Asked by: Seamus Logan (Scottish National Party - Aberdeenshire North and Moray East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of establishing an independent process to set benefit levels according to the cost of essential goods and services.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No such assessment has been made.
The Social Security Administration Act 1992 requires the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to review benefit and State Pension rates each year to see if they have retained their value in relation to the general level of prices or earnings. Where the relevant benefit or State Pension rates have not retained their value, legislation provides that the Secretary of State is required to, or in some instances may, up-rate their value.
Following this review, benefit and State Pension rates are increased in line with statutory minimum amounts and others are increased subject to Secretary of State’s discretion.
Following the Secretary of States’ up-rating decisions for 2025/26, DWP expenditure on state pensions and benefits will increase by £6.9 billion.
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 17 January 2025 to Question 22689 on Carers: Social Security Benefits, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Kinship Allowance Trial on investment in kinship care; and when she plans to announce details on the process for selecting local authorities for that trial.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
As previously mentioned, the government has recently announced a £40 million package to trial a new kinship allowance. The pilot will begin in 2025, and the department will evaluate the pilot to build an evidence base on how best to deliver financial support for kinship families.
The department will share further details on the process for selecting local authorities in due course.
The department’s ambition is that all kinship carers will get the support they need to care for their children. It is important that we first build the evidence base to find out how best to deliver financial support for kinship families. Decisions about future national rollout will be informed by the findings of the evaluation.
Asked by: Danny Kruger (Conservative - East Wiltshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 14 October 2024 to Question 6515 on Social Security Benefits: Disability, if she will publish the consultation responses from organisations.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We will not be publishing organisational responses to the previous Government’s consultation, as it is for each organisation to choose whether or not to publish its response. Many organisations have already published their own responses.
Asked by: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent progress her Department has made on tackling benefit overpayments made due to (a) fraud and (b) error.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
This government is determined to reduce fraud and error in the social security system. To tackle benefit overpayments, we agreed £8.6bn of savings at the Autumn Budget 2024 – the biggest fraud and error package on record, which led the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to forecast that we will reduce fraud and error to pre-pandemic levels.
On January 22nd 2025, we introduced the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill which will help the government better identify, prevent and deter public sector fraud and error and enable the better recovery of debt owed to the taxpayer.
As part of the £8.6bn savings, this Bill is estimated to deliver benefits of £1.5bn over the next five years, as scored by the OBR. This is made up of £940 million in savings related to fraud and error overpayments, and £565 million in additional debt recoveries.
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
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 implications for her Department's policies of the report entitled Social insecurity: the devastating human rights impact of social security system failures in the UK by Amnesty International, published on 25 April 2025.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The UK Government takes its international obligations seriously and values the insights provided by Amnesty International and notes their recommendations.
The UK Government is committed to tackling poverty across the UK. Good work can significantly reduce the chances of people falling into poverty so this will be the foundation of our approach. The proposals in our plan for Making Work Pay and our Get Britain Working White Paper and our urgent work to bring forward our Child Poverty Strategy reflect our commitment to delivering lasting change.
Alongside this as announced in our Pathways to Work Green Paper we will 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.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
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 changes to (a) Universal Credit taper rates and (b) other benefits (i) encourage more people into work and (ii) support people in work.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As the Chancellor has set out, this Government is reforming the social security system to support people into work, while protecting people who will never be able to – making the system sustainable so that it is there to help those of us that need it now and long into the future.
These changes come on top of our Get Britain Working White Paper which set out the biggest reforms to employment support for a generation, and the increase in the Universal Credit work allowance to £684 per month for those without housing costs or £411 per month for those with housing costs.
In addition, Universal Credit withdraws financial support at a steady rate allowing those on low incomes to keep more of what they earn. It does this by applying a single taper rate of 55% to net earnings before reducing the amount of Universal Credit someone is eligible for. This means claimants still benefit from their income as 45 pence in every pound earned would be kept. In some cases, claimants may also benefit from a work allowance, which is the amount someone can earn before the 55% taper is applied to their net earnings.
These policies are kept under regular review to ensure they continue to make work pay and provide the correct incentives to allow those receiving Universal Credit to move into and progress in work.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
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 increase the take up of benefits in households with children in poverty.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
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 focus is on bringing about an enduring reduction in child poverty in this parliament, thereby reversing the trend that is seeing forecasts of child poverty continuing to increase. More details, including on the time horizon, will be set out in the strategy publication.
We recognise the critical role Universal Credit has to play in tackling poverty and making work pay. The Department provides extensive information on Universal Credit on Gov.uk that supports claimants to identify what support may be available.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 5 December 2024 to Question 17079 on Pension Credit: Social Security Benefits, what the average weekly cash total equivalent is of the additional qualifying benefits to which Pension Credit claimants are entitled.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
No estimate has been made as the department is unable to quantify the value of all passported benefits.
Asked by: Richard Burgon (Labour - Leeds East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 16 December 2024 to Question 19366 on Social Security Benefits: Appeals, when she plans that waiting times for mandatory reconsideration processes will be back to December 2023 levels.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Mandatory Reconsideration clearances can fluctuate for many reasons, but we expect to recover the current backlog of cases by March 2025.
The role of a Mandatory Reconsideration (MR) decision maker is to make a robust decision, supported by the law and available evidence.
In law there is no time limit within which a MR decision must be made. This reflects the overarching policy that the focus should be on making the right decision and not the speed of clearance. Decisions should always be made without delay, but if the decision maker considers that more time is needed to gather or consider evidence, then they will give themselves that time to ensure they are confident that the decision made is correct.
Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of refugees are (a) employed, (b) unemployed, (c) in receipt of Universal Credit and (d) in receipt of other social security benefits.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department does not hold the information to produce the requested calculation.
Data on the total number of individuals with refugee status is held by the Home Office.
For a) and b), it is not possible to produce this information using the Office for National Statistics’ Labour Force Survey (LFS).
For part c), the Department is exploring the feasibility of developing suitable official statistics related to the immigration status of non-UK / Irish Universal Credit customers including refugees.
For part d), the Department does not hold the requested information on refugees in receipt of social security benefits other than Universal Credit.