Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many universal credit claimants are re-paying benefit overpayments; what the (a) mean and (b) median value is of those overpayments; and what the average period is for those benefit payments to be recovered in the most recent period for which figures are available.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has a duty to protect public funds and an obligation to ensure that, overpaid benefit payments are recovered in accordance with the appropriate social security legislation.

I can confirm that there were 60,936 UC claimants who had a deduction from their UC as a recovery against a benefit overpayment within the last 31 days. This total includes both past and new overpayments.

The mean value of the outstanding balances is £1,116.98, the median figure is £328.29. These cases include a small number of high value debts.

The information on the average recovery period and the number of claimants re-paying overpayments at 40 per cent of their standard allowance is not available, and to provide it would incur disproportionate costs.