Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate his Department has made of the average length time it takes from a new applicant for universal credit beginning their application and the point at which the six week period wait for that credit is triggered.

Universal Credit claimants receive the first payment 5 weeks after their date of entitlement (6 weeks if waiting days are served). The assessment period runs for a full calendar month from the date of entitlement, and the UC pay date is 7 calendar days after the end of the assessment period. The most vulnerable are already exempt from waiting days, and waiting days will be abolished from all new Universal Credit claims from February 2018. This will further reduce the waiting period for a claimant’s first monthly payment by 1 week and create entitlement from the very first day of their claim.

Data published on 2 October 2017 shows that, nationally, 81% of new full service claims received their first payment in full and on time. Across the whole of Universal Credit 92% of all households received full payment on time. The published data can be found here.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/universal-credit-payment-timeliness-january-to-june-2017.