Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the the number of benefit claimants that face a shortfall between their actual rent and the amount for rent included in their universal credit payment; and what assessment she has made of the average size of that shortfall in each region.

This is published in the supplementary tables available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/universal-credit-statistics-29-april-2013-to-14-january-2021.

For those that do experience a shortfall, Discretionary Housing Payments are available. Since 2011 we have provided over £1 billion in Discretionary Housing Payment funding, enabling local authorities to support households that need additional help by making financial awards to people experiencing financial difficulty with housing costs who qualify for Housing Benefit or the housing costs element of Universal Credit.

Universal Credit household shortfalls November 2020