PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Universal Credit (9 November 2020)

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of universal credit claimants were (a) repaying an advance payment and (b) also repaying other debts through the deductions system in the most recent month for which figures are available.

Asked by:
Nadia Whittome (Labour)

If a new claim advance is taken, this means that a claimant can receive 13 payments over the course of a year instead of 12. As of October 2021, the period over which claimants can repay an advance also doubles from 12 months to 24 months

For Universal Credit claims due a payment during August 2020 41% had a deduction:

• 26% had only advance repayments,
• 10% had advance repayments and deductions for other debts
• 5% had only deductions for other debts.

Notes

• Other debts include Universal Credit third party deductions and all other deductions, but exclude sanctions and fraud penalties which are reductions of benefit rather than deductions.
• Figures rounded to nearest 1,000.
• Deductions for benefit overpayments were temporarily suspended for three months from the beginning of April due to Covid. These began to be reinstated from July 2020, taking a phased approach. However, as of August they have not been fully reinstated and some debts associated to new Universal Credit claimants have not yet been transferred to DWP.
• Figures are provisional and are subject to retrospective change as later data becomes available.

Answered by:
Will Quince (Conservative)
12 November 2020