Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the number of non-UK nationals who are in receipt of (a) Universal Credit and (b) other welfare payments on 22 April 2025, broken down by nationality.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Non-UK / Irish citizens can only access benefits like Universal Credit if they have an immigration status that provides recourse to public funds. Those without immigration status or with a no recourse to public funds condition on their status are not entitled. An individual’s specific nationality is not relevant to their claim.

The Department is exploring the feasibility of developing suitable statistics related to the immigration status of non-UK / Irish Universal Credit customers.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether people receiving disability benefits for Ménière's disease will be exempt from her proposed reforms to the benefits system.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Pathways to Work Green Paper set out a broad package of reforms to health and disability benefits and employment support. 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.

Our reforms will ensure the most vulnerable and severely disabled people are protected, while supporting those who can work to do so. As such, the eligibility changes to PIP will not affect those who are unable to complete activities at all, and for new claimants on the Universal Credit health element after April 2026, we are proposing that those with the most severe, life-long health conditions will see their incomes protected.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the merits of involving the (a) voluntary and (b) charitable sector to support people in need of employment support as part of her Department's proposed welfare reforms. support.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We announced in the Pathways to Work Green Paper that we would establish a new guarantee of support for all disabled people and people with health conditions claiming out of work benefits who want help to get into or return to work, backed up by £1 billion of new funding

As the Green Paper notes, we are keen to engage widely on the design of this guarantee and the components needed to deliver it. To get this right, we will be seeking input from a wide range of stakeholders including devolved governments, local health systems, local government and Mayoral Strategic Authorities, organisations in the private, voluntary and charitable sectors, employers and potential users. We will confirm further details in due course after we have completed our consultation process.  We expect voluntary and charitable organisations to play a significant role in delivering employment support.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the proposals outlined in the (a) Green Paper entitled Pathways to Work and (b) Spring Budget on (i) unpaid carers and (ii) people with caring responsibilities whose disability benefit entitlements may have changed.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, and some information was published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether benefit fraud statistics are disaggregated by (a) nationality and (b) immigration status.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Monetary Value of Fraud and Error Statistics are not disaggregated by nationality and immigration status.

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, what role the (a) voluntary and (b) community sector will have in implementing those reforms.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We strongly value the input of disabled people and people with health conditions, in addition to representative organisations that support them, and that is why we have brought forward this Green Paper and the consultation.

The consultation welcomes the views of voluntary organisations, and we hope many will respond before the consultation closes on the 30 June 2025. Our programme of accessible public events will further facilitate input, including in-person and online, and will help us hear from disabled people and representative organisations directly.

We are also exploring other ways to facilitate the involvement of stakeholders in our reforms. In addition to the consultation, we will establish ‘collaboration committees’ that bring groups of people together for specific policy development areas and our wider review of the PIP assessment will bring together a range of experts, stakeholders and people with lived experience.

As we develop proposals further, we will consider how to best to involve voluntary and community organisations in the planning and implementation of reforms, including in our employment support package.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to include representatives of the (a) voluntary and (b) charitable sector in the consultation on the proposed welfare reforms.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We strongly value the input of disabled people and people with health conditions, in addition to representative organisations that support them, and that is why we have brought forward this Green Paper and the consultation.

The consultation welcomes the views of voluntary organisations, and we hope many will respond before the consultation closes on the 30 June 2025. Our programme of accessible public events will further facilitate input, including in-person and online, and will help us hear from disabled people and representative organisations directly.

We are also exploring other ways to facilitate the involvement of stakeholders in our reforms. In addition to the consultation, we will establish ‘collaboration committees’ that bring groups of people together for specific policy development areas and our wider review of the PIP assessment will bring together a range of experts, stakeholders and people with lived experience.

As we develop proposals further, we will consider how to best to involve voluntary and community organisations in the planning and implementation of reforms, including in our employment support package.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she make an assessment of the adequacy of levels of welfare support for children within married families.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We will bring in a permanent, above inflation, rise to the standard allowance in Universal Credit for the first time ever by raising the standard allowance above inflation from 2026/27 until 2029/30. This is in stark contrast to the freeze between 2016/17 and 2019/20 and is a permanent increase to give families certainty. To the lowest income and working families up and down the country this will be crucial.

We have also uprated benefit rates for 2025/26 in line with inflation and are introducing a new Fair Repayment Rate, allowing 1.2 million households to keep more of their Universal Credit.

Delivering our manifesto commitment to tackle child poverty is an urgent priority for this Government, and the Ministerial Taskforce is working to publish a Child Poverty Strategy which will deliver lasting change.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025, whether people under 22 in receipt of benefits will lose those benefits once those reforms are implemented.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We are consulting on delaying access to the health element of UC within the reformed system until someone is aged 22, on the basis that the savings generated would be reinvested into work support and training opportunities for this age group to support them into employment and improve their life chances, and that this would remove any potential disincentive to work during this time.

We are committed to putting the views and voices of disabled people and people with health conditions at the heart of everything we do. The consultation will close on 30 June 2025, to ensure that everyone has sufficient time to engage with and respond to the consultation.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the cost of adult social care to local authorities for people in receipt of (a) Personal Independence Payment and (b) other working age benefits.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

No estimate has been made.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of welfare changes on the mental health of claimants in (a) South East Cornwall constituency, (b) rural areas and (c) coastal areas.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

No assessment has been made.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the Spring Statement 2025, whether she has had discussions with Cabinet colleagues on the potential impact of welfare reforms on costs to the NHS.

Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury

The Chancellor discussed welfare reforms with Cabinet colleagues in the usual way ahead of the publication of the Pathways to Work Green Paper and Spring Statement 2025.

As the Chancellor and the Work and Pensions Secretary have set out, these reforms will make the benefits system more pro work, and putting it on a more fiscally sustainable trajectory so that it can continue to protect the most vulnerable.

The Government is committed through its Plan to Change to getting the NHS back on its feet and has prioritised investment into it through a £22.6bn increase in resource spending for DHSC from 23/24 to 25/26.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Spring Statement 2025, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of welfare reforms on demand for food banks.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Since 2021, food bank use has been measured in official statistics by the number of individuals living in families that have used foodbanks in the past 30 days and 12 months. These are published on Stat-Xplore ( https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/), including breakdowns by Economic Status of the Adult, in the Households Below Average Income dataset. The latest statistics were published on 21 March 2025 and are for the financial year 2023/24. We monitor this data closely.

We are committed to tackling food poverty and ending mass dependence of emergency food parcels. To inform this work, DWP officials have engaged with a range of organisations to better understand the complex food poverty landscape. We also continue to provide substantial funding to Local Authorities to support those most in need and are extending the Household Support Fund (HSF) by a further year until March 2026, providing funding of £742 million in England. This will ensure low-income households can continue to access support towards the cost of essentials, such as food.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department plans to carry out an impact assessment on the consequences of proposals detailed in the Health and Disability Green Paper that have not been included within the formal consultation process.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, and some information was published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of welfare reforms on (a) unpaid carers and (b) their access to (i) respite and (ii) support services.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is committed to supporting unpaid carers, who provide invaluable support to elderly or disabled people.

In the recent Pathways to Work Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025, we announced a broad package of reforms to the health and disability benefit and support system, including changes to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP). For those who are affected by the new eligibility changes, including for linked entitlements such as Carer’s Allowance, we are consulting on how best to support this group, including how to make sure health and eligible care needs are met.

The Government will consider the impacts on benefits for unpaid carers as part of its wider consideration of responses to the consultation as it develops its detailed proposals for change. Through the Green Paper we are consulting on the support needed for those who may lose any entitlements as a result of receiving PIP daily living and what this support could look like. The Department for Work and Pensions will also work closely with the Department of Health and Social Care and others on how the health and eligible care needs of those who would lose entitlement to PIP could be met outside the benefits system.

Local authorities have duties to support people caring for their family and friends. The Care Act 2014 requires local authorities to deliver a wide range of sustainable, high-quality care and support services.

The Better Care Fund includes funding that can be used for unpaid carer support, including short breaks and respite services for carers.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights' publication Concluding observations on the seventh periodic report of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, published on 12 March 2025, whether she will make it her policy to adopt the Committee's recommendations on the two-child limit and the benefit cap.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We value the UN’s Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’ input and their perspectives on our policies. It is right that the government considers this report in full, and we will respond in line with the timescales set by the committee in their concluding observations.

The Child Poverty Taskforce is continuing its urgent work and is exploring all available levers, including considering social security reforms, to drive forward short and long-term actions across government to reduce child poverty.

Our metrics must also reflect the experience of poverty in households across the UK and the urgent need to focus on those children experiencing the most severe and acute forms of poverty. The Taskforce will consider how best to measure this as the strategy develops, including through our work on the material deprivation measure following the recent review of the material deprivation survey questions carried out by the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to prevent child poverty in Ashfield constituency, in the context of disability benefit reforms.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Delivering our manifesto commitment to tackle child poverty is an urgent priority for this Government. The Ministerial Taskforce is working to publish a Child Poverty Strategy looking at levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience; and better local support especially in the early years. We are listening carefully to the voices of children and families living in poverty, including children with disabilities and special educational needs. Later this month, the Taskforce will meet with external experts, including disability charities and organisations, to discuss the impact of poverty on disabled children specifically.

Alongside our work on the Child Poverty Strategy, we have set out ambitious plans to reform employment support and support disabled people and people with health conditions to stay in work and get back into work. Our Get Britain Working (GBW) White Paper includes £15 million funding to support trailblazers and local development of GBW plans. We announced in our Pathways to Work Green Paper that we would establish a new guarantee of support for all disabled people and people with health conditions claiming out of work benefits who want help to get into or return to work, backed up by £1 billion of new funding.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure that people who are unable to work due to (a) long-term illness, (b) disability, and (c) other circumstances are adequately supported following her planned reforms to the welfare system.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Pathways to Work Green Paper set out plans to reform the health and disability and employment support system. Our reforms will ensure we can always protect people who will never be able to work – now and into the future. But, for those that can, we know that good work brings hope, dignity and self-respect and can significantly reduce the chances of people falling into poverty.

We are taking steps to support those who will never be able to work and to make sure they receive the support that they need. The changes to PIP eligibility will not affect those who are unable to complete activities at all or who require more help from others to complete them, who will continue to receive financial support. For new claimants on the Universal Credit health element after April 2026, we are proposing that those with the most severe, life-long health conditions, who will never be able to work, will see their incomes protected. We will also aim to guarantee that for both new and existing claims, those in this group will not need to be reassessed in the future.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure that welfare changes do not disproportionately impact (a) disabled people and (b) people with mental health conditions in South East Cornwall constituency.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Pathways to Work Green Paper set out our plans to reform the health and disability and employment support system. As we bring forward changes, we will ensure that the most vulnerable and severely disabled people everywhere are protected, so that they can live with dignity and security.

We are taking steps to make sure that people, across the country, are supported. For those affected by the changes to PIP eligibility, we are consulting on how best to support this group, including how to make sure health and eligible care needs are met. For new claimants on the Universal Credit health element after April 2026, we are proposing that those with the most severe, life-long health conditions, who will never be able to work, will see their incomes protected.

We hope that a wide range of voices, including from your constituency, will respond to our consultation and as we develop detailed proposals for change, we will continue to consider the potential impacts of reforms.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will hold discussions with the Trussell Trust on her proposed (a) changes to the Personal Independence Payment and (b) other welfare reforms.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We are committed to putting the views and voices of disabled people and people with health conditions at the heart of everything we do.

In the Green Paper, we have announced that we will set up collaboration committees to develop parts of our reforms further. This will involve bringing together disabled people and other experts with civil servants around specific issues to collaborate, provide ideas, challenge, and input into recommendations.

We will continue discussions with disability stakeholders including the Trussell Trust on the proposed changes to the Personal Independence Payment benefit and other welfare reforms.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government, following the publication on 7 April of Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, whether there will be exemptions from the proposed conversations for disabled people who cannot work, and if so what those exemptions will be.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The support conversation will enable individuals to set out their aspirations, needs and goals, understand what early support might be available to them and be signposted towards it. Given the importance of the support conversation in ensuring individuals understand the help available to them, we are considering making participation a requirement. However, we are consulting on how we should design and deliver it, and, if mandated, who should be exempted, so that it is welcomed by individuals and is effective.

We are seeking views through the Green Paper on what those exemptions should be.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the potential impact of reforms to incapacity and disability benefits on the employment rate of people with disabilities; and what plans they have to evaluate and monitor the impact of these reforms once they have been introduced.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Pathways to Work Green Paper sets out our plans for reform to stop people from falling into inactivity, restore trust and fairness in the system and protect disabled people.

The plans include increased funding for employment support for disabled people, rising to an additional £1 billion per year by the end of the Parliament.

The Office of Budget Responsibility has committed to produce an assessment of the labour market impacts of the proposals in the Pathways to Work Green Paper at the time of the autumn budget.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, and some information was published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper and to monitor and evaluate their impact will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of trends in the level of poverty among people in receipt of social security; and if she will introduce a statutory poverty reduction target.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Statistics on the number of people living in absolute and relative poverty in the UK are published annually in the “Households Below Average Income” publication at  Households below average income: for financial years ending 1995 to 2024 - GOV.UK. Tables giving the percentage of individuals in relative poverty by state support received by the family are published in “table 5.9db” of “workingage-hbai-detalied-breakdown-2023-24-tables”, “table 6.6db” of “pensioners-hbai-detailed-breakdown-2023-24-tables”, and “table 4.6db” of “children-hbai-detailed-breakdown-2023-24-tables”. The latest statistics published on 27 March 2025 are for the financial period 2023/24.

The latest available data can also be found on Stat-Xplore: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/. Guidance on how to use it can be found here: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/User-Guide.html.

The Child Poverty Taskforce is continuing its urgent work and is exploring all available levers to drive forward short and long-term actions across government to reduce child poverty.

Our metrics must also reflect the experience of poverty in households across the UK and the urgent need to focus on those children experiencing the most severe and acute forms of poverty. The Taskforce will consider how best to measure this as the strategy develops, including through our work on the material deprivation measure following the recent review of the material deprivation survey questions carried out by the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of her Department's proposed reforms to health and disability benefits on people who are (a) autistic and (b) neurodivergent.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, and some information was published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

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