Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse for social security of the public sector pay cap in each year since 2013.

Public sector workers earning below £21,000 were protected from the pay freeze in 2011/12 and 2012/13, and received £250 annual increases. In addition, the government has supported those with lower incomes by increasing the personal allowance from £6,475 in 2010-11 to £11,850 in 2018-19, rising to £12,500 by the end of this Parliament. Welfare spending in Great Britain on people of working age and children has fallen, in real terms, from £102.0bn in 2012/13 to £94.3bn in 2017/18.