Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of adequacy of the provisions available to UK citizens unable to return from abroad during the covid-19 pandemic who incurred a loss of access to public funds.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the department put into place measures to support existing benefit recipients in exceptional cases where their absence abroad went over the period allowed under the temporary absence benefit rules and could not return to the UK due to Covid-19 travel restrictions. Once these temporary measures came to an end, the department was instructed to review cases where claimants had not yet returned to the UK.