Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many (a) households, and (b) children, will not receive an overall increase in benefit support from the abolition of the two-child benefit cap from April 2026 due to being subject to the overall benefit cap (i) across England, (ii) in Sussex, and (iii) in Brighton Pavilion constituency.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The requested information is not available.
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many (a) households, and (b) children, will not receive the full potential increase in benefit support they would be entitled to from the abolition of the two-child benefit cap from April 2026 due to being subject to the overall benefit cap after any increase provided through the abolition of the cap (i) across England, (ii) in Sussex, and (iii) in Brighton Pavilion constituency.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The requested information is not available.
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of trends in the level of job vacancies in key professions within her Department’s responsibilities, including contractor organisations.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes information on the number of vacancies at UK-level, by industry, and by size of business as part of the vacancies and jobs in the UK release. Using that data, we see that in August to October 2025 there were 15,000 vacancies in arts, entertainment and recreation, 33,000 vacancies in information and communication and 76,000 vacancies in accommodation and food service activities. Parts of these industries are included in DCMS sector definitions.
Compared to August to October 2024:
Arts, entertainment and recreation vacancies are down 14.0%
Accommodation and food service activities vacancies are down 16.5%
Information and communication vacancies are down 13.5%
DCMS uses a more granular industry classification (4-digit Standard Industrial Classification codes) to define our sectors and ONS vacancy data is not publicly available at this level.
DCMS publishes official statistics in development estimating the number of vacancies, alongside skills shortages and skills gaps, based on the Department for Education’s (DfE) Employer Skills Survey. Two regular data releases have been published so far: DCMS Sectors Skills Shortages and Skills Gaps: 2019 and DCMS Sector Skills Shortages and Skills Gaps: 2022, UK, as well as additional analysis for the Creative Industries. The 2022 data showed that 25.5% of DCMS Sectors businesses in the UK had at least one vacancy open at the time of the survey. This was significantly higher than All Sectors (23.2%).
Further insights into labour demand are provided in the ONS’s Labour demand volumes by Standard Occupation Classification (SOC 2020), UK dataset, which includes official statistics in development sourced from Textkernel data. DCMS has published additional estimates by SOC code for the Creative Industries using the DfE’s Employer Skills Survey.
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
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 impact of the Motability Scheme on transport barriers experienced by disabled people.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Motability Scheme supports many disabled people and families, by enabling them to lease a car, wheelchair accessible vehicle, scooter or powered wheelchair in exchange for an eligible disability benefit allowance. The scheme helps people with significant mobility issues participate in society, including by breaking down barriers to work.
The Motability Foundation have published its strategy to support and empower disabled people by improving their access to transport. The plan sets out how they will act directly and work with others to drive change.
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the answer of 21 November 2025 to question UIN 90771, what steps he is taking to monitor the performance of the handover of the new Civil Service Pension Scheme contract to Capita, including monitoring and taking action on missed payments to new pensioners and reported errors in the new online portal.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The previous administrator, MyCSP continued to make payments up to and including 1 December. Capita assumed control of the payroll from 2 December and continues to pay pensioners continuously in line with the contractual requirements.
The Cabinet Office is monitoring Capita’s services via ‘Early Life Support’ during December. This involves Capita providing regular updates across different workstreams, offering quick issue resolution and performance monitoring to ensure stability. Once this is completed early in 2026, phase 2 will progress which is Capita increasing the functionality and automation within the portal which will increase the member self serve options. The Cabinet Office will monitor this period for approximately 6 months.
An issue was identified with the new scheme website shortly after launch that caused the website and portal to run slowly. Capita immediately identified the issue and worked with Microsoft to rectify the issue. By 4 December, the website was considerably improved and we now have 37,000 members registered on the member portal as of 5 December.
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will support the establishment of structured, research-led innovation through an Areas of Research interest approach for fire and rescue services, similar to that adopted by police services in England.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government recognises the importance of working collaboratively with sector partners.
The implementation of an Areas of Research Interest (ARI) approach to support research and innovation will be considered as part of the due process associated with any future establishment of a college. This ensures that decisions are informed by evidence-based priorities and aligned with fire sector needs.
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of job vacancies in key professions within his Department’s responsibilities, including contractor organisations.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The Ministry of Justice has not undertaken a central assessment of trends in job vacancies across key professional groups. Workforce planning is devolved to individual business groups, which are responsible for assessing their own staffing requirements and monitoring vacancy levels in line with operational priorities. This includes oversight of contractor organisations supporting the department, who are similarly responsible for overseeing their own workforce needs. Through established governance and performance-management arrangements, the department maintains oversight to ensure that services continue to be delivered effectively.
However, the ONS publishes information on the number of vacancies from the Vacancy Survey. These headline accredited official statistics are published monthly on a rolling three-monthly basis at UK-level, by industry sector, and by size of business, as part of the ONS's Vacancies and jobs in the UK release.
Further insights into labour demand are provided in the ONS's Labour demand volumes by Standard Occupation Classification (SOC 2020), UK dataset, which includes official statistics in development sourced from Textkernel data. These tables are published monthly and contain the number of online job adverts split by local authority and occupation (SOC 2020).
Be advised the ONS caution use of these alternative data sources because the data is not seasonally adjusted or directly comparable to their headline estimates.
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of job vacancies in key professions within his Department’s responsibilities, including contractor organisations.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The independent Office for National Statistics publish monthly estimates of online job adverts by occupation Labour demand volumes by Standard Occupation Classification (SOC 2020), UK - Office for National Statistics and vacancies across each industrial sector VACS02: Vacancies by industry - Office for National Statistics.
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he plans to remove the work capability assessment.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We announced in the Pathways to Work Green Paper that we are abolishing the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) and that following this, eligibility to the new Universal Credit Health Element would require the claimant to be in receipt of a Daily Living award on Personal Independence Payment (PIP).
Work is continuing to determine the detail of how this reformed system would work and discussions are also under way with the Scottish Government about the interactions between the devolved and reserved systems. We will set out further details of the reformed system, and the timing of WCA abolition, once we are in a position to do so.
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of a centralised Probation service.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
A unified Probation Service operates throughout England and Wales, under the leadership of the Chief Probation Officer, who provides both professional guidance and system oversight for probation staff.
We recognise that probation works best when delivering in partnership, and Regional Probation Directors and their teams have significant flexibility to collaborate with local partner agencies. Examples of that local collaboration and innovation include joint delivery of Integrated Offender Management with police forces and co-commissioning of services for offenders with metro mayors.
The probation service needs investment and strong leadership – which we are delivering. It is our assessment that further structural changes at this time would be disruptive and detrimental.