PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Social Security Benefits (20 January 2021)

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has made an estimate of the potential additional costs to welfare benefit spending in the event that (a) one million, (b) two million and (c) three million people were to become unemployed.

Asked by:
Esther McVey (Conservative)

At each fiscal event the Department works closely with the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to estimate welfare spend based on latest unemployment projections. The OBR’s latest projections are available here: http://cdn.obr.uk/CCS1020397650-001_OBR-November2020-EFO-v2-Web-accessible.pdf

The latest Universal Credit forecasts for number of households, estimated each year are published in the Benefit Expenditure and Caseload Tables and can be found in, Table 1c, Table 2c and Table 3c, at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/953118/outturn-and-forecast-autumn-budget-2020-revised.xlsx

Answered by:
Will Quince (Conservative)
28 January 2021