Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department's publication entitled Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published in March 2025, how the £1 billion employment, health and skills support package will be spent.

We are delivering the biggest investment in support for disabled people and those with health conditions in at least a generation. Our Pathways to Work Guarantee will provide work, health and skills support for disabled people and those with health conditions claiming out of work benefits.

We are increasing funding each year up to £1billion a year by the end of the scorecard. This includes additional funding in 2026/27 to ensure that those affected by benefit changes in England, Scotland and Wales will be offered support with their work, health and skills needs. We anticipate this support will include: access to a conversation about needs, goals and aspirations from one of our 1,000 dedicated Pathways to Work advisors; an offer of one-to-one follow-on support; and help to access additional work, health and skills support through dedicated programmes.

As the Green Paper notes, we are keen to engage widely on the longer-term design of the Pathways to Work guarantee and the components needed to deliver it. To get this right, we are seeking input from a wide range of stakeholders including devolved governments, local health systems, local government and Mayoral Strategic Authorities, private and voluntary sector providers, employers and potential users. We will confirm further details in due course after we have completed our consultation process.