Every parliamentary written question tabled by Bell Ribeiro-Addy this session, with the full answer and department. See how every department answers, or back to the MP page.
Showing 541–560 of 1,057 · this parliament
If he will publish a breakdown of the performance of Allied Universal (G4S) against the key performance indicators at the most recent performance review on their integrated security and technology services contracts with the Government Property Agency.
The Government Property Agency (GPA) is currently investigating clarifying consistent performance metrics of all of its supply chain partners with a view to publishing on agreement.
What steps her Department is taking to ensure (a) transparency and (b) accountability in its use of AI systems in public services.
We have AI governance in place to ensure we use AI in a safe, ethical, and transparent way. DWP is committed to publishing details of its use of algorithms against the cross-Government Algorithmic Transparency Reporting Standard (ATRS). We ensure our generative AI tools can trace outputs back to the source data so that humans can understand how the output has been created. Outputs from our use of AI technology are traceable for governance purposes.
Whether any of the algorithmic systems used by her Department are subject to independent oversight.
The Department is committed to publishing details of its use of complex algorithms in line with the cross-Government Algorithmic Transparency Reporting Standard (ATRS). We also engage with external bodies, such as the Information Commissioner's Office, the National Audit Office, and Parliament as required.
Whether her Department collects data on (a) errors and (b) false positives arising from algorithmic fraud detection tools.
DWP is committed to processing data lawfully, proportionately, and ethically, with meaningful human input and safeguards in place to protect individuals. “Algorithmic fraud detection tool” is not a term we use in DWP however, the department develops, tests, and invests in advanced analytics to support the detection of fraud and error. Currently, the UC Advances model is the only machine learning model deployed at scale in live service. On the 17th July, the Department published a fairness assessment of the UC Advances model, which includes consideration of the model’s performance. The model remains an effective fraud prevention control, performing approximately three times better than a control group in identifying high-risk advances.Fairness assessment including statistical analysis of the Universal Credit advances machine learning model: 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025 - GOV.UK
Whether benefit claimants are informed when their claims are assessed using algorithmic tools.
DWP’s Personal Information Charter (PIC) (Personal information charter - Department for Work and Pensions - GOV.UK) outlines how DWP processes personal data related to and its use of both Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automated Decision Making (ADM). DWP does not use AI to replace human judgement to determine or deny a payment to a claimant.
How many benefit decisions made using (a) automated and (b) AI-assisted systems have been overturned on appeal since 2020.
No Artificial Intelligence is currently deployed to make decisions regarding benefit entitlement or value in isolation. There is automation in some benefit processes but decisions regarding entitlement and value will have a human decision maker involved.
If she will make it her policy to eradicate destitution by 2035.
The Government is committed to tackling poverty, including deep poverty across the UK. The Child Poverty Taskforce is developing an ambitious child poverty strategy which we will publish in the autumn. The Strategy will look at levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience; and better local support especially in the early years. This will build on the reform plans underway across government and work underway in Devolved Governments. Good work can significantly reduce the chances of people falling into poverty so this will be the foundation of our approach to delivering lasting change, as reflected in the proposals in our plan for Making Work Pay and our Get Britain Working White Paper. We have also commenced reviewing Universal Credit to make sure it is doing the job we want it to do, to make work pay and tackle poverty. We have begun this work by introducing a Fair Repayment Rate for deductions from Universal Credit and announcing the first sustained above inflation rise in the basic rate of Universal Credit since it was introduced. As a significant downpayment ahead of strategy publication, we have already taken substantive action across major drivers of child poverty through the Spending Review 2025. This includes an expansion of Free School Meals that will lift 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of the parliament, establishing a long-term Crisis and Resilience Fund supported by £1bn a year including Barnett impact, investing in local family support services, and extending the £3 bus fare cap. We also announced the biggest boost to social and affordable housing investment in a generation and £13.2bn including Barnett impact across the Parliament for the Warm Homes Plan.
What assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of its use of algorithmic decision-making tools on levels of risk of (a) bias and (b) discrimination.
DWP is committed to regularly assessing AI use in the Department to ensure it meets business needs, is quality assured, and does not lead to a risk of discrimination or harm. In some areas, the Department uses automated decision-making to make benefit awards, but AI is not used as part of that process. DWP has a legal requirement to ensure appropriate safeguards are in place when carrying out automated decision-making or the use of AI, using tools such as Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) and fairness assessments to highlight any potential bias or discrimination risks associated with AI and automation. The Department carries out regular checks to ensure our systems are working as intended.
If she will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a judicial-review mechanism to hold the Government accountable for meeting statutory poverty reduction targets.
The Government is committed to tackling poverty, including deep poverty across the UK. The Child Poverty Taskforce is developing an ambitious child poverty strategy which we will publish in the autumn. The Strategy will look at levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience; and better local support especially in the early years. This will build on the reform plans underway across government and work underway in Devolved Governments. Good work can significantly reduce the chances of people falling into poverty so this will be the foundation of our approach to delivering lasting change, as reflected in the proposals in our plan for Making Work Pay and our Get Britain Working White Paper. We have also commenced reviewing Universal Credit to make sure it is doing the job we want it to do, to make work pay and tackle poverty. We have begun this work by introducing a Fair Repayment Rate for deductions from Universal Credit and announcing the first sustained above inflation rise in the basic rate of Universal Credit since it was introduced. As a significant downpayment ahead of strategy publication, we have already taken substantive action across major drivers of child poverty through the Spending Review 2025. This includes an expansion of Free School Meals that will lift 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of the parliament, establishing a long-term Crisis and Resilience Fund supported by £1bn a year including Barnett impact, investing in local family support services, and extending the £3 bus fare cap. We also announced the biggest boost to social and affordable housing investment in a generation and £13.2bn including Barnett impact across the Parliament for the Warm Homes Plan.
What assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the report by The Big Issue entitled Poverty Zero, published in June 2025.
The Government is committed to tackling poverty, including deep poverty across the UK. The Child Poverty Taskforce is developing an ambitious child poverty strategy which we will publish in the autumn. The Strategy will look at levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience; and better local support especially in the early years. This will build on the reform plans underway across government and work underway in Devolved Governments. Good work can significantly reduce the chances of people falling into poverty so this will be the foundation of our approach to delivering lasting change, as reflected in the proposals in our plan for Making Work Pay and our Get Britain Working White Paper. We have also commenced reviewing Universal Credit to make sure it is doing the job we want it to do, to make work pay and tackle poverty. We have begun this work by introducing a Fair Repayment Rate for deductions from Universal Credit and announcing the first sustained above inflation rise in the basic rate of Universal Credit since it was introduced. As a significant downpayment ahead of strategy publication, we have already taken substantive action across major drivers of child poverty through the Spending Review 2025. This includes an expansion of Free School Meals that will lift 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of the parliament, establishing a long-term Crisis and Resilience Fund supported by £1bn a year including Barnett impact, investing in local family support services, and extending the £3 bus fare cap. We also announced the biggest boost to social and affordable housing investment in a generation and £13.2bn including Barnett impact across the Parliament for the Warm Homes Plan.
What steps her Department is taking to help reduce levels of severe poverty.
The Government is committed to tackling poverty, including deep poverty across the UK. The Child Poverty Taskforce is developing an ambitious child poverty strategy which we will publish in the autumn. The Strategy will look at levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience; and better local support especially in the early years. This will build on the reform plans underway across government and work underway in Devolved Governments. Good work can significantly reduce the chances of people falling into poverty so this will be the foundation of our approach to delivering lasting change, as reflected in the proposals in our plan for Making Work Pay and our Get Britain Working White Paper. We have also commenced reviewing Universal Credit to make sure it is doing the job we want it to do, to make work pay and tackle poverty. We have begun this work by introducing a Fair Repayment Rate for deductions from Universal Credit and announcing the first sustained above inflation rise in the basic rate of Universal Credit since it was introduced. As a significant downpayment ahead of strategy publication, we have already taken substantive action across major drivers of child poverty through the Spending Review 2025. This includes an expansion of Free School Meals that will lift 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of the parliament, establishing a long-term Crisis and Resilience Fund supported by £1bn a year including Barnett impact, investing in local family support services, and extending the £3 bus fare cap. We also announced the biggest boost to social and affordable housing investment in a generation and £13.2bn including Barnett impact across the Parliament for the Warm Homes Plan.
Whether she plans to introduce legally-binding national targets to help reduce levels of child poverty.
The Government is committed to tackling poverty, including deep poverty across the UK. The Child Poverty Taskforce is developing an ambitious child poverty strategy which we will publish in the autumn. The Strategy will look at levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience; and better local support especially in the early years. This will build on the reform plans underway across government and work underway in Devolved Governments. Good work can significantly reduce the chances of people falling into poverty so this will be the foundation of our approach to delivering lasting change, as reflected in the proposals in our plan for Making Work Pay and our Get Britain Working White Paper. We have also commenced reviewing Universal Credit to make sure it is doing the job we want it to do, to make work pay and tackle poverty. We have begun this work by introducing a Fair Repayment Rate for deductions from Universal Credit and announcing the first sustained above inflation rise in the basic rate of Universal Credit since it was introduced. As a significant downpayment ahead of strategy publication, we have already taken substantive action across major drivers of child poverty through the Spending Review 2025. This includes an expansion of Free School Meals that will lift 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of the parliament, establishing a long-term Crisis and Resilience Fund supported by £1bn a year including Barnett impact, investing in local family support services, and extending the £3 bus fare cap. We also announced the biggest boost to social and affordable housing investment in a generation and £13.2bn including Barnett impact across the Parliament for the Warm Homes Plan.
If she will make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing cyclical target-setting for poverty reduction.
The Government is committed to tackling poverty, including deep poverty across the UK. The Child Poverty Taskforce is developing an ambitious child poverty strategy which we will publish in the autumn. The Strategy will look at levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience; and better local support especially in the early years. This will build on the reform plans underway across government and work underway in Devolved Governments. Good work can significantly reduce the chances of people falling into poverty so this will be the foundation of our approach to delivering lasting change, as reflected in the proposals in our plan for Making Work Pay and our Get Britain Working White Paper. We have also commenced reviewing Universal Credit to make sure it is doing the job we want it to do, to make work pay and tackle poverty. We have begun this work by introducing a Fair Repayment Rate for deductions from Universal Credit and announcing the first sustained above inflation rise in the basic rate of Universal Credit since it was introduced. As a significant downpayment ahead of strategy publication, we have already taken substantive action across major drivers of child poverty through the Spending Review 2025. This includes an expansion of Free School Meals that will lift 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of the parliament, establishing a long-term Crisis and Resilience Fund supported by £1bn a year including Barnett impact, investing in local family support services, and extending the £3 bus fare cap. We also announced the biggest boost to social and affordable housing investment in a generation and £13.2bn including Barnett impact across the Parliament for the Warm Homes Plan.
If he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the Government’s immigration policies on trends in the level of recruitment of internationally educated nurses into (a) the NHS and (b) social care roles; and whether he has prepared contingency plans for a reduction in the level of recruitment.
The immediate changes to the skills thresholds outlined in the Immigration White Paper relate to roles below Regulated Qualifications Framework (RQF) level 6. Nurses meet the new skill threshold of RQF level 6 and in turn remain eligible for the Health and Care Worker visa. The Government is committed to developing homegrown talent and giving opportunities to more people across the country to join our National Health Service. The 10 Year Workforce Plan will outline strategies for improving retention, productivity, training, and reducing attrition, thereby enhancing conditions for all staff while gradually reducing reliance on international recruitment, without diminishing the value of their contributions. We acknowledge that the adult social care sector faces significant challenges in the recruitment and retention of the nursing workforce and we recognise the need for a strong emphasis on retaining nurses within adult social care, by supporting and valuing the workforce. The Department continues to monitor adult social care workforce capacity, bringing together national data sets from Skills for Care’s monthly tracking data, the Capacity Tracker tool, and intelligence from key sector partners.
What lessons she has learnt from international trials on Universal Basic Income on (a) employment rates and (b) poverty levels.
I refer the Hon. member to the answer I gave on 2 July to PQ 62240.
Pursuant to the Answer of 2 July 2025 to Question 63048 on Blood: Donors, if she will provide the ethnic breakdown of the 173,574 donors deferred due to Haemoglobin as a proportion of (a) total deferrals and (b) total deferrals per ethnic group.
NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is responsible for collecting blood donations across England, in order to fulfil hospital requests to meet patient need. From 1 June 2024 to 31 May 2025, a total of 173,574 donors were deferred due to low haemoglobin. The following table shows the ethnic breakdown of these deferrals as a proportion of total deferrals, and the total deferrals per ethnic group:EthnicityTotal deferralsLow haemoglobin deferralsPercentage of total deferralsPercentage of total deferrals per ethnicityAny other Asian background3,4481,7370.6%50.4%Any other Black/African/Caribbean background7244600.2%63.5%Any other ethnic group1,4096680.2%47.4%Any other mixed/multiple ethnic background2,1141,1910.4%56.3%Any other White background17,3439,5583.3%55.1%Arab1,0054290.1%42.7%Asian Bangladeshi8174440.2%54.3%Asian Indian7,1764,3671.5%60.9%Asian Pakistani2,1261,0730.4%50.5%Black- African6,5624,1951.4%63.9%Black- Caribbean3,6632,4720.8%67.5%Chinese1,7099210.3%53.9%English/Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish/British231,879139,70148.0%60.2%Mixed White and Asian2,0711,0800.4%52.1%Mixed White and Black African8425000.2%59.4%Mixed White and Black Caribbean2,0931,3190.5%63.0%Not disclosed1,5168690.3%57.3%Unknown8804300.1%48.9%White Irish3,6342,1600.7%59.4%Total291,011173,57459.6%59.6%Source: data is taken from NHSBT’s centrally held administrative systems, extracted 27 June 2025Note: ‘Any other ethnic group’ includes Gypsy or Irish Traveller and Roma to comply with small number suppression.
Whether the Crisis and Resilience Fund will include funding for furniture.
I refer the Hon. member to the answer I gave on 16 July to PQ 65851.
What assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of Ofcom's decision to allow Royal Mail to cut Saturday deliveries and move to an alternating weekday model for second class letters on the delivery of letters from the NHS and Department for Work and Pensions.
A reliable and affordable universal postal service is crucial to the UK, and we are clear it must work for customers, workers and businesses that help drive growth across the country.Ofcom has reviewed the future of the universal postal service so that it better reflects the changing needs of its users. The regulator concluded that reform is needed for the universal service to put it on a more sustainable footing, to prevent people from paying higher prices than necessary and to push Royal Mail to improve reliability.
Pursuant to the Answer of 2 July 2025 to Question 63048 on Blood: Donors, if he will publish the ethnic and gender breakdown of the 4,493 donors deferred due to travel as a proportion of (a) total deferrals and (b) total deferrals per ethnic group.
NHS Blood and Transplant is responsible for collecting blood donations across England, in order to fulfil hospital requests to meet patient need. From 1 June 2024 to 31 May 2025, a total of 4,493 donors deferred due to travel. The table attached shows the ethnic and gender breakdown of these deferrals as a proportion of total deferrals and the total deferrals per ethnic group.
Pursuant to the Answer of 2 July 2025 to Question 63048 on Blood: Donors, if he will publish the combined ethnic and gender breakdown of the 173,574 donors deferred due to Haemoglobin as a proportion of (a) total deferrals and (b) total deferrals per ethnic group.
NHS Blood and Transplant is responsible for collecting blood donations across England, in order to fulfil hospital requests to meet patient need. From 1 June 2024 to 31 May 2025, a total of 173,574 donors were deferred due to low haemoglobin. The table attached shows the combined ethnic and gender breakdown of these deferrals as a proportion of total deferrals, and the total deferrals per ethnic group.