Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to help reduce the delays in decisions on Disability Living Allowance claims.

We have seen unprecedented demand in new claims to the DLA Child service line. Additional resources have been deployed, and cases are cleared in date order to ensure fair customer service. As a result, we are seeing improvements in our processing times for new claims. As of the 30^th December 2024, The Actual Average Clearance Time was 97.8 days and has since reduced to 57.3 days as of 25^th of August 2025, a reduction of 40.5 days.