Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Wales on the potential impact of the Green Paper entitled Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working, published on 29 May 2025, on people with arthritis.

This Government is committed to championing the rights of disabled people and people with long-term health conditions and our mission-driven approach relies on regular cross-government collaboration. We are working across government and with the Devolved Governments to further assess the impacts of the Green Paper and will continue to do so as the package is developed in detail. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions met with the Welsh First Minister and the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice on the 4 June to discuss the proposals and their impacts in Wales. I also continue to engage closely with my Ministerial colleagues and other stakeholders throughout the consultation period and beyond.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper has been published in the impacts analysis and equality analysis on 26 March 2025 and the evidence pack on 2 May 2025 at:

[https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/pathways-to-work-reforming-benefits-and-support-to-get-britain-working-green-paper]

The functional impact and severity of a condition can significantly vary across individuals, so we are not planning for specific conditions to be exempt from the changes. We recognise the challenges that people with arthritis face and our reforms will ensure the most vulnerable and severely disabled people are protected, while supporting those who can work to do so.