Written questions by Evans.

Pursuant to the Answer of 25 February 2025 to Question, what performance matrix she is following to monitor the effectiveness of the funding for additional staffing to reducing pension credit application processing times to a planned timescale of 50 working days.

The Government has recently put in place the biggest ever pension Credit tave-up drive. To help ensure it has the capacity to assess all claims within reasonable timeframes, the Department has deployed over 500 additional staff through a combination of internal redeployments, use of external providers and external recruitment. We measure Pension Credit performance via our published 50 working day timeliness measure and monitor weekly average actual clearance times. The most recent information on processing times for Pension Credit was published in DWP annual report and accounts 2023 to 2024 - GOV.UK (ARA) on 22nd July 2024. This shows that in 2023/24 DWP cleared 192,000 Pension Credit claims within the planned 50 working day timescale, equating to 77.7%. The next publication of the ARA will include claims processed in the Financial Year 2024 to 2025, which is due for publication in the summer. As a result of this investment in staff the latest Average Actual Clearance Time is now down to 56.2 working days in week commencing 24th February 2025 after a peak of 87 working days week commencing 9 December 2024. Please note, the Average Actual Clearance Time figures shown is unpublished management information, collected and intended for internal departmental use and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. It is rounded to the nearest working day and based on the week the claim was cleared, rather than the week the claim was made.

What assessment he has made of the opportunities available to improve diagnosis times for autism spectrum disorder.

It is the responsibility of the integrated care board (ICBs) to make available appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population, including autism assessments and diagnosis, in line with relevant National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines.On 5 April 2023, NHS England published a national framework and operational guidance to help ICBs and the National Health Service to deliver improved outcomes for children, young people, and adults referred to an autism assessment service. Since publication, NHS England has been supporting systems and services to identify where there are challenges for implementation, and how they might overcome these.In 2024/25, £4.3 million is available nationally to improve services for autistic children and young people, including autism assessment services. NHS England is also working with research organisations to explore evidence-based models that support improved outcomes for those people waiting for an autism assessment.As part of the Government’s five long-term missions, we have launched a 10-Year Health Plan to reform the NHS and make it fit for the future. Department officials recently convened a roundtable with autistic people and people with a learning disability to listen to their views on the future of the NHS as part of 10-Year Health Plan.

Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the increase of employer National Insurance on the (a) operational costs and (b) financial profitability of small and medium sized tourist attractions.

The Government recognises the vital role that small and medium-sized tourist attractions play in supporting local economies and driving economic growth across all regions of Great Britain. The increase in employer National Insurance contributions will affect businesses across all sectors, which is why the Government has put in place mitigations to protect smaller businesses. The Government remains committed to supporting the tourism industry, and my department will continue working with the sector to understand cost pressures.

What assessment his Department has made of the potential implications for his Department's policies of the statistics, published by Sky News, showing that the Care Quality Commission has inspected 3.6% of the 67,778 concerns it received between October 2022 and 2024 about elderly care homes.

No such assessment has been made. The number of concerns raised with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), and highlighted by Sky News, include those which are being handled by another body, for example, a local authority or the police. It may also include duplicates, that is, where a number of concerns have been raised about the same incident.While not all information shared with the CQC would necessarily result in an inspection, it does inform ongoing monitoring and will result in action where there are indications that people are at risk of harm.

How many Remedial Service Statements (a) are required in total (b) have been issued to date (c) are calculated and awaiting fulfilment and (d) still outstanding.

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA), the scheme administrator, has identified that 381,920 remedial service statements are required for affected members who have retired. Of these, 21 statements have been issued and 393 have been calculated and are awaiting fulfilment, and 381,506 are outstanding.A revised delivery plan for remedial service statements is currently in production and will be communicated with affected individuals within the coming weeks. The Department recognises the importance of issuing the remedial service statements to members in a timely way and is working with the NHSBSA to increase delivery.

Pursuant to the Answer of 3 February 2025 to Question 23858 on NHS Business Services Authority: Workplace Pensions, how many remedial pension savings statements (a) were required in total, (b) had been issued to date, (c) were calculated and awaiting fulfilment and (d) were still outstanding in the latest period for which data is available.

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA), the scheme administrator, has identified that 137,694 remedial pension savings statements are required. Of these, 60,630 statements have been calculated and issued, and 1,887 statements have been calculated and are awaiting fulfilment. The 75,177 statements outstanding include statements that require calculations and statements that require re-calculations.The NHSBSA had previously reported a higher number of statements issued due to a batch of remedial pension savings statements being categorised as “issued” when they were still undergoing their quality assurance process. The current figures only consider remedial pension savings statements as “issued” once they have passed the NHSBSA’s quality assurance and have been fulfilled.

Food and Rural Affairs, whether the forthcoming consultation about the Flooding funding formula will consider instances when small communities do not qualify for the threshold for funding due to the (a) size of the communities and (b) flooding focused on roads and connectors rather than houses.

A consultation will be launched in the coming months on the flood investment framework. This will include a review of the existing floods funding formula to ensure that the challenges facing businesses and rural and coastal communities are adequately taken into account when delivering flood protection. The consultation will be open to everyone, and we will be inviting all stakeholders, including organisations that play a role in flood resilience, community groups and members of the public, to share their views and be part of the consultation. We will review all responses received to improve our approach to floods investment.

When (a) he and (b) the Minister of State for Care last met with Community Pharmacy England.

I last met with Community Pharmacy England on 25 February 2025.

Pursuant to the Answer of 10 February 2025 to Question 23859 on General Practitioners: Recruitment, what his planned timetable is for collecting that data.

Data on numbers of general practitioners (GPs) employed through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme is not currently published. Information on the number of recently qualified GPs for which primary care networks are claiming reimbursement via the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme is currently being collated. We are working to verify the data and establish its reliability, which is necessary before any dataset can be published.

How many NHS appointments were lost due to strike action between July to November (a) 2023 and (b) 2024.

NHS England publishes data on the number of rescheduled appointments due to industrial action, which is available at the following link:https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/preparedness-for-potential-industrial-action-in-the-nhs/We are pleased that a deal was agreed in summer 2024 between the Government and the British Medical Association Resident Doctors Committee bringing an end to its prolonged strike action. The Government can now work with resident doctors to get on with its mission of fixing the health service for patients, including tackling waiting lists.As set out in the Plan for Change, we have committed to return to the NHS constitutional standard that 92% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment by March 2029. We have already supported this with additional investment in the Autumn Budget 2024, which has enabled us to deliver an additional two million appointments, seven months ahead of schedule.

If he will publish the NHS-commissioned independent economic analysis of pharmacy funding before the conclusion of the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework contract negotiations.

NHS England commissioned Frontier Economics to undertake an independent economic analysis of National Health Service pharmacy funding in 2024. Both the interim and draft final reports of the economic analysis have been shared with Ministers and Community Pharmacy England and are informing the current consultation.This work is nearing completion and will be published soon.

What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the Care Quality Commission's ability to oversee safe care of patients in hospital premises.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is not operationally fit for purpose and has been subject to a review from Penny Dash. It has itself commissioned reviews from Mike Richards and Vic Rayner to support recovery of the organisation. It is working at pace to improve its performance, and the Department is holding the CQC to account to ensure that it oversees safe care of patients, in all settings.Ministers regularly meet with arms-length bodies, external stakeholders and key organisations to discuss a variety of issues, including but not limited to the quality of patient hospital care. There have also been discussions with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) at official level on the trends in maternity and urgent and emergency care.Patient safety is a top priority for the Government, and the CQC plays an important role in ensuring that providers meet the standards of care expected by patients, carers, families and loved ones.

What recent discussions he has had with the Care Quality Commission on trends in the quality of patient hospital care.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is not operationally fit for purpose and has been subject to a review from Penny Dash. It has itself commissioned reviews from Mike Richards and Vic Rayner to support recovery of the organisation. It is working at pace to improve its performance, and the Department is holding the CQC to account to ensure that it oversees safe care of patients, in all settings.Ministers regularly meet with arms-length bodies, external stakeholders and key organisations to discuss a variety of issues, including but not limited to the quality of patient hospital care. There have also been discussions with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) at official level on the trends in maternity and urgent and emergency care.Patient safety is a top priority for the Government, and the CQC plays an important role in ensuring that providers meet the standards of care expected by patients, carers, families and loved ones.

Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of changes to employer National Insurance contributions on (a) homelessness charities and (b) homelessness service provision contracted from councils.

Due to the difficult economic inheritance from the previous government, we had to take a number of difficult decisions on tax, welfare and spending to fix the public finances, fund public services, and restore economic stability. The Government has considered the implications of this policy change, and the impacts were published in the usual way as part of the Autumn Budget process. As announced at the Budget, funding for homelessness services is increasing next year by £233 million compared to this year, making a total spend of almost £1 billion in 2025/26.

Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 21 January 2025 to Question 22692, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Midlands Engine on business investment in the East and West Midlands.

Midlands Engine have undertaken a range of valuable work and have supported collaboration on shared growth opportunities. Moving forward, the government intends to support Mayors in collaborating at pan-regional level and creating convening bodies whose purpose, priorities and membership are decided at a regional level.At the Autumn Budget, the Government announced that it would consult on its minded to decision not to extend funding for the six pan-regional partnerships beyond the agreed allocations to the end of the 2024-25 financial year. We are currently considering the responses received and will confirm a final decision shortly.

With reference to the Answer of 5 February 2025 to Question HL4289 on Pension Credit and with reference to the oral contribution of the Economic Secretary to the Treasury of 3 December 2024, Official Report, column 141, what steps she is taking to improve the processing of pension credit claims.

As referenced in previous responses HL4289 and Question 5385, DWP works to a planned timescale of 50 working days to clear Pension Credit claims. The funding was the first stage followed by securing staffing resource, training those people and enabling learning consolidation to process Pension Credit claims. As a result the Department has deployed over 500 additional people to ensure it has the capacity to assess all claims in reasonable timescales. Since this action, the latest Average Actual Clearance Time is now down to 56 working days in week commencing 3 February 2025 after a peak of 87 working days week commencing 9 December 2024. However, Pension Credit is a complex benefit, and some claims require additional investigation or information from the customer, which can result in longer processing times. Statistics on Pension Credit application volumes were published on 28 November 2024. This includes numbers of applications that were received, awarded and not awarded, up to 17 November 2024.Pension Credit applications and awards: November 2024 - GOV.UK The latest publication is due on 27th February 2025 and will cover data up to week commencing 17th February 2025. Please note, the Average Actual Clearance Time figures shown is unpublished management information, collected and intended for internal departmental use and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. It is rounded to the nearest working day and based on the week the claim was cleared, rather than the week the claim was made.

Pursuant to the Answer of 11 October 2024 to Question 5385 on Pension Credit, what recent steps she has taken to ensure that funding for additional staffing is reducing pension credit application processing times.

As referenced in previous responses HL4289 and Question 5385, DWP works to a planned timescale of 50 working days to clear Pension Credit claims. The funding was the first stage followed by securing staffing resource, training those people and enabling learning consolidation to process Pension Credit claims. As a result the Department has deployed over 500 additional people to ensure it has the capacity to assess all claims in reasonable timescales. Since this action, the latest Average Actual Clearance Time is now down to 56 working days in week commencing 3 February 2025 after a peak of 87 working days week commencing 9 December 2024. However, Pension Credit is a complex benefit, and some claims require additional investigation or information from the customer, which can result in longer processing times. Statistics on Pension Credit application volumes were published on 28 November 2024. This includes numbers of applications that were received, awarded and not awarded, up to 17 November 2024.Pension Credit applications and awards: November 2024 - GOV.UK The latest publication is due on 27th February 2025 and will cover data up to week commencing 17th February 2025. Please note, the Average Actual Clearance Time figures shown is unpublished management information, collected and intended for internal departmental use and has not been quality assured to National Statistics or Official Statistics publication standard. It is rounded to the nearest working day and based on the week the claim was cleared, rather than the week the claim was made.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with the UK Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion and Belief on the role of freedom of religion or belief in his policies.

The Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) holds regular discussions with the Minister for Human Rights on key FoRB issues and reports to the Foreign Secretary through the Minister for Human Rights. The UK Government champions the right to FoRB and promotes tolerance and mutual respect through our engagement in multilateral fora - including our position at the UN and Article 18 Alliance - our bilateral work, and programme funding.

What assessment she has made of the adequacy of the (a) level of support and (b) opportunities to access long-term education for people with cerebral palsy with no cognitive impairment.

I refer the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth to the answer of 14 January 2025 to Question 22163.

Food and Rural Affairs, what the outcome was of the Flood Resilience Taskforce Meeting held on 5 February 2025.

The Flood Resilience Taskforce met for the second time on 5 February. It included representation from national and local government, the emergency services, businesses and environmental interest groups. The Taskforce discussed the impacts and learning from flooding experienced since September and outline proposals to reform the flood investment framework ahead of a consultation later this Spring. Outcomes from the discussion included agreement to continue work to improve warning and informing services, to consider the support available to local authorities, and identify vulnerable communities. This work will be taken forward through action groups that will report to the next Taskforce meeting.