Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether staff in her Department have been instructed to apply Access to Work guidance more strictly since July 2024.

For the last year, we have worked to improve decision-making throughout the Access to Work Scheme by ensuring that guidance is applied with greater consistency, helping to provide a fairer process. This may mean that some awards change at the point of renewal, but this does not reflect a change in policy of the Scheme.