Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to support (a) people with disabilities and (b) people with mental health issues with the managed migration to universal credit; and what assessment she has made of the potential merits of automatically migrating people who are disabled or who have mental health issues to universal credit.

The Department believes it will be crucial that new claims are made to Universal Credit because we need to ensure data is as accurate and as up-to-date as possible when claimants move to Universal Credit. This will ensure that any errors will not be migrated from the existing benefit system to Universal Credit. In addition, as Universal Credit replaces legacy six different existing benefits, the Department may not have sufficient information to determine the full Universal Credit entitlement because some of this information is not available from the existing benefit data. For example, no information on capital or other benefits received is held in respect of tax credit claims.

Universal Credit is a different regime so the Department cannot simply assume that all existing claimants will want to make a claim, some form of consent from each claimant would be required. Requiring a claim to be made will provide that and it will be important that claimants understand the new Universal Credit regime into which they are moving and the corresponding responsibilities this will bring. This is especially important for vulnerable groups.”