Zöe Franklin MP: written questions
4 Jul 2024–3 Jul 2025
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Our reporting years run from 4 July to 3 July, starting with the 2024 general election. They are not official parliamentary sessions. Office costs keep IPSA’s April–March financial years. Records may cover only part of a year; a missing record does not mean no work was done.
Read what this MP said, asked and contributed in Parliament.
15 published records · newest first.
Written questions
PensionsDepartment for Work and PensionsTabled 30 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 63720More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to give pension scheme trustees the authority to award discretionary increases to those already claiming a pension.
Answer: Discretionary indexation is over and above the statutory requirements. This discretion is usually exercised by the trustees with the agreement of the sponsoring employer. Some schemes have previously paid discretionary increases on a regular basis. Howeve...
Answered 3 Jul 2025
Original Parliament recordWorkplace PensionsDepartment for Work and PensionsTabled 27 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 63479More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to safeguard members' benefits when a sponsoring employer seeks to extract pension scheme surpluses.
Answer: Currently, some Defined Benefit schemes can already consider releasing their surplus under existing rules. The Pension Schemes Bill will provide more flexibility for trustees of these and other well-funded schemes to safely share some surplus with employe...
Answered 3 Jul 2025
Original Parliament recordChild Maintenance Service: Fees and ChargesDepartment for Work and PensionsTabled 23 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 62004More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of Child Maintenance Service late payment fees being deducted from maintenance payments on receiving parents and children.
Answer: The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) does not charge late payment fees. It does charge fees to paying parents and receiving parents who are on the Collect and Pay service: twenty per cent on top of the maintenance liability for the paying parent and four p...
Answered 1 Jul 2025
Original Parliament recordChild Maintenance Service: StandardsDepartment for Work and PensionsTabled 23 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 62003More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the Child Maintenance Service is required to justify delays in its decision-making processes.
Answer: Child Maintenance customers can use the online service to track the progress of reported changes and view expected completion dates at any time without the need to call. They can also upload evidence and view any letters which have been sent to them. All ...
Answered 26 Jun 2025
Original Parliament recordChild Maintenance Service: StandardsDepartment for Work and PensionsTabled 23 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 62002More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps the Child Maintenance Service takes to provide clear explanations and evidence when rejecting claims submitted by paying parents.
Answer: The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) trains caseworkers in making effective decisions, which includes explaining decisions effectively to customers and issuing letters containing information about the different factors considered and rules applied when mak...
Answered 30 Jun 2025
Original Parliament recordChildren: MaintenanceDepartment for Work and PensionsTabled 23 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 62001More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the (a) accuracy and (b) transparency of Special Expenses calculations by the Child Maintenance Service for (i) flights, (ii) fuel and (iii) ot
Answer: The Department for Work and Pensions and Child Maintenance Service rigorously monitors accuracy as part of our service ambition to further reduce error and increase our accuracy levels. The National Audit Office set a target of monetary value errors under...
Answered 30 Jun 2025
Original Parliament recordChild Maintenance Service: StandardsDepartment for Work and PensionsTabled 23 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 62000More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that timeframes imposed by the Child Maintenance Service are (a) proportionate and (b) matched by equivalent service standards within the Department.
Answer: We have interpreted your question to refer to the timescales the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) uses in progressing cases. The CMS inform customers of expected timeframes for actions to be completed when changes are reported or require progressing. Cust...
Answered 2 Jul 2025
Original Parliament recordChild Maintenance Service: StandardsDepartment for Work and PensionsTabled 23 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 61999More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to improve the (a) responsiveness and (b) accountability of the Child Maintenance Service when people request clarification of figures used in their assessments.
Answer: The Child Maintenance Service are wholly committed to delivering the best possible service to all customers within our growing caseload. To ensure calculations are accurate the department continues to build on its already proportionate and cost-effective ...
Answered 30 Jun 2025
Original Parliament recordSocial Security Benefits: ChildrenDepartment for Work and PensionsTabled 19 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 61440More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the (a) two-child limit and (b) benefit cap on levels of child poverty among (i) children who are not eligible for (A) breakfast clubs
Answer: Tackling child poverty is at the heart of the Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity and improve the life chances of every child. The Child Poverty Taskforce is exploring all available levers, including considering social security refo...
Answered 26 Jun 2025
Original Parliament recordPoverty: ChildrenDepartment for Work and PensionsTabled 8 Apr 2025AnsweredUIN 45391More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to reduce child poverty in Guildford, following the Spring Statement 2025.
Answer: Delivering our manifesto commitment to tackle child poverty is an urgent priority for this Government. The Ministerial Taskforce is working to publish a Child Poverty Strategy looking at levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, reducing essent...
Answered 28 Apr 2025
Original Parliament recordWorkplace Pensions: InflationDepartment for Work and PensionsTabled 25 Mar 2025AnsweredUIN 41309More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department plans to require profitable companies to increase pre-1997 occupational pensions in line with inflation.
Answer: Members of defined benefit pension schemes with non-indexed pre-1997 pension accrued, are now understandably concerned at seeing inflation erode the value of their retirement income. The Government’s recently announced reforms on the use of surpluses in d...
Answered 2 Apr 2025
Original Parliament recordEmployment: DisabilityDepartment for Work and PensionsTabled 13 Mar 2025AnsweredUIN 38300More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to support more people with disabilities to (a) enter and (b) remain in the workplace; and what plans she has to improve access to (i) employment opportunities and (ii) workplac
Answer: Appropriate work is generally good for health and wellbeing, so we want everyone to get work and get on in work, whoever they are and wherever they live. Disabled people and people with health conditions are a diverse group so access to the right work and...
Answered 21 Mar 2025
Original Parliament recordState Retirement Pensions: WomenDepartment for Work and PensionsTabled 5 Mar 2025AnsweredUIN 35992More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if her Department will reconsider its decision not to provide compensation to women born in the 1950s and 1960s following the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s recommendation that those affec
Answer: We carefully considered the Ombudsman’s findings to ensure our decision was fair and based on the evidence. We have accepted the Ombudsman’s finding that there was a 28-month delay in sending out letters and for this we have apologised. However, we do not...
Answered 11 Mar 2025
Original Parliament recordCandidates: DisabilityDepartment for Work and PensionsTabled 5 Feb 2025AnsweredUIN 29278More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if her Department will take steps to establish a funding scheme to support disabled candidates for elections in England.
Answer: It is the Government’s ambition to see more disabled people in public office. The Government takes positive action to promote disabled people’s participation in public life, including protecting disabled people through the Equality Act 2010. In relation t...
Answered 11 Feb 2025
Original Parliament recordState Retirement PensionsDepartment for Work and PensionsTabled 28 Jan 2025AnsweredUIN 27006More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has made an assessment of the adequacy of the time taken for the state pensions top-up process.
Answer: People have until 5th April 2025 to fill some gaps in their National Insurance record. The original deadline was set as far back as 5 April 2023. This was extended to 12 June 2023 and then to end 5 April 25. From 6 April 2025 customers can continue to pay...
Answered 5 Feb 2025
Original Parliament record
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4 Jul 2024–3 Jul 2025. One record per UIN and tabled date; the named department is not a measure of answer quality.
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