Written questions by Duncan-Jordan.

With reference to her Department's green paper Pathways to work: reforming benefits and support to get Britain working, published on 18 March 2025, what sanctions will be introduced for disabled people who decline to engage in the proposed support conversation.

The support conversation will enable individuals to set out their aspirations, needs and goals, so that they can better understand what early support might be available to them and be signposted towards it. Given the importance of the support conversation to ensuring individuals understand the help available to them, we are considering making participation a requirement (with exemptions) but we are consulting on how we should design and deliver it so that it is welcomed by individuals and is effective and, if mandated, who should be exempted.

What steps she is taking to ensure that adequate support is provided to help disabled people that can work into work before the implementation of reforms to (a) the levels of and (b) eligibility requirements for ill health benefits are introduced.

Disabled people and people with health conditions are a diverse group so access to the right work and health support, in the right place, at the right time, is key. We therefore have a range of specialist programmes to support individuals to stay in work and get back into work, including some that join up employment and health systems.Measures include support from Work Coaches and Disability Employment Advisers in Jobcentres and Access to Work grants, as well as joining up health and employment support around the individual through Employment Advisors in NHS Talking Therapies and Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care.Employers play a key role in increasing employment opportunities and supporting disabled people and people with health conditions, to thrive as part of the workforce. Our support to employers includes increasing access to Occupational Health, Support with Employee Health and Disability service, a digital information service for employers and the Disability Confident scheme.Additionally, under the Government’s new Get Britain Working Strategy, the forthcoming voluntary, locally led Supported Employment programme ‘Connect to Work’ will support disabled people, those with health conditions and other complex barriers including people with learning disabilities, to get into and on in work.With a phased rollout shaped by Local Authorities’ own timetables, we expect to see local areas starting to offer Connect to Work support through 2025, with the first areas going live in the Spring.

Whether she has made an estimate of the number of new jobs that will be created as a result of the Pathways to Work Green Paper.

The proposals in the Green Paper to fix the broken welfare system and help more people into work are important to this Government’s number one mission to grow the economy and drive up living standards across the country. Pathways to Work is one of the largest ever investment in employment, health and skills support for disabled people and those with health conditions. To maximise its impact we need the input of stakeholders and disabled people themselves and we will use a ‘collaboration committee’ to develop our thinking further.

If her Department will make an assessment of the potential impact of the proposed changes to disability benefits on public health inequalities.

Good quality employment is an important determinant of health. The Marmot Review in 2010 concluded that to reduce health inequalities and improve the health of the nation we needed action on 6 policy objectives. One of those was the creation of fair employment and good work for us all. Unemployment is associated with an increased risk of mortality, long-term illness, cardiovascular disease, poor mental health, suicide, and health-harming behaviours. Our current health and disability benefits system does not encourage and enable disabled people and people with health conditions to engage with the labour market or thrive in employment. Without change, this will harm people’s living standards, wellbeing and life chances, as well as harming our economy, including by restricting our ability to reach the goal of an 80% employment rate.

If she will make it her policy to fund (a) existing or (b) new programmes of support and training for people seeking employment from money raised from delaying the access to the health element of Universal Credit until someone is aged 22.

The Pathways to Work Green Paper is an important staging post on a journey of reform. It sets out our vision, strategy and proposals for change. Before any decisions are made, we are consulting on the design options for a work, health and skills support package. We are specifically seeking input on the proposal to raise the age of eligibility for the health element of the Universal Credit (UC) award to 22. The government will actively engage with a diverse range of stakeholders, including young people with health conditions and disabilities. As we set out at point 256 in the Pathways to Work Green Paper: “Delaying access to the UC health element would remove any potential disincentive to work during this time. Proceeding with this change would be on the basis that resources could be better spent on improving the quality and range of opportunities available to young people through the [Youth] guarantee, so they can sign up to work or training rather than long-term benefits.” Such a change could support the establishment of a distinct and active transition phase for young people, based on learning or earning for all.

What assessment she has made of the potential impact of losing eligibility for Personal Independence Payment on the financial security of disabled people.

We will be publishing estimated impacts on claimants for the changes announced on 18 March 2025 on the day of the Spring Statement or shortly after.PIP is an important benefit to help contribute to the extra living costs of a disability or heath condition. We are clear it should neither be means-tested nor taxed. However, support needs to be more targeted to protect this safety net for future generations.

What assessment she has made of the potential impact of changes to the Limited Capability for Work and Work-Related Activity group on disabled people in residential care.

We will be publishing estimated impacts on claimants for the changes announced on 18 March 2025 on the day of the Spring Statement or shortly after.

What steps she is taking through the child poverty strategy to ensure child poverty is lower in 2029 than 2024.

Delivering our manifesto commitment to tackle child poverty is an urgent priority for this Government and the Ministerial Taskforce is considering all children across the United Kingdom in developing a Child Poverty Strategy. The causes of child poverty are deep-rooted and complex, and the Taskforce is exploring all available levers to drive forward short and long-term actions across government to reduce 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. We have already taken steps to support families by tripling investment in breakfast clubs to over £30 million, introducing a Fair Repayment Rate for deductions from Universal Credit, and increasing the National Living Wage to £12.21 an hour from April to boost the pay of three million workers. To further support struggling households, funding of £742 million will be provided to enable the extension of the Household Support Fund from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026 in England, plus additional funding for the Devolved Governments through the Barnett formula to be spent at their discretion.

If she will make an assessment of the potential impact of ending the two-child benefits limit on levels of child poverty.

Delivering our manifesto commitment to tackle child poverty is an urgent priority for this Government, and the Ministerial Taskforce is working to publish a Child Poverty Strategy which will deliver lasting change.The Strategy will look at all available levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, including considering social security reforms, 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.

What steps her Department is taking to ensure advice sector staff receive adequate training to deal with potential changes to the welfare budget.

DWP is not responsible for funding the welfare advice sector which receives funding from a range of sources. DWP does fund Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland to deliver Help to Claim which provides support to people to make a new claim to Universal Credit. DWP provides Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland. DWP constantly reviews the funding for Help to Claim and has increased Help to Claim funding to meet forecast additional demand from people in receipt of Employment Support Allowance who are being invited to move to Universal Credit. The funding includes money to train staff to deliver Help to Claim.DWP publishes benefit guidance in the House of Commons library so that it is available to individuals and organisations, and it can be used to develop appropriate training.

What assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of reductions to the welfare budget on the number of people seeking welfare advice; and what steps she is taking to ensure advice services are adequately funded to meet demand.

DWP is not responsible for funding the welfare advice sector which receives funding from a range of sources. DWP does fund Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland to deliver Help to Claim which provides support to people to make a new claim to Universal Credit. DWP provides Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland. DWP constantly reviews the funding for Help to Claim and has increased Help to Claim funding to meet forecast additional demand from people in receipt of Employment Support Allowance who are being invited to move to Universal Credit. The funding includes money to train staff to deliver Help to Claim.DWP publishes benefit guidance in the House of Commons library so that it is available to individuals and organisations, and it can be used to develop appropriate training.

If she will make an assessment of the potential impact of ending the two-child benefits limit on levels of family incomes.

Delivering our manifesto commitment to tackle child poverty is an urgent priority for this Government, and the Ministerial Taskforce is working to publish a Child Poverty Strategy which will deliver lasting change.The Strategy will look at all available levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, including considering social security reforms, 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.

What steps her Department are taking to reduce phone-line waits for those making an application for Pension Credit.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) plans resourcing according to forecasted telephony demand in an effort to keep wait times down. Wait time performance and forecasted demand is frequently reviewed and we are continually working to improve our telephony service. In response to significantly increased demand, we have increased the resource in Pension Credit claims by over 500 additional staff through a combination of internal redeployments, use of external providers and external recruitment. We are investing in a new technology that aims to better route customers to the right service at the right time. Once deployed, this technology will reduce the time callers spend listening to a menu of choices and instead invite claimants to say why they are calling, at the start of the call.

Whether she has plans to take steps to reduce the number of questions on the Pension Credit application form.

As the Department continues to modernise the Pension Credit service, we review the user experience, balancing simplification of application with capturing the right information to ensure accuracy of award. A key objective of DWP’s Service Modernisation Programme is to utilise end user research to understand how the application process should operate in the future and consider the opportunities on how services can be more user friendly and easily accessible for citizens. To that end we are streamlining all Pension Credit application routes by using information held internally to reduce the number of questions the citizen must answer. Claims for Pension Credit can be made online, by telephone or by post. By far, the most popular way to claim is online where a claim can be made 24/7 with the help of a family member, a friend or a third party. Via the online service, the maximum number of questions a person needs to answer is 48; for some customers it can be as few as 35 questions. As a result, the online claim form now takes just 16 minutes on average to complete, with 90 per cent of new customers applying using the simple online form, or over the phone. With the telephone service, the caller will be guided through the claim process. We will keep the Pension Credit application process under review.

If she will make an estimate of the amount of eligible Pension Credit that has been unclaimed as of 28 February 2025.

The Department does not have data for the period up to February 2025. The latest available Pension Credit take-up statistics cover the financial year 2022 to 2023 and are available at: Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year ending 2023 - GOV.UK. In the financial year ending 2023, the estimated amount of unclaimed Pension Credit was £1.33 billion.

Whether she has considered renaming the Attendance Allowance.

There are no plans to change the name of Attendance Allowance in England and Wales. Attendance Allowance is a devolved matter in Scotland. The Scottish Government is currently replacing it with Pension Age Disability Payment.

How many agricultural workers are claiming Universal Credit.

The requested information is not held. We do not systematically collect data on the employment sector background of Universal Credit (UC) claimants because this does not affect entitlement to UC.

Whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of increasing child related benefits annually in line with trends in level of (a) inflation and (b) wages.

The Child Poverty Taskforce is exploring how we can use every available lever across Government to reduce child poverty before publishing a strategy which will deliver lasting change.

If she will publish a breakdown by (a) disability and (b) long-term illness of eligibility for (a) Universal Credit, (b) Employment and Support Allowance, (c) Disability Living Allowance and (d) Personal Independence Payment in the last 12 months.

Statistics by primary disabling condition are already published for Employment and Support Allowance, Disability Living Allowance, and Personal Independence Payment at https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/. Claimants may often have multiple disabling conditions upon which the decision is based but only the primary condition is shown in these statistics. Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore can be found here: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html. An account is not required to use Stat- Xplore, the ‘Guest Login’ feature gives instant access to the main functions.Statistics on the outcomes of Universal Credit work capability assessments (UC WCA) are available by high-level medical condition for the period from January 2022 to August 2024 in Table 7 of the latest UC WCA data tables. For UC, it is not possible to provide the statistics for the primary medical condition, due to how the information on medical conditions is recorded and compiled. See section 3 of the Universal Credit Work Capability Assessment statistics: methodology and Note 9 of the UC WCA data tables for further information.

What criteria her Department plans to use when reforming the system of disability and ill health benefits.

We are working to develop proposals to reform the system of health and disability benefits and will set these out in due course.This Government is committed to putting the views and voices of disabled people at the heart of all that we do. We are committed to reforming the system of health and disability benefits so that it promotes and enables employment among as many people as possible. The system must also work to support disabled people to live independently. It is also vital to ensure that the system is financially sustainable in the long term. The Health Transformation Programme is modernising health and disability benefit services to improve efficiency and customer experience. It will introduce a new option to apply online, improve how we gather health information, and tailor the process to the customer’s needs and circumstances.