Written questions by Johnson.

Whether the child poverty taskforce plans to make an assessment of the potential impact of furniture poverty on families in social rented homes.

The Child Poverty Taskforce has started urgent work to publish the Child Poverty Strategy in Spring and will explore all available levers to drive forward short and long-term actions across government to reduce child poverty. The taskforce is exploring a range of metrics and will make decisions alongside the publication of the strategy in Spring 2025.

What assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the end of the Household Support Fund on the number of people in poverty.

No assessment has been made of the impact of the Household Support Fund on poverty. The Government announced funding to extend the Household Support Fund for a further 6 months, from 1 October 2024 until 31 March 2025. An additional £421 million has been provided to enable the extension of the Household Support Fund in England, plus funding for the Devolved Governments through the Barnett formula to be spent at their discretion, as usual. The objective of the Household Support Fund is to provide crisis support to vulnerable households in England in most need with the cost of essentials such as food and energy. The Household Support Fund is intended to cover a wide range of low-income households in need, including households with children of all ages, pensioners, unpaid carers, care leavers and disabled people, larger households, single-person households, and those struggling with one-off financial shocks or unforeseen events. Local Authorities have the discretion to design their own local schemes within the parameters of the guidance and grant determination that the Department for Work and Pensions have set out for the fund. This is because they have the ties and the knowledge to best determine how support should be provided in their local communities.

With reference to Tables 5Aii and 6Aii in the official statistics entitled Personal Independence Payment: Official Statistics to July 2024, published on 17 September 2024, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of the quality of personal independence payment decisions, in the context of the proportion of appeals which are lapsed or overturned at a tribunal hearing.

It is our aim to make the right decision as early as possible in the process. To support this we have made improvements to our decision-making processes, giving Decision Makers additional time to proactively contact customers if they think additional evidence may support the claim. We will continue to learn from decisions overturned at appeal, for example we regularly gather feedback from Presenting Officers who attend tribunal. Further, the Health Transformation Programme is transforming health and disability benefit services over the longer term to improve the claimant experience, and improve trust in our services and decisions. It is creating a new customer-focussed Health Assessment Service and transforming the entire PIP service, from finding out about benefits and eligibility through to decisions and payments.

How many and what proportion of people whose personal independence payment appeals resulted in the decision being (a) lapsed and (b) overturned at tribunal hearing had their decision changed from no award to an award of both the daily living and mobility components at the enhanced rate in each of the last five years.

The table below provides information on the total number of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) appeals, which were either lapsed or overturned at a tribunal hearing. It also includes the number of claimants who had no award prior to the appeal, and had their award changed to Enhanced for both daily living and mobility components post lapsed or overturned appeal. Data provided is for the last five financial years. Table 1: Number of lapsed and overturned appeals for each financial year and how many subsequently went from nil to enhanced on both daily living and mobility componentsFinancial YearTotal Appeals LapsedTotal Appeals OverturnedAppeals Lapsed (Nil award to enhanced-enhanced)Appeals Overturned (Nil award to enhanced-enhanced)2019-2027,10053,7002,9005,1002020-2126,30037,0003,3004,0002021-2217,10020,5001,9002,2002022-2319,00030,5001,9003,8002023-2425,60034,4002,1004,900 The table below provides information on the proportion of PIP appeals which were either lapsed or overturned at a tribunal hearing, that previously had no award but had their award changed to enhanced for the daily living and mobility component post appeal. Data is provided for the last five financial years. Table 2: Proportion of lapsed and overturned appeals whose award changed from nil to enhanced for each financial yearFinancial YearAppeals Lapsed (Nil award to enhanced-enhanced) (%)Appeals Overturned (Nil award to enhanced-enhanced) (%)2019-201192020-2112112021-2211112022-2310122023-24814 Notes:Figures have been rounded to the nearest 100.Data provided is for England and Wales (excluding Scotland).These figures include appeal clearances and decisions for PIP New Claims, Reassessments, Award Reviews and Change of Circumstances. These figures include appeals cleared from April 2019 to March 2024.Appeals data has been taken from DWP PIP customer system’s management information. Therefore, this appeal data may differ from that held by His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service for various reasons such as delays in data recording and other methodological differences in collating and preparing statistics.This data is unpublished data. It should be used with caution, and it may be subject to future revision.A lapsed appeal is where DWP changed the decision in the customer’s favour after an appeal was lodged but before it was heard at a tribunal hearing.An overturned appeal is where the decision was changed in the customer’s favour after an appeal was lodged and was heard at tribunal hearing.

How many and what proportion of personal independence payment appeals resulted in the decision being (a) lapsed and (b) overturned at tribunal hearing in each of the last five years.

The tables below provide information on the number of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) appeal clearances; and whether they were lapsed or overturned at a tribunal hearing.Data provided is for the last five financial years. Table 1: Number of appeals cleared for each financial year and how many were subsequently lapsed or overturned at a tribunal hearingFinancial YearAppeals ClearedAppeals LapsedAppeals Overturned2019-2099,80027,10053,7002020-2177,00026,30037,0002021-2248,30017,10020,5002022-2365,30019,00030,5002023-2477,70025,60034,400 Table 2: Proportion of lapsed or overturned appeals for each financial year Financial YearAppeals Lapsed (%)Appeals Overturned (%)2019-2027542020-2134482021-2235422022-2329472023-243344Notes:Figures have been rounded to the nearest 100.Data provided is for England and Wales (excluding Scotland).These figures include appeal clearances and decisions for PIP New Claims, Reassessments, Award Reviews and Change of Circumstances. These figures include appeals cleared from April 2019 to March 2024.Appeals data has been taken from DWP PIP customer system’s management information. Therefore, this appeal data may differ from that held by His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service for various reasons such as delays in data recording and other methodological differences in collating and preparing statistics.This data is unpublished data. It should be used with caution, and it may be subject to future revision.A lapsed appeal is where DWP changed the decision in the customer’s favour after an appeal was lodged but before it was heard at a tribunal hearing.An overturned appeal is where the decision was changed in the customer’s favour after an appeal was lodged and was heard at tribunal hearing.Appeals can have their decision upheld or may also be withdrawn by the claimant. These are not included in the above tables.

If she will publish her Department's assessment of the compatibility of its policy to introduce means-testing for the Winter Fuel Payment with the Public Sector Equality Duty as set out in the Equality Act 2010.

An equality analysis was produced as part of Ministerial decision making in line with the requirements of the Public Sector Equality Duty. This was published on 13 September and can be found online here: DWP Freedom of Information response - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) By convention, such analyses are not published alongside secondary legislation. However, in view of the close public interest in this issue Ministers decided, exceptionally, to publish in this case.