Every parliamentary written question tabled by Cat Eccles this session, with the full answer and department. Back to the MP page.
Showing 1–12 of 12 · Department for Work and Pensions
How many young people aged 16-24 are claiming the Universal Credit health element while in full-time non-advanced education under Universal Credit rules.
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
What is the average processing time for Employment Support Allowance and Personal Independence Payments.
Information on average processing time for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) can be found on Stat-Xplore (https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/). The requested data can be found in the ‘Clearance Times for Initial Claims’ dataset. Stat-Xplore will automatically select the latest completed assessment date. However, you can use the ‘Completed Assessment Date’ filter to produce completed assessment for a time period of your choice. You can expand ‘Measures’ and then ‘Clearance Time Breakdowns for Initial Claims’ to produce a breakdown of different types of clearance times. For average processing time covering claim registration date to DWP decision date, we suggest choosing the ‘Median of End-to-end Process (weekdays)’ measure. You can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest user. Personal Independence Payment (PIP) clearance times are available as part of the PIP Official Statistics quarterly release. The latest release, with data available to October 2025, is available here (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-independence-payment-statistics-april-2013-to-october-2025). Table 1A in the underlying Excel tables of this release shows median average clearance times for normal rules new claims.
With reference to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman report on changes to women's State Pension age, published on 21 March 2024, if he will make an assessment of the potential (a) economic; and (b) social impact on 1950s-born women in Stourbridge.
The Government carefully considered the findings of the Ombudsman’s report on the communication of changes to women’s State Pension age, and a detailed response including an Equality Analysis has been deposited in the House library.
If he will facilitate a vote on proposals for financial redress contained in the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman report on changes to women's State Pension age, published on 21 March 2024.
The Government has made its decision on this case based on due process and careful consideration of the body of evidence. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made a statement to the House of Commons and the detailed reasons for this decision have been placed in House library.
How many current cases are there where Work Capability Assessments have taken longer than the 13 weeks set out in departmental guidelines.
It might be helpful to explain that the 13 weeks set out in departmental guidelines only applies to the assessment phase of Employment Support Allowance. It is the guideline for when the department expects a decision to be made upon entitlement to Employment Support Allowance (ESA) and is not a deadline for when a Work Capability Assessment (WCA) should be conducted by. Due to this we have interpreted your question to mean how many ESA new claims the assessment suppliers currently hold that have been waiting for a WCA longer than 13 weeks.As of 23rd February 2026, there are 6,500 new claims ESA cases that have been awaiting a WCA assessment for over 13 weeks.Where an assessment takes longer than 13 weeks to complete, we will automatically award arrears from the 14th week of the claim, where appropriate, so that claimants do not lose out. Please NoteAll volumes have been rounded to the nearest 100.The data provided refers to the cases counted from the date the supplier received a valid referral up to and including the 22 February 2026.The 13‑week timeframe referenced in departmental guidance applies only to new claims requiring a WCA. It does not apply to reassessments.The 13‑week timeframe referenced in departmental guidance only applies to ESA cases and does not apply to Universal Credit (UC) WCAs as UC does not have an assessment phase like ESA.All the above data is derived from contractual management information produced by the Assessment Suppliers.The above data is derived from unpublished management information which is collected for internal Departmental use only and has not been quality assured to Official Statistics Publication standards.
With reference to the Budget Statement 2024, the Spring Statement 2025 and the Spending Review 2025, what forecast she has made of levels of child poverty during this Parliament.
The Department publishes the estimated impact of specific policies where appropriate. The Department, for example, recently made public the impact of the expansion of the Free School meal extension announced as part of the Spending Review 2025. The impact assessment can be found here [Free School Meals expansion - Impact on poverty levels - GOV.UK]. The impact demonstrated that Free School Meals will lift 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of parliament, establishing a long-term Crisis and Resilience Fund supported by £1 billion a year [including Barnett impact]Delivering our manifesto commitment to tackle child poverty is a priority for this Government. The Child Poverty Taskforce is progressing work to publish the Child Poverty Strategy in autumn that will deliver fully funded measures to tackle the structural and root causes of child poverty.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.As a significant downpayment ahead of Strategy publication, we have already taken substantive action across major drivers of child poverty through 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 £1 billion 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 £13.2 billion including Barnett impact across the Parliament for the Warm Homes Plan.Our commitments at the 2025 Spending Review come on top of the existing action we have taken which includes expanding free breakfast clubs, capping the number of branded school uniform items children are expected to wear, increasing the national minimum wage for those on the lowest incomes and supporting 700,000 of the poorest families by introducing a Fair Repayment Rate on Universal Credit deductions.
Whether she plans to replace the provision of upfront childcare costs with Universal Credit with advance payments.
There are currently no plans to change the way upfront childcare costs are paid. Claimants of the Universal Credit childcare element can claim upfront childcare costs through the Flexible Support Fund, to help ease them into the Universal Credit childcare costs payment cycle. There is also help with upfront childcare costs for eligible Universal Credit customers through Budgeting Advances.
What the average cost to her Department was of a Personal Independence Payment mandatory reconsideration in 2024-25; and how much and what proportion of this cost was spent on successful appeals.
PIP Unit Costs2024-25Mandatory Reconsideration£82 Cost figures are rounded to the nearest pound.Data Source: ABM The cost figures quoted are estimated DWP level 1 operating costs, including both direct delivery staff and non-staff costs. Non-staff costs are only those costs incurred in local cost centres, relating to direct delivery staff. They show the average Unit Cost of processing one PIP Mandatory Reconsideration.Please note that the data supplied is from the Departmental Activity Based Models. This data is derived from unpublished management information, which was collected for internalDepartmental use only and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standards. It should therefore be treated with caution. The Departmental Activity Based staffing models are a snapshot of how many people were identified as undertaking specified activities as assigned by line managers. 24/25 model is in a process of sign off therefore the numbers may be a subject to change We do not hold information on the unit cost of successful appeals.
If she will make an assessment of the potential impact of the proposed reforms in the Pathways to Work Green Paper on the number of appeals that will be made by people who will lose their eligibility for the personal independence payment; and whether she plans to allocate additional funding for the administration of such appeals.
DWP will work with the Ministry of Justice as normal and plan for any impacts.
What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Pathways to Work Green Paper on (a) local government and (b) the voluntary sector.
No assessment has yet been made. Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper has been published here: ‘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.Notes:There will be no immediate changes. Changes to PIP eligibility and rebalancing of UC aren’t coming into effect immediately. Our intention is these changes will start to come into effect from April 2026 for UC and November 2026 for PIP, subject to parliamentary approval.PIP changes will only apply at the next award review after November 2026. The average award review period is about three years. At the award review, claimants will be seen by a trained assessor or healthcare professional and assessed on individual needs and circumstances.We are consulting on how best to support those who are affected by the new eligibility changes, including how to make sure health and eligible care needs are met. PIP is not based on condition diagnosis but on functional disability as the result of one or more conditions, and is awarded as a contribution to the additional costs which result.We also intend to launch a wider review of the PIP assessment which I will lead, and we will bring together a range of experts, stakeholders and people with lived experience to consider how best to do this and to start the process as part of preparing for a review. We will provide further details as plans progress.After taking account of behavioural changes, the OBR predicts that 370,000 PIP claimants, equating to 1 in 10 of the PIP caseload in November 2026 at the point of implementation of the four point requirement, will have lost their PIP entitlement by 2029/30.
If she will make an assessment of the potential impact of the Pathways to Work Green Paper on the number of people in poverty in each of the next five years.
An assessment of the potential impact of the Pathways to Work Green Paper on the number of people in poverty in each of the next five years is not yet available.The government's impact assessment regarding the Pathways to Work Green Paper is available here: Spring Statement 2025 health and disability benefit reforms – Impacts. The Office for Budget Responsibility will publish its assessment of the labour market impacts of the Green Paper proposals at the time of the Autumn Budget.
What assessment she has made of the merits of writing off debt payments for Child Support Agency payments valued below £500.
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) has the ability to write off Child Support Agency (CSA) debt that is £500 and under in circumstances where no payment has been made within the last 90 days and where administrative powers have been considered but were deemed inappropriate or ineffective.Writing off is not a quick or easy decision and involves exhausting other approaches to deal with the debt. All Child Support Agency debt is now at least 11 years old.In the year ending March 2024 £17.8m of CSA debt was collected and £13.5m was written off.