Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the projected number of universal credit claimants by April 2022.

At each fiscal event the Department works closely with the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to estimate welfare spend based on latest unemployment projections. The OBR’s latest projections are available here: http://cdn.obr.uk/CCS1020397650-001_OBR-November2020-EFO-v2-Web-accessible.pdf

The latest Universal Credit forecasts for number of households, estimated each year are published in the Benefit Expenditure and Caseload Tables and can be found in, Table 1c, Table 2c and Table 3c, at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/953118/outturn-and-forecast-autumn-budget-2020-revised.xlsx