Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many officials in his Department in (a) Liverpool, Walton constituency and (b) the UK have been awarded (i) upper and (ii) lower tier level ill-health retirement when applying as a result of long covid in each of the last three years.

DWP does not request nor obtain evidence to assess applications for ill health retirement due to long covid.

The Department does monitor levels and trends in short- and long-term sickness absence across all types of sickness absence recorded on DWP’s own HR data system, including short- and long-term sickness absence generally that may be attributed to Covid, but we do not receive any personal data that will help assess IHR applications.