Written questions by Dinenage.

What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Adult Skills Fund cap on the ability of further education colleges to reduce the number of 18 to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training.

Awaiting answer.

Pursuant to the Answer of 16 March 2026 to Question 114815 on Administration of Estates: Correspondence, what proportion of reviews of the state pension record of the deceased were completed within (a) 15 days where there was a surviving spouse or civil partner of a customer over the State Pension age, (b) 20 days where there was no surviving spouse or civil partner of a customer over the State Pension age and (c) over 8 weeks where the customer was over the State Pension age in each of the last three years.

The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

What discussions he has had with the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman on the role of the Ombudsman following the decision not to implement the recommendations of the report by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman entitled Women’s State Pension age: our findings on injustice and associated issues, published on 21 March 2024; and when his Department will publish the action plan set out in his oral statement of 29 January 2026.

I met with the Ombudsman on 25 February. Work has restarted on the Action Plan, which will be published in due course.

What steps he is taking to ensure that his Department provides timely letters of clearance to bereaved families and the executors of the estates of the deceased.

When someone dies, we understand this is a very difficult and distressing time for their family and those close to them. We aim to make our processes as clear, straightforward and supportive as possible and to minimise any unnecessary worry or effort for bereaved families. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is notified of a death through several routes, including the Tell Us Once service, telephone contact, written correspondence, or digital notifications following registration of the death with the General Register Office. Once we receive notification, we update all relevant benefit and pension records and ensure the appropriate teams contact the next of kin or executor as required. For customers over State Pension age, we aim to complete our review within:15 days where there is a surviving spouse or civil partner, or20 days where there is no surviving spouse or civil partner. This includes updating the deceased person’s record, checking any changes to entitlement, and contacting the person responsible for the estate where needed. Once the State Pension record has been closed and no pension arrears are due, we issue a Death Acknowledgement Letter to the person handling the estate. This may be a surviving spouse or civil partner, a next of kin, or an executor. These letters are issued regardless of how we were notified of the death and within the relevant processing timescales. To avoid causing unnecessary distress, we do not issue a Death Acknowledgement Letter if more than eight weeks have passed since the date of death. If pension arrears are due, a Death Acknowledgement Letter is not issued. Instead, where required, we issue an application form for death arrears. When an arrears payment is made, a remittance notice is generated automatically. Where a survivor’s pension review is required, we issue a revised Pension Entitlement Notice in line with established processing standards. Working age benefits are also notified through the Tell Us Once service. For New Style Jobseeker’s Allowance and New Style Employment and Support Allowance, further correspondence addressed to the customer is stopped once a death is recorded. As these benefits are paid in arrears, payments are made directly to the person who applies for the arrears. When Universal Credit (UC) is notified of the death of a claimant or a dependent child, UC staff record the death as a priority. For online claims, notifications are uploaded to the claimant’s UC digital account. For telephone claims, notifications are sent by post to the appropriate recipient.

What estimate he has made of the number of people claiming housing benefit in Gosport in each of the last three years.

Monthly statistics for the number of Housing Benefit claimants in Great Britain are published quarterly on Stat-Xplore, The statistics are available for various geographies, including local authority and parliamentary constituency, and are currently available to May 2025. Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access guidance on how to extract the information required.

What assessment she has made of the potential impact of AI on (a) graduate employment, (b) employment in labour intensive industries, (c) employment in capital intensive industries and (d) overall employment.

We are starting to witness AI’s impact within the labour market: transforming the workplace, demanding new skills and augmenting old ones. But there is uncertainty over the future scale of AI’s impact on the labour market, particularly over the next few years. Given the recent rapid pace of AI development, government is planning against a range of plausible future outcomes and closely monitoring the data that will help track if we are heading towards any of these outcomes.

If she will make an assessment of the potential impact of the Government's decision not to implement the recommendations of the report by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman entitled Women’s State Pension age: our findings on injustice and associated issues, published on 21 March 2024, on the role of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

The basis for the Government’s decision has been set out by the Secretary of State, deposited in the House of Commons library and is available here: Government response to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman's investigation into Women's State Pension age and associated issues The Ombudsman does important work, which we respect. We have taken this report seriously, considering the findings in detail. We consider the findings and recommendations of the Ombudsman on a case-by-case basis. Moving forward we will work with the Ombudsman to learn the lessons this investigation can teach us and DWP will develop an action plan that we will publish in due course.

Whether her Department plans to publish a timeline for its proposed changes to the Work Capability Assessment.

The Work Capability Assessment is not working and needs to be reformed or replaced. This needs to come alongside a proper plan to support disabled people into work. We are taking the time to review this in the round before setting out next steps on our approach, and the timescale, in the coming months.

How the Connect to Work scheme will support people living with arthritis to remain in employment.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 12 November 2024 to PQ12617

Pursuant to the Answer of 15 October 2024 to Question 6049 on Pension Credit: Gosport, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of expanding the survey sample sizes for entitled non-recipients of Pension Credit.

The take-up statistics which include the estimated number of entitled non-recipients for Pension Credit, are based on survey data from the Family Resources Survey. The Family Resources Survey is designed to produce robust regional estimates and does not include all local authorities each year so is not suitable for analysis at, or below, the Local Authority level [PQ 74999, Emma Lewell-Buck]. There is not currently an intention to increase the achieved sample size. Further detail on the upcoming sample size of the Family Resources Survey can be found here: Family Resources Survey: release strategy - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)