suffering, distress and lasting harm that an animal is likely to experience, after applying all the appropriate refinement techniques. Of the 21 dogs used for creation and breeding in research on muscular dystrophy, 15 were subject to ‘Mild’ severity and 6 ‘Moderate’ severity.

The Home Office assures that, in every research proposal, animals are replaced with non-animal alternatives wherever possible, the number of animals are reduced to the minimum necessary to achieve the result sought, and that, for those animals which must be used, procedures are refined as much as possible to minimise their suffering.

The Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT) is leading on plans to accelerate the development, validation and uptake of alternatives to animal testing.

The trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation is a truly horrific crime. This Government has set out a mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, and we will use all the levers available to us to deliver this ambition.

The Government is working closely with law enforcement to tackle the drivers of trafficking for sexual exploitation, including through operational intensifications to target perpetrators.

This Government will also work closely with the voluntary and community sector to help sexually exploited people and ensure that those who want to exit prostitution are able to. We have several ways to estimate the scale of sexual exploitation. Victims of sexual exploitation make up a significant proportion of referrals to the National Referral Mechanism (the framework for identifying and referring potential victims of modern slavery to appropriate support). The most recent statistics show that in 2023, sexual exploitation accounted for 10% (1,679) of all referrals, a 2% increase from the previous year, with 9% (1,470) of referrals relating to women. The Home Office does not hold data specific to Rotherham. However, between January and June 2024, there were 25 potential victims of modern slavery referred to the NRM who reported (either part or whole) sexual exploitation which was disclosed as occurring in South Yorkshire.

To help support people at risk of being sexually exploited, Changing Lives has received £1.36m from the Home Office over three years (2022-2025) for their Net-Reach project, which provides online outreach, early intervention and intensive support for women and girls at high-risk of exploitation and abuse. The Net-Reach project operates in several locations in England, including South Yorkshire.

In addition, the Modern Slavery Victim Care Contract provides support to adult potential and confirmed victims of modern slavery in England and Wales, including a support worker to help them access wider services, such as medical treatment, legal aid, legal representatives, and legal advice.

Research to develop a treatment for improving the length and quality of life for patients with muscular dystrophy utilises a dog model which has a harmful phenotype.

The Home Office publish non-technical summaries of all programmes of work concluded under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/animals-in-science-regulation-unit#non-technical-summaries. For programmes involving experimental procedures that use cats, these include immune system research, multisystemic research, urogenital/reproductive system research and research to develop a treatment for improving the length and quality of life for patients with muscular dystrophy utilises a dog model which has a harmful phenotype. The published Annual Statistics detail the actual severity experienced by animals.

This Government intends to work towards an end to the use of animals in scientific procedures. However, in limited circumstances where there is no animal alternative and procedures are required to deliver important benefits to people, the environment, and other animals then we deliver robust, rigorous and trustworthy regulation of those procedures