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1127116

	registered interest
	date	16/05/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Universal Credit
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the effect of the 5-week wait for the first payment of universal credit on (a) a claimant’s level of (i) debt and (ii) rent arrears and (b) the finances of disabled claimants.
	tabling member constituency	Wirral West
	tabling member printed	Margaret Greenwood
	uin	255340
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 21/05/2019 answer text <p>No one has to wait 5 weeks for their first payment of Universal Credit. Advances are available from the first day of a valid claim, if required, to support claimants.</p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 21/05/2019 15:59:56 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	4400 label Biography information for Margaret Greenwood

1127119

	registered interest
	date	16/05/2019
	answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
	answering dept id	29
	answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
	answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
	hansard heading	Universal Credit
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of universal credit payments have been subject to a deduction as a result of a claimant’s historic debt to (a) her Department and (b) HM Treasury in the latest month for which data is available.
	tabling member constituency	Wirral West
	tabling member printed	Margaret Greenwood
	uin	255341
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 21/05/2019 answer text <p>Internal Management information shows that in April 2019, 280,000 payments of Universal Credit (UC) had a deduction applied to repay a non UC debt owed to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), and 340,000 payments of UC had a deduction applied to repay a Tax Credit debt (these figures have been rounded to the nearest 10,000). Some payments of UC may have had a deduction for both a non UC debt and a Tax Credit debt. These claimants would appear in both totals, therefore the figures cannot be summed.</p><p> </p><p>In line with the deductions policy in UC, for both types of debt, the deductions would not usually exceed the maximum amounts, which are set out legislation. Only in cases where last resort deductions are applied can these rates be exceeded. DWP ensures that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect claimants who have deductions from their benefit to repay overpayments. If a claimant is struggling they can contact DWP’s Debt Management to discuss lowering their repayment rate.</p><p> </p><p>It is also worth noting that it is not possible to provide this as a proportion at April 2019, as the latest UC caseload data is only available as of 14 February 19. However, for context, as of 14 February 19, 1.4m households received payments of UC.</p><p> </p><p>N.B. This data on deductions has been sourced from internal management information. It should therefore not be compared to any other similar data subsequently released by the DWP.</p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 21/05/2019 15:53:23 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
	tabling member	4400 label Biography information for Margaret Greenwood