Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to Annex 1 of the letter of 24 May 2021 from the Minister for Welfare Delivery to the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee on Universal Credit Business Case: refreshed costs and savings for 2020/21 and 2021/22, what assumptions her Department has made for the (a) non-take-up in legacy benefits and tax credits in the New Legacy Savings Model mentioned in that Annex and (b) take-up of Universal Credit in that model.

Under the Legacy system, households had to claim separately for benefits received, for instance an in-work lone parents in rented accommodation would need to claim both Tax Credits and Housing Benefit. However, some households may not have realised they were entitled to, or chosen to claim, all the benefits they were entitled to. As an integrated benefit, Universal Credit automatically increases take-up and we estimate that when fully rolled-out, 700,000 households will benefit from claiming their full entitlement in Universal Credit

In the New Legacy Savings model, we have taken the projections for the number of households on Universal Credit and made an adjustment to take account that fewer benefits would have been claimed under the legacy system, based on the above assessment. This adjustment applies to around 10% of households.