Written questions by Stone.

If he will make an assessment of the potential merits of (a) digitising and (b) introducing an online portal for the Child Maintenance Service.

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) offers a range of digital services designed to support separated families. These include 'Child Maintenance Calculator’, ‘Get Help Arranging Child Maintenance’ and ‘My Child Maintenance Case’(MCMC). Through these services, parents can explore their options, calculate potential payments and submit an online application to the CMS to receive or pay child maintenance. For customers with existing cases, the online services allow them to report changes, check progress, view correspondence and make payments online 24/7.Digital services were developed and will continue to evolve based on research and feedback from charities supporting separated families, victims of domestic abuse, and users with assisted digital needs.

What recent estimate her Department has made of the proportion of disability benefit claimants who are on a waiting list for NHS treatment.

There were 7.4 million NHS Referral to Treatment (RTT) pathways where the patient was waiting to start treatment at the end of April 2025 (this includes all ages).The number of people (aged 16 to 64) not in work who left their job in the previous year for health reasons was 210,000 in 2023/24.One in every 10 working-age people in Britain is now claiming at least one type of health or disability benefit and as outlined in the Pathways to Work Green paper, when this government took office last July:o 2.8 million people were economically inactive due to long-term sicknesso the number claiming health related benefits with no requirement to work has increased by 800,000 since 2019/2020.The Work Aspirations of Health and Disability Claimants survey found that a third (32%) of those claiming health and disability benefits believe they can work now or in future. 5% say that they would be ready now if the right job or support were available. This equates to around 200,000 individuals. DWP and DHSC work closely, for example through the Joint Work and Health Directorate, to deliver better work outcomes and work experiences for disabled people and people with health conditions. This includes working across the whole of the customer journey to help disabled people and people with long term health conditions who want to work to be in the best position possible to do so. The Joint Work and Health Directorate is collaborating with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to improve the evidence on the relationship between health and labour market outcomes. The ONS plans to link NHS waiting times data (that they recently acquired access to) to Census, DWP Benefits and HMRC PAYE records to analyse the relationship between waiting time duration (for various health conditions and procedures) and labour market outcomes (such as employment status, gross pay and benefit receipt) in England. This may shed light on the role of extended waiting times witnessed during and after the COVID-19 pandemic on benefit receipt, including sickness related benefit receipt. Due to many dependencies and unknowns, ONS is not able to confirm when the analysis will be available.

Whether her Department plans to update Personal Independence Payment application forms to ask whether applicants are veterans; and if she will meet the hon. Member for Swindon North to discuss the potential merits of (a) data collection and (b) tailored support for veterans.

Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claim forms do not ask for an individual’s occupation, past or present as it is legally immaterial to the decision to award benefit or not. PIP is based on the daily living and mobility needs arising from a long-term health condition or disability. We do not currently have plans to update the PIP forms. The honourable member is welcome to write to me to set out the potential merits of the changes he envisages, including the case for a meeting to discuss them.

What steps she is taking to support young people into (a) employment, (b) education and (c) training in Swindon North constituency.

As part of the Great Britain Working plan, we are launching a Youth Guarantee for all young people aged 18-21 in England to ensure that they can access quality training opportunities, an apprenticeship, or help to find work. The Youth Guarantee will build upon and enhance existing entitlements and provisions with the aim of tackling the rising number of young people who are not participating in education, employment or training. This spring, we will be launching trailblazers in eight Mayoral Strategic Authorities and will use the learning from the Trailblazers to inform the future design and development of the Youth Guarantee as it rolls-out across the rest of England. DWP currently provides young people aged 16-24 with labour market support through an extensive range of interventions at a national and local level. This includes flexible provision driven by local need, nationwide employment programmes and support delivered by work coaches based in our Jobcentres and in local communities working alongside our partners. For example, in Swindon DWP’s Employment Advisors are working with employers to deliver the Ready to Launch Your Career open day event on 8th April in Swindon town centre, where the focus will be to help young people into estate-agent roles with many employers from this sector involved.