Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
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 Modernising support for independent living: the health and disability green paper, published on 29 April 2024, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of the potential options for reform on benefits spending.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities
We are looking at different options to reshape the current welfare system so that we can provide better targeted support to those who need it most. We are considering some of these options through our 12-week consultation which was published on Monday 29 April and will close on Monday 22 July at 11:59pm.
We encourage everyone to respond to the consultation which can be found here, so that we are able to hear from as many disabled people, people with health conditions, their representatives, and local stakeholders as possible on these important issues.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people living with a musculoskeletal condition have (a) applied for and (b) been successful with an Access to Work application in the last 12 months.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities
The Department does collect information on Access to Work applicant’s primary medical condition, however we do not hold information to the level required to identify people with the specific conditions requested. Therefore, we are not able to make an estimate of the number of people that have applied for, or been approved, for support through the Access to Work scheme.
Information on Access to Work volumes for approvals and recipients by primary medical condition are published annually in the official statistics found here.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people living with rheumatoid arthritis have (a) applied for and (b) been successful with an Access to Work application in the last 12 months.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities
The Department does collect information on Access to Work applicant’s primary medical condition, however we do not hold information to the level required to identify people with the specific conditions requested. Therefore, we are not able to make an estimate of the number of people that have applied for, or been approved, for support through the Access to Work scheme.
Information on Access to Work volumes for approvals and recipients by primary medical condition are published annually in the official statistics found here.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people living with osteoarthritis have (a) applied for and (b) been successful in an Access to Work application in the last 12 months.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities
The Department does collect information on Access to Work applicant’s primary medical condition, however we do not hold information to the level required to identify people with the specific conditions requested. Therefore, we are not able to make an estimate of the number of people that have applied for, or been approved, for support through the Access to Work scheme.
Information on Access to Work volumes for approvals and recipients by primary medical condition are published annually in the official statistics found here.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress his Department has made on the digitalisation of Access to Work.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities
As of May 2024, customers are able to both make applications to, and claim payments online for, the following elements of Access to Work:
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
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 the number of people who are out of work because of a musculoskeletal condition.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities
Information on the number of people who are out of work because of a musculoskeletal condition is not held by the Department for Work and Pensions.
The available published information on the number of disabled people aged 16 to 64 with a musculoskeletal condition by employment status in the UK is shown in the table below.
Number of disabled people (in thousands) aged 16 to 64 with a musculoskeletal condition by employment status, UK
| Main long-term health condition | Main or secondary long-term health condition | ||||
| Total | In employment | Not in employment | Total | In employment | Not in employment |
2013/14 | 2,386 | 1,217 | 1,169 | 3,712 | 1,594 | 2,119 |
2014/15 | 2,460 | 1,308 | 1,152 | 3,835 | 1,735 | 2,099 |
2015/16 | 2,438 | 1,317 | 1,121 | 3,850 | 1,760 | 2,090 |
2016/17 | 2,409 | 1,354 | 1,056 | 3,746 | 1,795 | 1,950 |
2017/18 | 2,355 | 1,367 | 988 | 3,684 | 1,818 | 1,866 |
2018/19 | 2,365 | 1,367 | 999 | 3,688 | 1,829 | 1,859 |
2019/20 | 2,342 | 1,404 | 938 | 3,698 | 1,908 | 1,790 |
2020/21 | 2,130 | 1,227 | 902 | 3,623 | 1,789 | 1,834 |
2021/22 | 2,258 | 1,323 | 934 | 3,763 | 1,879 | 1,884 |
2022/23 | 2,342 | 1,346 | 996 | 3,974 | 1,974 | 2,001 |
Data source: Annual Population Survey (APS) - The employment of Disabled People 2023 (LMS003 and LMS004)
Notes:
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Universal Credit claimants in the limited capability for work and work related activity group are in some form of paid employment as of May 2024.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The latest available statistics are shown in the following table.
Number of people on Universal Credit Health caseload on 14 December 2023 by stage, and those with employment earnings in the UC assessment period
Stage of UC Health | People on UC health | With employment earnings | Percentage with employment earnings |
Live fit note (Pre-wca) | 271,675 | 49,541 | 18% |
Limited capability for work | 347,472 | 47,486 | 14% |
Limited capability for work and work-related activity | 1,355,441 | 84,907 | 6% |
Total | 1,974,587 | 181,931 | 9% |
Source: Stat-Xplore and DWP People on UC and UC Health Caseload datasets
Notes:
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of people in the Universal Credit (Limited Capability for Work) group are in a form of paid employment.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The latest available statistics are shown in the following table.
Number of people on Universal Credit Health caseload on 14 December 2023 by stage, and those with employment earnings in the UC assessment period
Stage of UC Health | People on UC health | With employment earnings | Percentage with employment earnings |
Live fit note (Pre-wca) | 271,675 | 49,541 | 18% |
Limited capability for work | 347,472 | 47,486 | 14% |
Limited capability for work and work-related activity | 1,355,441 | 84,907 | 6% |
Total | 1,974,587 | 181,931 | 9% |
Source: Stat-Xplore and DWP People on UC and UC Health Caseload datasets
Notes:
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress his Department has made on the roll out of the Back to Work Plan.
Answered by Jo Churchill
We are making good progress delivering the Back to Work plan. For example, in April we published a call for evidence on fit note reform and on May 7th announced the 15 areas that will pilot our new WorkWell service.
Asked by: Vicky Foxcroft (Labour - Lewisham North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress his Department has made on the Health Transformation Programme.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities
The Government is committed to continuously improving support for disabled people and people with health conditions, including through the Health Transformation Programme which is modernising Health and Disability benefit services to create a more efficient service and a improved claimant experience, reducing the time it takes to process a claim and improving trust in our services and decisions.
The department has started to publish HTP management information (MI). On 19 December 2023, the department published the first in a new series; publication of this MI will continue quarterly in line with the PIP Official Statistics release schedule. This can be found here.
The Programme published its Evaluation Strategy on 25th May 2023 here.
The National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee published reports in 2023 on the Health Transformation Programme.
Transforming health assessments for disability benefits (nao.org.uk)
Revising health assessments for disability benefits (parliament.uk)