Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, to ask the Secretary of State, how many claimants her Department has provided with a laptop or computer in each of the last twelve months; and what recent estimate she has made of the number of claimants without online access to their journal.

The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

Throughout the pandemic, jobcentres have remained open for anyone who needs face-to-face support and cannot be helped in any other way. To help keep customers and staff as safe as possible in the latest phase of the pandemic, jobcentre opening hours have changed to 10am to 2pm. This temporary change means we can continue providing safe, essential services for those who need to come into the Jobcentre and who are unable to interact with us on the phone or digitally. The opening hours of our phone lines remain as they were.

All Jobcentre Plus offices across the country have Wi-Fi and computers available for claimants to access the internet.