Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the potential cost to the public purse of the 2.9 million people excluded from covid-19 financial support claiming universal credit in the event of becoming unemployed during the covid-19 outbreak.

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, which can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-2020