Written questions by Duncan-Jordan.

With reference to paragraphs 2.33 to 2.35 of HM Treasury's document entitled Spring Statement 2025, published on 26 March 2025, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the changes in health and disability benefits on (a) the health of those people receiving such benefits and (b) societal health inequalities.

No such assessment has been made. However, we have evidence that delivering better and more tailored employment support can get more people off welfare, and into work - alongside a higher expectation to engage with that support. We are investing £1 billion a year by the end of the decade in new employment, health and skills support – one of the biggest packages of new employment support for sick and disabled people ever. In addition, corrective action is needed after the value of the basic unemployment benefit was run down to a 40-year low, while incapacity benefits continued to rise. Meaning the rate of Universal Credit for those on the health element is now double that for those on the standard allowance. As a result, all the incentives are to claim incapacity benefits and define yourself as incapable of work, with both the OBR and IFS suggesting this has been a factor in driving higher incapacity benefit claims.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he has taken to introduce robust traceability of dogs across the UK.

Compulsory dog microchipping was introduced in England in 2016. All dogs must be microchipped before they are eight weeks old and relevant information including breeder details recorded with a Defra-compliant database operator which helps support traceability.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to reconvene the Responsible Dog Ownership Working Group.

Defra is continuing to work with the police, local authorities and animal welfare groups to explore measures to reduce dog attacks and promote responsible dog ownership across all breeds of dog. We are currently considering the best way to take forward the Responsible Dog Ownership taskforce.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to ensure oversight of the welfare of trout on farms in England.

Current legislation provides protection for farmed fish. The Animal Welfare Act 2006 makes it an offence to cause unnecessary suffering to any protected animal, including fish, or to fail to provide for the welfare needs of a protected animal, for which that person is responsible. Any allegations of welfare issues on trout farms in England will be investigated by the Animal and Plant Health Agency and where there are non-compliances with the regulations, appropriate action will be taken.

If he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the decision not to consult on all the measures listed in Annex A in the Pathways to Work Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025 on disabled people's organisations.

We are committed to putting the views and voices of disabled people and people with health conditions at the heart of everything we do. We want to improve and refine our reform plans by consulting on certain measures as described in the Green Paper. The consultation will close 12 weeks after the point at which all the accessible versions are available, to ensure that all stakeholders have sufficient time to engage and that we hear from as many people as possibleHowever, we urgently need this reform to stop people from falling into inactivity, restore trust and fairness in the system and promote the interests of disabled people. This means we need to take decisive action to tackle a situation in which PIP claims are set to double from 2 million to over 4.3 million this decade. We are consulting on how best to support those affected by the changes. We will also consider improvements to the PIP assessment. We will launch a wider review of the PIP indicators, which I shall lead, and we will bring together a range of experts, stakeholders and people with lived experience to consider how best to do this. We will provide further details as plans progress. We will rebalance payments in Universal Credit, reducing the health top up for new claims and delivering the first ever permanent, above inflation rise to the standard allowance of UC – actually offering help for people to get into work as quickly as possible. We will be bringing forward the PIP and UC changes in a Bill so Parliament can fully debate and vote on them.

If she will make an estimate of the number of children in poverty as a result of the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025.

The government's impact assessment regarding Health and Disability Reform is available at Spring Statement 2025 health and disability benefit reforms - Impacts. A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

If she will make an estimate of the number of households that will receive (a) up to £25, (b) between £25 and £50, (c) between £50 and £75, (d) between £75 to £100 and (e) more than £100 less per week as a result of proposals in Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025.

No such estimates have been made.Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course with some information published this week alongside the Spring Statement. A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper, published on 18 March 2025, on the work of the Child Poverty Task Force.

Tackling child poverty is at the heart of this Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity. The Child Poverty Taskforce is progressing urgent work to publish the Child Poverty Strategy and is exploring levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience, and better local support especially in the early years.As part of the Strategy's development, the Taskforce is considering the potential impact of policies across government on child poverty.

What steps she is taking to help improve the terms and conditions of teachers in the public sector.

There is a statutory process for making revisions to the pay and conditions of teachers, and any change must first be referred by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, to the independent School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB).The department’s written evidence for the 2025/2026 pay round asks the STRB to consider how schools can support teachers from all backgrounds and promote flexible working, which will improve the experience of teaching and help deliver the best possible education for students.The department is also asking the STRB to consider how additional responsibility payments can be more fairly managed for part-time teachers.The department will also use the new powers in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to make changes to the teacher pay and conditions framework to create a pay floor with no ceiling, to enable healthy competition and innovation beyond a core framework, which will help to improve all state schools.

What steps her Department is taking to help improve the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of school teachers.

High quality teaching is the most important in-school factor to a child’s educational outcomes. Recruiting and retaining more qualified, expert teachers is therefore critical to the government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity, boost the life chances for every child, reset the relationship with the sector and restore the status of the teaching profession. This is why the department will recruit 6,500 new expert teachers, get more teachers into shortage subjects, support areas that face recruitment challenges and tackle retention issues.The department is making good progress through delivery of key initiatives to recruit and retain more high quality teachers. We announced an initial teacher training financial incentives package for the 2025/26 recruitment cycle worth £233 million, a £37 million increase on the last cycle. This includes a range of measures, including bursaries worth £29,000 tax-free and scholarships worth £31,000 tax-free, to encourage talented trainees to key subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing.Fair pay is key to ensuring teaching is an attractive and respected profession, which is why this government has accepted the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendation of a 5.5% pay award for teachers and leaders in maintained schools from September.For the 2024/25 and 2025/26 academic year, the department is also offering a Targeted Retention Incentive worth up to £6,000 after tax for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who choose to work in disadvantaged schools. This will support recruitment and retention of specialist teachers in these subjects, in the schools and areas that need them most.To further support retention, the department has made available a range of resources to help address teacher workload and wellbeing and support schools to introduce flexible working practices. The department’s Improve Workload and Wellbeing for School Staff service , developed alongside school leaders, includes a workload reduction toolkit to support schools to identify opportunities to cut excessive workload, as well as the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter, which sets out commitments from the government, Ofsted, schools, and colleges to protect and promote the wellbeing of staff. The department’s improve workload and wellbeing for school staff service can be found here: https://improve-workload-and-wellbeing-for-school-staff.education.gov.uk/.The department will continue to work alongside the sector to further develop our delivery plan and seek to re-establish teaching as an attractive profession and will share further details in due course.

What assessment she has made of the potential impact of delaying access to the health element of Universal Credit until age 22 on relevant people.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, with some information published alongside the Spring Statement. A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

If she will make an assessment with her Cabinet colleagues of the potential impact of the proposals set out in the Pathways to Work Green Paper on levels of poor mental health among (a) children aged 17 and under and (b) people aged 18 to 67.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, with some information published alongside the Spring Statement. A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

What estimate her Department has made of the number of existing Personal Independence Payment claimants who will not achieve a minimum of four points in at least one activity to qualify for the daily living element after November 2026.

The information is intended for publication alongside the Spring Statement.

What estimate she has made of the amount of savings raised from (a) freezing the value of the health element of Universal Credit for existing claimants and (b) reducing the value of the health element of Universal Credit for new claimants.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, with some information published alongside the Spring Statement. A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.

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 assessment she has made of the potential impact of her proposed policies on the causes of poverty among disabled people.

The latest available statistics show that full-time work substantially reduces the chances of poverty. In 2022/23, working age adults living in families where no adults work were around 6 times more likely to be in relative poverty after housing costs, than working age adults in families where all adults work. And the relative poverty rate (after housing costs) of children in households where both parents work in 2022/23 was 14%, compared to 75% for children living in households where no adults work. The latest available data shows that in 2022/23, only 6% of children in couple families were in relative poverty after housing costs where both adults work full time, compared to 66% where one or more adults in a couple were in part time work only. 70% of children in lone parent families where the adult did not work were in relative low income after housing costs in 2022/23 compared to 27% of children in working lone parent families.

What the evidential basis is for the proposition that reducing levels of disability benefits leads to increased levels of employment.

We have evidence that delivering better and more tailored employment support can get more people off welfare, and into work - alongside a higher expectation to engage with that support. Therefore, we are investing £1 billion a year by the end of the decade in new employment, health and skills support – one of the biggest packages of new employment support for sick and disabled people ever. In addition, corrective action is needed after the value of the basic unemployment benefit was run down to a 40-year low, while incapacity benefits continued to rise. Meaning the rate of Universal Credit for those on the health element is now double that for those on the standard allowance. As a result, all the incentives are to claim incapacity benefits and define yourself as incapable of work, with both the OBR and IFS suggesting this has been a factor in driving higher incapacity benefit claims.

Whether she plans to take steps to remove the role of the private sector in carrying out (a) PIP assessments and (b) PIP reassessments.

In September 2024, new five-year contracts for functional health and disability services commenced. In advance of the procurement of these contracts, a delivery model assessment was carried out in line with commercial best practice, which determined that outsourced delivery remained the best way of achieving value for money and service stability. The Department will conduct a further delivery model assessment in due course to inform decisions on future service delivery, beyond the current contracts.

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.