Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many landlords received housing benefit payments in (a) 2011, (b) 2012, (c) 2013, (d) 2014, (e) 2015, (f) 2016 and (g) 2017.

Information on the number of individual landlords receiving housing benefit (HB) payments is not available as our administrative data does not hold a unique identification number for each landlord. However, the number of HB claims where payment was made direct to the landlord is available via the Payment Destination breakdown of HB claimants on DWP Stat-Xplore.

Guidance for users is available at:

https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html