Asked by: Sarah Pochin (Reform UK - Runcorn and Helsby)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people are clinically unable to receive mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines; and how this figure has been derived.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to protecting those most vulnerable to COVID-19 through vaccination, as guided by the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). The primary aim of the national COVID-19 vaccination programme remains the prevention of serious illness, resulting in hospitalisations and deaths, arising from COVID-19.
The Government has accepted the JCVI’s advice for autumn 2025 and in line with the advice, a COVID-19 vaccination is being offered to the following groups:
As for all vaccines, the JCVI keeps all vaccination programmes under review.
COVID-19 vaccines are procured by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) in line with JCVI advice.
UKHSA advise that as with all vaccines there will be an extremely small proportion of people who cannot receive a particular COVID-19 vaccine due to an anaphylactic reaction, this includes mRNA vaccines. Advice published in the UKHSA Green Book recommends that anyone with a prior allergic reaction to COVID-19 vaccines should be seen by an expert allergist and, after a review of the individual’s risks and benefits of vaccination, where it is indicated, they could then be vaccinated in hospital under clinical supervision. Information is not held centrally on how many people seen under this pathway are unable to receive an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine even in a hospital setting. Where an allergist has advised that a vaccine is not suitable, and this is the only type of vaccine available in a particular campaign, the individual should be advised of other mitigations to reduce their risk of becoming infected and be provided with information on access to treatments should they test positive for infection.
Asked by: Lord Truscott (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the total cost of all forms of welfare benefit fraud over the last 12 months.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Estimates of fraud and error levels in the benefit system in Great Britain are published annually. Information for the financial year 2025 to 2026 will be published later this year.
Information on the financial year 2024 to 2025 can be found here: Fraud and error in the benefit system: financial year 2024 to 2025 estimates - GOV.UK – see section 4. Total estimates of fraud and error across all benefit expenditure: overpayments due to Fraud were 2.2% (£6.5bn) in FYE 2025, compared with 2.7% (£7.3bn) in FYE 2024.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many face-to-face assessments for benefit claimants have taken place since 1 January 2024.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
While this information is not currently published by the department, we will be sharing this data in a future statistical release.
Asked by: Helen Whately (Conservative - Faversham and Mid Kent)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many households returned to the benefit cap because of the loss of an exempting benefit other than PIP during (a) the quarter to August 2025, (b) the quarter to May 2025, (c) the quarter to February 2025 and (d) the quarter to November 2024.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to Question 100498, how many households on Housing Benefit and Universal Credit who have flowed off the benefit cap are in the Other outcome category by reason of receiving an exempting benefit during the quarter to (a) August 2025, (b) May 2025, (c) February 2025 and (d) November 2024.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department publishes Official Statistics on the number of households in Great Britain on Housing Benefit (HB) or Universal Credit (UC) that have flowed off the benefit cap, including outcome at off-flow, in the HB Cumulative Caseload dataset and the UC Cumulative Caseload dataset, which are published quarterly on Stat-Xplore, with monthly off-flows data currently available to July 2025.
The HB statistics do have an Outcome at off-flow category for ‘Household receiving other exempt benefit (Employment Support Allowance support group / Disability Living Allowance / Industrial Injuries / Personal Independent Payment).’
However, statistics on the number of exempting benefit outcomes for UC are included in the Outcome at off-flow category of ‘Other outcome’, and to produce a further breakdown of this group would incur disproportionate cost.
Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access general guidance on how to extract the information required.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans he has to review the level of the Household Benefit Cap.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
There is a statutory obligation to review the levels at least once every five years. They were last reviewed in November 2022 and, as such, a further review is not required until November 2027. This will happen at the appropriate time as determined by the Secretary of State.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Reform UK - Romford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reason her department collects data on (a) race and (b) ethnicity and c) religion from benefit claimants.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The purpose of collecting race and ethnicity data is because it they are protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010.
All public bodies have a requirement under the Public Sector Equality Duty to pay due regard to the impacts of policies to those who share protected characteristics set out in the Equality Act.
To do so requires that meaningful data be collected in a harmonised form, as set out by the Cabinet Office. Claimant declarations of their protected characteristics are optional, and not mandatory.
Data collected on protected characteristics is solely used for analytical and statistical purposes in aggregate form and has no part in decisions relating to benefit claims.
Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent steps has he taken to help tackle fraud in the welfare system.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Since Autumn Budget 2024, the Government has committed to gross savings of £14.6bn up to the end of 2030/31 from fraud, error and debt activity in Great Britain, which includes savings from the new powers contained within the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Act.
The Act has been published on the Parliament website and is available here: Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Act 2025.
Asked by: Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the correlation between waiting times for mental health, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or autism assessments and the length of time that young people claim health-related benefits.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is not readily available, and to obtain it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans he has to help improve work incentives within the benefits system and reduce long-term economic inactivity.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
At the heart of our reforms is the principle that those who can work should work, but if you need help into work the government should support you, and those who can’t work should be supported to live with dignity.
We’ve recently published draft regulations on our Right to Try guarantee, which will give disabled people the confidence to try work and, in July, the Universal Credit Act provided for the first ever, sustained rise in the standard allowance of Universal Credit, benefitting millions of those on the lowest incomes. We have also introduced reforms through the Universal Credit Act 2025, to rebalance support within UC, to address perverse incentives and better encourage those who can work to enter or return to employment. We have also put in place the equivalent of over 1000 full-time Pathways to Work advisers, offering tailored support to support people into work across Britain and we have begun testing our new support conversation.
In the Pathways to Work Green Paper, we consulted on introducing a new contributory benefit in Great Britain, provisionally called ‘Unemployment Insurance’ (UI). The introduction of UI would simplify the contributory system by removing the distinction between jobseekers and those considered unable to work
Introducing UI would also improve the income protection available to people who lose their job to give people the time and space to find the right job, while time-limiting that entitlement to create a strong incentive to return to the labour market.