Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the number of people who are not eligible for the (a) Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, (b) Self-Employed Income Support Scheme and (c) Universal Credit; and what steps is she taking to make additional support available to those people.

The Government is wholly committed to supporting people on lower incomes and has paid out more than £100 billion in welfare support this year.

We estimate most households will be eligible for some Universal Credit support if they are unable to work or on lower earnings and have lower than £16K capital/savings.

The new £170m COVID Winter Grant Scheme extends the support already in place and will enable local authorities to support vulnerable households in in their area with the cost of food and essential utilities this winter.

The Department recognises that work is the best route to prosperity. We are investing in our recovery from this pandemic with our Plan for Jobs including our £2bn Kickstart scheme which is already creating thousands of high-quality jobs for young people, and our Ten Point Plan which will create 250,000 green jobs, helping us build back better. We have also boosted our Flexible Support Fund by £150m to provide localised and tailored employment support for people across the UK and we are doubling the number of frontline Work Coaches to help support people of all ages to find a job, retrain, or gain vital practical experience.